Director Mark Cousins shines a light on the remarkable artistic journey of 20th-century Scottish painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham in his poetic new documentary A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things. Known to friends as Willie, Barns-Graham immersed herself in the St Ives artistic community in Cornwall yet routinely faced dismissal from critics during her career.
Cousins steps back from a traditional biographical approach, instead exploring Willie’s life and work through her own eyes. We learn of her upbringing, time with the St. Ives group, and how nature’s rhythms inspired a breakthrough during a 1949 hike in Switzerland’s Grindelwald Glacier. With Tilda Swinton’s narration of Willie’s writings and striking visuals of her paintings, Cousins draws us intimately into Willie’s world.
Through this rose-tinted lens, her overlooked genius is brought vibrantly to light. Premiering at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where it took the top prize, A Sudden Glimpse promises to do much in ensuring Willie Barns-Graham receives wider recognition as the visionary artist she was.
Mark Cousins’ Intimate Portrait
Documentarian Mark Cousins takes an unconventional approach in A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things. Rather than a straightforward biography, he delves deeper into artist Willie Barns-Graham’s mind through reflection and speculation. Cousins understands that the heart of any great artist’s work lies not in a chronicle of events but in the wellspring of creativity within.
To experience Willie’s paintings fully, Cousins treats viewers to riveting slideshow montages, each work set to its own musical backdrop. Without narration, we absorb her abstract yet representational landscapes freely. Patterns emerge between paintings done years apart, hinting at the ideas constantly percolating below the surface. In letting her art stand alone, Cousins ensures the focus remains where it belongs—on Willie’s abundant gifts.
For insight into Willie’s artistic process, Cousins guides us through her notebooks, a codex of color and mathematical designs expressing her synesthesia. Pages bursting with interwoven shapes, numbers, and hues speak volumes about this facet of her neurodivergence. Though loosened later by nature, such formulations lay the groundwork for a lifelong exploration of form and composition.
But more than an analyzer, Cousins acts as a fellow traveler, his fascination with Willie woven through the film. As he stages exhibits celebrating her work and tattoos her paintings upon his skin, we experience her story through his eyes, including her enduring impact on his own views. Only by making the documentary as intimately his own journey as hers does Cousins succeed in bringing viewers so close to this elusive artist’s inner terrain. With deep empathy and an unorthodox style, he delivers an unforgettable portrait of a rare creative spirit.
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’s Artistic Journey
Born in 1912 in St Andrews, Scotland, Willie Barns-Graham found herself drawn to art from a young age, despite coming from a wealthy family who disapproved. She enrolled in the Edinburgh College of Art, hungry to learn as much as she could. In 1940, hoping to escape her overbearing father, Willie moved to the coastal town of St Ives in Cornwall. There, she discovered a tight-knit community of artists who were just as passionate about their craft as she was.
It was during a trip to Switzerland in 1949 that Willie experienced a moment of revelation. Hiking across the stunning Glacier of Grindelwald, she was awe-struck by the play of light on ice and rock. The geometric patterns all around her awakened something creative within. Cousins uses montages of Willie’s paintings set to a swelling score to show just how profoundly this inspired her work. Abstract shapes that captured the textures and rhythms of the natural world would define her style from that point on.
Wilhelmina’s synesthesia, a condition where the senses blend together, also fed into her artistic process. Through her notebooks, we see colors assigned to letters and sounds in fascinating combinations. These mathematical conceptions helped form the building blocks for paintings that incorporated both structure and sensation. Willie’s one-of-a-kind vision beautifully merged her interests in science with more emotional responses to the raw landscape around her. Although often unseen in her own time, her work reveals the mind of a truly gifted and multi-faceted creative spirit.
Revelations in Color and Form
Taking a close look at some of Willie Barns-Graham’s most renowned artwork offers profound insights. In ‘Glacier Painting’, geometric blue peaks sharply jut against an orange backdrop, evoking the striations she witnessed crossing the Grindelwald ice. Cycles and Fibonacci-like progressions emerge, as if the glacier’s patterns permeated her very psyche.
In later paintings, Willie distilled nature’s essence even further. ‘Summer Painting’ depicts mesmerizing amber arcs within a pale, milky sea, its rhythm stirring subtler than visible brushstrokes. Seemingly channeling a synesthetic vision, colors dance without representing concrete forms.
Willie’s later transition to her ‘Calligraphy Series’ in old age took courage. Flailing black lines now comprised her vision, the world distilled to sensations beyond sight. Viewing them, one can’t help but admire Willie’s fearlessness evolving to the very end.
