Art History – Page 48 – my daily art display

Suzanne Valadon Part 5. Her son Maurice Utrillo, her husband Paul Mousis and her lover Erik Satie

Suzanne Valadon and her son Maurice (c.1889)

My look at the life of Suzanne Valadon would not be complete if I didn’t spend some time looking at the early years of her son Maurice and how he had such an effect on her life. In my earlier blogs I told you that Suzanne, who was eighteen years at the time, gave birth to her son on December 26^th 1883. She was unmarried at the time and would never reveal the identity of the father. She decided on the name Maurice for her son, reasoning that as none of her previous or present lovers had that Christian name it would therefore not give a hint as to who actually was Maurice’s father. However in January 1891 she persuaded one of her former lovers, Miguel Utrillo to agree to sign the Act of Recognition naming himself as Maurice’s father. The document was signed on February 27^th 1891and it stated:

“…27 February 1891. Act of Recognition of Maurice, Masculine Sex. Born 26 December 1883 and inscribed on the 29^th following at the mairie 18^th arondissement as son of Marie Valadon and unnamed father. Set up by us Charles-Paul-Auguste Bernard, assistant to the mayor, officer of the civil state 9^th arondissement, on the declaration made by Michael (Miguel) Utrillo, 28 years of age, journalist of 50 Boulevard de Clichy, who has recognised as his son the aforementioned Maurice. In the presence of Charles Mahut, 44 years of age, employed, residing in Paris, 5b Impasse Rodier, and of Félix Dunion, 44 years of age, waiter, residing in Paris, 3 rue Saint Rustique, who have signed with the petitioner and ourselves after reading. Paris. 8 April 1891…”

One should note that the document refers to Suzanne by her original Christian name Marie (Marie-Clémentine) and not Suzanne, the name she changed it to on the advice of Toulouse-Lautrec. So was Miguel really Maurice’s father, if not, why would he sign such a document? It was not as if it was a “spur of the moment” decision as one can see by the dates at the start and the end of the document the process took almost six weeks to complete which would have given Miguel time to consider what he had been asked to sign and time to back out of the agreement. Whether Miguel was the father we will probably never know. She had many lovers as a teenager including Pierre-Puvis de Chavannes, the French artist. There was also Adrian Boissy, the drunken accountant from an insurance company she met at the Moulin de Galette one night, and who according to Suzanne, took her to his home, plied her with drink and raped her.

There is probably no greater love than that which a mother gives to her children and although I am sure there was a maternal love between Suzanne and Maurice her maternal instinct must have been sorely tested as Maurice was not a normal child. During his very early days Maurice was looked after solely by Suzanne’s mother, Madeleine, and their Breton maid, Catherine, whilst Suzanne pursued her career as an artist’s model. To say that Maurice was not a typical child would be something of an understatement. At times he would lie peacefully on his grandmother’s lap and then suddenly his body would become stiff and he would shudder violently, biting his lip until it bled and hold his breath until his whole face turned purple. In later childhood this small waif-like little boy would throw himself on the floor in fits of rage. Suzanne’s grandmother’s only solution was to give him some watered down wine to try and calm him down. It was not Suzanne that spent the most time with him but his grandmother. It was she who comforted him during his fits and rages. It was she who fed and clothed him. It was she who shared her bed at night with him. It was she who gave him the nickname Mamau which stayed with him all his life. Madeleine had spent little time or had shown much love towards her daughter Suzanne and she was now probably trying not to make the same mistake with her grandson. In turn, Maurice loved his grandmother and revelled in her company. Suzanne was not jealous of this grandmother/grandson close relationship, in fact as she had tried, without success, to please her mother all her life she was pleased that she had “given” her son to her mother as this had evoked so much pleasure.

