Nostalgia for Freedom I by Angelika Rasmus
Nostalgia, wanderlust, sadness, longing… obsession, encapsulation, fracture
“Nostalgia for a place for which I have no name” – Isabelle Eberhardt
This painting by Angelika Rasmus encapsulates the beauty and curse of Isabelle Eberhardt’s flight to Algeria through the unit’s readings on her and her adventures.
Writings from the Sand, Vol 1. An emerging theme was Eberhardt’s fragmentary and impressionistic prose, constantly shifting and exposing her fragmented state of mind. In the painting, the sparrows invoke a fleeting, ungraspable state, circling her consciousness as she juggles her “loyalty” to Algeria, to her Sufi brotherhood, to the French and Layuatey. No single narrative, very known to be a woman despite male-presenting.
Daily Journals, a recurring theme of where, when, what is my (Isabelle’s) inner peace. The tension and turbulence of her circumstances and the situation she puts herself in through her physical dilemma festering from her relations with others, her addiction to keif, her sense of identity and allegiance. The calm face in the painting suggests her journalistic state, controlled, obedient, however detached from the fractionally expressed thoughts. The woman’s face mirrors the way her journals juxtaposes her self-expression and reflection of constant upheaval in her life through her family life to the conditions she lived in Algeria.
Passionate Nomad (Introduction) “She was a vagabond, a wanderer, not only because of frenzied boredom and innate restlessness, but because she had no real roots anywhere, and therefore belonged nowhere.” Like a bird, with no place to truly call home, constantly in flight, migrating to a place that may seem like a temporary home, but even then not exactly. Eberhardt is a paradox amongst a multitude of things: European-born yet Arabized at least in her “learning” of Islam and the Sufi brotherhood, a woman inhabiting male roles, and a romantic wanderer yet wickedly realist of her own experiences in colonial Algeria. In the painting, there is a sense of lulling calmness, chaos above, individuality of the lady yet multiplicity of the sparrows, and a sense of clarity vs obscurity. There is no stable interpretation of Eberhardt, as can be seen through her readings, her work, her writings.
Eberhardt can not be understood as a simple vagabond or a nomad, she is an anomaly, she is a flock of fractured selves pieced and held together by one strip of sanity in which for her would be the predestined fate that Islam decrees. Her desires to locate a sense of feminism and being a westerner going into “exotic” lands and do “adventurous” things parallels a life of the sparrow (bird). The obscured eye within the painting suggests a partial blindness, and often noted by many, her using what she could understand to fuel her decisions to the best of her abilities as she grew up with a multifaceted sense of education. The way Eberhardt lives is in constant search for something, whether that be feminism, freedom, escape, a search for meaning, perhaps even a place to call her roots.
I can’t help but also interpret the multitude of birds in conjunction to the symbolism of birds signifying not only freedom, but depending on the bird, sometimes death, allusion to danger, destruction. Sparrows, in particular, can portray a persistent and obsessive quality. To which Eberhardt was most if not all at certain points of her life in Algeria, especially in the way she was obsessed with Algerian culture and was trusted into the Qadiriyya, and thus not only using Islam as her one string of sanity, but also compelling her mother to also convert (obsession becoming contagious). Her obsession with the male-perspective of Islam allowed her justification to a lot of her decisions, despite her fracturing mental and physical health. Liberation but imprisonment within her own self.
I liked your choice of this painting as a reflection on your understanding of Eberhardt’s fractured sense of self. When reading her short stories, I was struck by the diversity of characters and perspectives she portrayed. It seems like Eberhardt, in encountering the people and lifestyles that inspired these stories, tried to imagine herself in different positions, emotions, and places, and strung together her understandings in her prose. Because the stories are written by her, they are not an objective attempt at portraying these characters, but portrayals mixed deeply with her own feelings, longings, insecurities, and passions.
I think this sense of fracture is also evident in her stories – in “Yasmina” Eberhardt shows an empathetic, tragic view of Yasmina and how she is taken advantage of by the French soldier and discarded, and the cultural disconnect that enables this, where in “The Major”, the French doctor has a naive, selfish view and indulges himself with Arab friends and a lover only to quickly abandon them when he loses professional standing, and he does not reflect on the detrimental impact or hypocrisy of his actions. Eberhardt seems to have been simultaneously self-aware of the possible consequences of her intelligence work and influence on local communities but also, perhaps, in denial or holding a sense of romanticism about her lifestyle.
I like how you connected the sparrows to Eberhardt’s fragmentary state of mind. It reminded me of how her writing circles the same ideas of freedom, fate, and faith without landing anywhere permanent. The birds feel like a visual echo of that restless repetition, showing both her movement and her inability to settle.
I thought the painting was really interesting, and I liked your interpretation, especially the part about being “like a bird, with no place to truly call home, constantly in flight, migrating to a place that may seem like a temporary home.” That really fits with the sense of belonging (or lack of it) that Eberhardt seemed to struggle with according to the readings.
When I looked at the painting, though, my mind went in a different direction. I saw each bird as a different identity, emotion, or motive that Eberhardt carried with her as a spy. Instead of thinking about freedom like the title suggests, I noticed how the birds were all grouped together, almost on top of one another. To me, that felt less like freedom and more like the weight of limits and chains, like she was trapped by all these overlapping selves.
Loved Givarra, Amber and Sophie’s comments on your post Nabiha; clearly the painting by Anjelika Rasmus struck a chord–and its really useful to bring in an artistic visualization of the thematic clusters the painting evokes. Your last paragraph brings together the paradoxical elements of IE’s life and work through a similar reading of the painting–with the birds symbolizing not just freedom, but the darkness of obsession and death—definitely pertinent to how we understand IE
Nabiha I really liked the connection that you made in the end regarding birds and how they often serve as a symbol are many ideas. When soaring through the sky, birds are often thought as some of the freest creates. On the other hand, a bird locked in a cage is a universal sign of captivity. I wonder if Isabelle felt similarly?