Through exploring key artworks in detail, viewers gain insight into both Willie’s developmental journey and singular sensibilities. Her paintings seamlessly blended mathematics, science, and feeling—qualities that likely contributed to her being among 20th-century Britain’s most brilliant visual thinkers. While undervalued in her time, Cousins helps ensure Willie Barns-Graham takes her destined place among the vanguard creators who pushed boundaries.
A Dreamer’s Vision Revealed
Through delicate prose and absorbing imagery, A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things brings Wilhelmina Barns-Graham’s long-overlooked gifts to light. By taking an intuitive, heart-led path instead of sticking to stale forms, Cousins profoundly conveys Willie’s essence. We view her paintings unfiltered, sharing her synesthetic sensations. Tilda Swinton beautifully channels Willie’s perspective in journal readings, pulling us deep into her subjective experience.
Cousins’ commitment to honoring his subjects as multidimensional humans serves him well. By winning top honors at Karlovy Vary, I was more exposed to Willie’s story. Her Trust hopes growing awareness inspires appreciation for this visionary whose brilliance was obscured by the biases of her day. As with Af Klint, Kusama, and others reevaluated, Willie takes her place among artists who expanded perceptions, not just privately but for generations knowing them now.
Raising forgotten figures affirms diverse talents have always existed where narrow views excluded them. Cousins champion subtle revolution just by facing overlooked lives fully as personalities, not anonymized historic notes. His wins show exploring offbeat stories engages modern viewers seeking less familiar truths. Overall, A Sudden Glimpse gracefully illuminates one artist’s depths and helps balance those who shaped creativity, challenging preconceptions of who and what is important.
Room for deeper exploration
While A Sudden Glimpse shines brightly spotlighting Willie Barns-Graham’s artistic genius, some elements could have achieved even greater depth. Cousins keeps the biography fairly light, risking viewers knowing little of Willie’s childhood influences and relationships. More context surrounding her complex personal life could have offered fuller understanding.
Similarly, recreating context for Willie’s formative glacier visit through footage of Grindelwald itself may have proven hauntingly beautiful. Imagining the landscape fueling her later works would feel more immersive than repetitive stock images.
At times, overused shots distracted from Willie’s story. Locating additional archival material on her era and community could have substituted refreshingly.
More expansive analysis of how synesthesia, nature, and gender shaped Willie may also have yielded richer insights. Her neurodivergent perspective was formative, and exploring overlap with movements like feminism could reveal added layers of rebellious spirit.
Overall, A Sudden Glimpse achieves the primary aim of introducing Willie’s gifted, undervalued art to the world. With extra documentary flourishes though, it might have prompted even deeper reflection on this remarkable woman’s full-life experiences feeding revolutionary works. Minor quibbles aside, the film offers beautiful stimulus for ongoing discussions it inspires.
Reflections on Rediscovery
A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things reminds us of cinema’s power to breathe new life into forgotten pioneers. Through Mark Cousins’ rose-tinted lens, Willie Barns-Graham’s unseen artistry blooms vividly once more. By valorizing her explorations of nature, synesthesia, and abstract emotion, Willie takes her rightful place among history’s visionaries.
Cousins’ film succeeds gloriously where critique is due. Yet one hopes future efforts amplifying marginalized figures fill contextual gaps. Deeper profiles honor subjects as whole beings, not just through their works. While A Sudden Glimpse triumphs, revealing Willie’s soul, expanded perspectives could further illuminate what shaped her.
As with Af Klint and other rediscovered daughters of creation, this film underscores society’s perpetual need to reassess whose stories are told. Artists of any gender, orientation, or background deserve recognition. By shining lights in dark corners, documentaries inspired by Cousin’s prove how diverse talent has always expanded what it means to be human. Maybe someday all children will gaze upon canvases like Willie’s and find within herself a kindred creative spirit. Until then, films that restore remind us how far we have yet to come, while igniting hope for richer tomorrows.
The Review
A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things
Mark Cousins' A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things is a poetic and effectively moving tribute to the overlooked Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. Through intimate examinations of her work and reflections on her life, the documentary sheds new light on Willie's brilliance and passion, positioning her rightly among the great modern artists. While leaving room for further context that could enhance understanding of its subject as a whole person, Cousins' film is uniquely effective at allowing viewers to experience Willie's singular artistic vision firsthand.
PROS
- Poetic and moving tribute to Wilhelmina Barns-Graham's artistic genius
- Allows viewers to directly experience her artwork in an elegant visual style
- Sheds new light on her overlooked contributions to modern art
- Empowers the audience to form intimate relationships with her works
- Brings well-deserved awareness and attention to her legacy
CONS
- Could have provided more biographical context for a holistic portrait
- Recreations sometimes distract from her story through obvious fakeness
- Overused stock footage interrupts the narrative flow at times