Nu assis se coiffant by Suzanne Valadon (1896)

At the age of five Suzanne enrolled Maurice at a nursery school, Pension La Flaiselle, in the rue Labat. Her son hated the school, in fact he was terrified by it and yet although knowing his fear, Suzanne never walked the long distance up the hill to reach the place which, by doing so, would have afforded her son a modicum of comfort. This terror Maurice felt began to have an effect on life at home as the older he got the more he would lapse into spells of depression often followed by bouts of extreme violence which manifested itself into the smashing of the household china and ripping down the curtains. Despite the doctor’s prognosis that he would “grow out of it”, the violent episodes continued but at no time could Suzanne see the correlation between his mood swings and his unhappiness at the school. Suzanne saw his terror of school life as a form of cowardice and whimpishness for one has to remember that as a child of Maurice’s age, Suzanne was completely fearless. Suzanne showed Maurice little sympathy; on the contrary, she was embarrassed by his antics. When things got out of hand at home Suzanne would just leave the house to party or be with a lover and leave Maurice for her mother to handle.

Maurice playing with slingshot by Suzanne Valadon (1895)

It was in 1888 that a new lover for Suzanne came on to the scene in the form of a young wealthy banker, Paul Mousis, whom she had seen around the café-cabaret establishments, Auberge du Clou and the Chat Noir. Mousis would mingle with the artists who were at the Auberge du Clou and because he was a generous man, he would keep them supplied with drinks, and by this gesture, he was accepted as “one of their own”. The Auberge was just a short distance from Toulouse-Lautrec’s home and Mousis along with his new friends would often visit the painter’s home and join one of Lautrec’s frequent soirées and it was here that he met Suzanne, who was acting as Lautrec’s unofficial hostess. Mousis was immediately besotted with this beautiful young French woman and within a few weeks of their first meeting he had proposed marriage. She refused him but said that she would readily become his lover. Her reasoning was quite simple. Being Mousis’ lover meant that she was on equal terms with him, whereas marrying Mousis would make her his property and in some way subservient.

During her late teens and early twenties Suzanne had a number of lovers and would often tire of them very quickly. Mousis offered her not only his companionship and love-making but financial stability and yet Suzanne, three months into their relationship, strayed, this time towards the strange enigmatic musician and composer, Erik Satie whom she met whilst he was playing the piano at Le Chat Noir café. Twenty-one year old Satie was a dropout from the Paris Conservatoire, who had given up the bourgeois lifestyle he had whilst living with his parents, and moved to the bohemian lifestyle of the Montmartrois. One would have thought that Paul Mousis would have been horrified at this turn of events but he wasn’t, maybe because he too was having a liaison with another woman! Satie was besotted with Suzanne. He even proposed marriage to her on their first meeting. He lavished upon her numerous gifts, took her for walks in the Luxembourg Gardens and strange as it may seem, he would often go out in the evening with Suzanne and Mousis. This was indeed a ménage à trois. However the leading role in this love triangle was always Suzanne. She choreographed the love triangle. She constantly fussed around Satie looking after all his needs, such as feeding him, darning his socks and cleaning for him. In Ornella Volta’s 1989 book, Satie seen through his letters, the depth of his love for Suzanne can be clearly seen. He wrote to his brother in 1893:

“…I shall have great difficulty in regaining possession of myself, loving this little person as I have loved her …she was able to take all of me. Time will do what at this moment I cannot do…”

Mousis was not deterred by the presence of Satie as he felt that Suzanne was the only woman who could satisfy him sexually. However all good things had to come to an end and Mousis became tired of the love triangle and told Suzanne it must end. She refused to give up Satie and so Mousis went off for six months. He did return and once again took up with Suzanne but now it was the turn of Satie to complain and tell Suzanne to end her relationship with Mousis. Once again and highlighting her control of the love triangle she refused and Satie ended the ménage à trois being unable to share her with Mousis.

