The Lady in Gold by Anne-Marie O'Connor

The Lady in Gold

Anne-Marie O’Connor

Knopf, 2012

An account of how Klimt’s most famous painting, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, also known as Lady in Gold, came to be painted; what happened to Klimt and his circle, and what became of Adele, her family and friends – assimilated Austrian Jewish families in Viennese high society. The last part of the book tells the story of how in the 1990s Maria Gutmann, Adele’s niece, then living in America, successfully sued the Austrian Government for possession of the painting.

Anne-Marie O’Connor is a journalist by training and profession, as is evident from the style of her writing – a high proportion of one-clause sentences and one-sentence paragraphs. She has undertaken a vast amount of research into the lives of everyone even remotely connected to her main themes.

It’s a fascinating story, and one learns a lot about Austria and art; Austria and the Austrians before and during the Second World War; and, of course, the Bloch-Bauer family themselves. The story is told through events, following one after another, not as a narrative. Most of us found it quite hard to keep track of who was related to whom, especially as the author has a habit of referring to people by their first names only, so that even the (essential) index couldn’t help. However, we found it utterly fascinating, crammed with facts, packed with information and new lights on twentieth-century history – and art history ­–, and some simply couldn’t put it down.

It is intriguing to find that here, as in so many places, wealthy Jewish families are major patrons of culture. The answer has to be that, as Pieper famously explained, “Leisure is the basis of culture”.

One of the important lessons of the book is how, after the Second World War, Austrians denied they had invited German Nazis into their country at the Anschluss (the union between Nazi Germany and Austria in 1938) and instead claimed to be the “first victims” of the Nazis. Once again, the book shows how Nazis plumbed the depths of human cruelty. One reader was amused at the change it brought about in her attitudes: The Olive Grove made her hate Israeli Jews for what they did to the Palestinians; but now she hates Austrians for what they did to the Jews. It is not, of course, only the Austrians or only the Nazis: the tragedy of Viktor Gutmann’s death in the Croatia he was hoping to help rebuild, stays in the mind.

However, the Austrian establishment persisted in its refusal either to admit the truth of the Nazi era, or to return the stolen or appropriated art to its rightful owners. The fact is that in the immediate post-war period, a large proportion of those in management or positions of authority were former Nazis or sympathisers. This parallels the situation in ex-Communist countries after 1989.

The characters in the book provoke endless reflection. Adele, unable to have children, was a “modern” woman and became a socialist. Klimt, and his artist friends, raise the question of why they didn’t have any morals. Maria (nee Bloch-Bauer) and her husband Fritz Altmann, after a dodgy beginning, were obviously very much in love. After escaping to America, Maria “discovered that she liked work” !!!!!!!!!!!! Perhaps “the devil finds work for idle hands”. And the book explains that Randol (her lawyer) worked so hard because he had a wife and children to support. One of the original things that could be pulled out of the book is: HOW BORING IT IS WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE WORK TO DO.

Another question which remains unaddressed is: Where was the Catholic Church in all of this? Wasn’t Austria a Catholic country? Maybe there is scope for another book about this?

Sisters of Sinai, Janet Soskice

Janet Soskice, Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Found the Hidden Gospels, Vintage Books, 2010.

This book was a chance suggestion that turned out to be one of the most successful books we have read so far in terms of enjoyment, discussion and “reader engagement”. Book-club members did various forms of research on the writer and on the subjects of the book and all of this was brought up at the meeting.

The two “lady adventurers” were the twins Agnes and Margaret Smith of Irvine, Scotland, born on 11^th January 1843. They were brought up as Presbyterians and both of them firmly believed and practised their faith all their lives. In a way their Presbyterian faith could be said to be what drives and inspires – rather even than simply guides – their whole lives. They inherited a large fortune, and as Soskice explains, their Presbyterianism told them that this was for a purpose: they could neither give it away, nor spend it on themselves. So they travelled, researched ancient manuscripts, endowed  a Presbyterian college (Westminster College) at Cambridge, and started the Boys’ Brigade.

So many puzzling features of their lives now made sense. Their money, for instance – never unwelcome, but what was it for? Giving it all away, St Francis-like, had never been a Presbyterian option. Riches (especially riches, like theirs, acquired almost accidentally) must be intended to play some part in the providential plan.

Now it was clear that they did have vocations, and ones for which their life experiences entirely suited them. (p. 252)

Some people found the book rather heavy going at the beginning, but soon became engrossed in the story. Agnes and Margaret’s father (their mother died two weeks after they were born) promised them that for every new language they learned, he would take them to visit the country where it was spoken. They made the most of their amazing gift for languages (and their capacity for serious study and hard work) to learn modern European languages and then went on to more exotic ones, Greek, Arabic, Syriac, and more. It was notable that they had no mother to teach them a woman’s place in the nineteenth-century world, i.e. to hold them back and limit their horizons...

The book covers the whole of their lives, but dwells especially on their journeys to St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai Desert. They went there because they had been told by a friendly professor at Cambridge (where they had settled) that he had visited the monastery and seen a manuscript there which might prove to be extremely important, but had been unable to examine it. While they were there, Agnes discovered a battered old chunk of pages all stuck together, and realised it was a palimpsest of the Bible – a palimpsest being a manuscript whose original writing had been scraped or washed off and something else written on top. With careful examination and sometimes special treatment, the original writing can be made out. It turned out to be an extraordinarily early manuscript of the whole Bible in Syriac. Agnes and Margaret, helped by the monk-librarian, started to photograph the whole manuscript page by page. They had to come back a year later, this time accompanied by more scholars, to complete the work of making a good copy of the whole manuscript.

The whole story is fascinating and it takes a book to do it full justice. In addition, we hear about the travelling conditions for European visitors in the Middle East at that time. The story is told with no dramatization, but very clearly and vividly, and the difficulties they had to tackle all the way are very real, so much so that it is quite distressing. They quickly got used to riding on camels – and how the sisters got on with the Greek Orthodox monks. They were of course totally ignorant of this form of religion, and one Sunday when the monks were going by in solemn procession Agnes thought that she ought to shake hands with the Prior. Read the episode on p. 139! They were, nevertheless, open-minded and respectful despite their complete inability to understand. 

Another interesting feature that comes up in this extremely rich and eventful story is the terrible way that some academics treated others – nothing has changed in this respect, alas! Obviously there were also some who were kind, generous and helpful, though. Plus the atrocious plundering of manuscripts that went on – again, plus ça change...

As for the twins themselves, there is a lot more we would like to know about them but don’t, simply because the twins didn’t write about it. You get a real sense of their self-restraint, privacy, – from their point of view even decency – in that they don’t let it all hang out, or go in for either navel-gazing or self-advertising. That itself tells you a lot about them.