Given that Margaret was equally as famous as Walter, yet favoured by art critics, what is missing from Burton’s film is a proper exploration of Margaret’s muse. We come to understand her motivations to paint. In practical terms it was a means by which she supported her family, and she was good at it too. But there was also a misplaced sense of deference to Walter’s fantasy persona as an artist. Yet, like the true artist’s signature of Walter’s bogus Parisian street scenes (he secretly bought artworks and painted over their signature with his own name) Margaret’s inspiration is hidden beneath the layers of Walter’s insecure need to maintain the lie of authorship and to be the center of attention. The fact that the waifs were disregarded as proper art also precluded any real investigation of their origin, or into the other art she was producing around the same time.
Walter asks Margaret early on in Burton’s retelling,
“What’s that with the big crazy eyes?”1
In the film, and in the handful of media profiles of Margaret, we’re told that her obsession with eyes began with a mastoid operation she had around age two that damaged her eardrum leaving her partially deaf. She then had to focus on people’s eyes more intently in order to communicate, as a result she became obsessed with painting them.
Considering the waifs and Margaret’s wider body of work that also contains figures with unusually large dark eyes it appears there’s space to consider other possible sources of her inspiration.
There were, of course, artistic influences. She acknowledges her use of colour and form is inspired by Van Gogh, Henri Rousseau, Leonardo da Vinci, Gustav Klimt, Edgar Degas, Picasso, Sandro Botticelli and Paul Gauguin. There’s speculation that the waifs were echoes of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, or a homage to Frederick Deilman (1847-1935) an obscure German-American painter who produced humorous kitsch portraits of animals dressed in ruffs and lace collars, or perhaps reminiscent of Francisque Poulbot’s poor children of Montmartre, or even early disney characters.
Various portraits by Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) (right).
But the eyes of Keane’s figures are dark and haunting. Their faces offer no playful cartoonish expression. Unanimated, they simply stare. Occasionally a tear runs from one eye, or the child cradles a pet animal. They may hold a secretive finger to the lips or a theatrical mask pulled down from their face. None of these artistic forebears seem to provide a satisfactory reference for the big eyes, and the meaning of their intense staring gaze.
So, really, what is that with the big crazy eyes?
Summary
- Margaret drew colour and form influences from many different sources…
- …but none of them seem to explain such a focus on big eyes or a staring gaze.