PORTRAIT OF ANDRE GIDE

André Gide (1869–1951) was a French author of international renown whose literary output embraced a wealth of stylistic conventions and subjects. An exponent of Symbolism in his early career, his later writings are strongly psychological and autobiographical in nature. He wrote over fifty books, leaving a lasting impression on consecutive generations of writers, including Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. His work centred on the tension between morality, religion and personal freedom. When asked towards the end of his life which of his works he would consider the most important if only one could survive, he replied unhesitatingly: “my journals.” Having started in his youth, he continued writing them throughout his life – they are among the most extensive records of intellectual life in the 20th century.

In The Counterfeiters, one of his best-known novels, Gide asks: “is it necessary to fix one’s eyes on a goal in order to guide oneself in life?” In this 1925 portrait, the writer’s downcast eyes are fixed on one point, seemingly in doubt as to his life having run the right course. Despite the face, more distinct that the other elements (not because of its lightness as it stands out even against the equally light-coloured hands of the sitter), being the focal point of the depiction, the pupils and irises are blurred. Gide’s eyes consist of swollen eyelids, moist waterline, wrinkles, shadows and furrowed eyebrows. They are not looking but fixed – raising the question of human authenticity so often found in Gide’s works. Gottlieb shows the writer with a clenched jaw, highlighting the tense muscles of his face. The painter stops him from offering an answer.

The writer embodies majesty: he wears an elegant jacket and is seated in a large armchair; the backdrop comprises gold and copper. Twenty-two years later the eminence painted by Gottlieb materialises: Gide wins the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is thus rewarded for the undaunted love of truth and psychological insight offered by his books – this might be what preoccupies the writer in this portrait.