Portrait of Erik Satie by Suzanne Valadon (c.1892)

In 1894 Suzanne and Mousis set up house at No. 2 rue Cortot, just two doors away from the house belonging to Satie. After a short while, neighbours would refer to Suzanne as Madame Mousis. She did visit Satie and it was in 1892 in his one-room house, two doors away, at No. 6 rue Cortot, that she had painted the twenty-six year old musician’s portrait. It is entitled Portrait of Erik Satie and it can now be found in the Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. It was Suzanne’s first attempt at portraiture in oil. It measures just 22 x 41 cms and because the height of the portrait is double that of its width there is an elongated look to it. Satie almost fills the canvas. His facial expression in this painting is one of dourness. His red lips are partly hidden by his waxed moustache and the pince-nez glasses give him an intellectual air.

In the summer of 1886 Suzanne and Satie parted company in acrimonious circumstances. It is not clear what happened to initiate this final breakdown of their relationship, but final it was. It is alleged that Satie was devastated, hurling himself on the floor weeping bitter tears and bitterly declaring that he was left with “nothing but an icy loneliness that fills the head with emptiness and the heart with sadness”. In 1889 Satie left Montmartre and his one and only true love, Suzanne Valadon. It was also 1896 that Mousis and Suzanne were said to have married, but did they ever officially marry? Although Mousis was often referred to as “Suzanne’s first husband” there is no official record of their marriage or divorce in either the mairies of Montmartre or Pierrefitte-Montmagny and maybe when her friends talk of her marriage to Mousis it was just a figurative expression rather than a literal one.

Nu à la toilette by Suzanne Valadon (1892)

If we go back four years to 1892 there was a change in Suzanne Valadon’s lifestyle. Her wealthy lover, Paul Mousis had tired of the bohemian lifestyle of Montmartre and wanted to return to his former bourgeois lifestyle which he believed befitted a successful banker and so he decided to lease a house in the village of Pierrefitte, situated in the Seine valley, and which lay twenty kilometres north of Paris. This was to be a weekend retreat for himself, Suzanne and her family. Suzanne’s grandmother, Madeleine, was delighted to move back to a quiet rural village similar to the one she had been brought up in. She was now in her late sixties, a somewhat wizened old woman who suffered badly from rheumatism and who was still addicted to alcohol and spent much of her time in a semi-drunken haze. Her one love, her one great pleasure in life was her grandson Maurice. He still suffered from swiftly changing moods and his grandmother could only control his uncontrollable rages by plying him with glasses of wine. However the alcohol did not always have the desired effect and instead of calming him down it lead to him demanding more glasses of it until he virtually passed out. He had become an alcoholic.

In 1894 Mousis, who loved living in the area decided to build the family a new house atop the Butte Pinson which was between the village of Pierrefitte and the village of Montmagny. Suzanne was still uncertain about the move away from Montmartre so Mousis told her that the building of the new house was simply a business investment. He also tried to persuade Suzanne that to achieve a great artistic standing she needed to move away from the chaos of Montmartre life. As a compromise he agreed that Suzanne should keep her Montmartre studio in the rue Cortot. Suzanne would commute back and forth between their home at Montmagny and her studio in Montmartre by her own pony and trap which Mousis had given her. Soon she began to appreciate life at Montmagny and developed a passion for flowers and the enjoyment of gardening.

Notwithstanding her new lifestyle and her love of nature, she was not able to ignore the ever-increasing problem she had in her life – her son Maurice and his worsening mental behaviour. By his teenage years he like his grandmother had become addicted to alcohol but now it was not just wine, it was now the “green devil” itself, absinthe. In his late teens he had also become much more violent during his uncontrollable rages and Mousis and Suzanne consulted many doctors and psychiatrists. It culminated in 1901, just before his nineteenth birthday, when during a particularly nasty rage a doctor was called to forcibly sedate him and he was committed to the asylum of Saint-Anne where he remained for three months. This was a terrible time for Suzanne as it was during her son’s confinement she also learnt of the death of her good friend and mentor, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, who had died in a sanatorium at the age of thirty-seven. The cause of death was partly put down to complications arising from his alcoholism and Suzanne must have wondered what her son’s fate would be.

Whilst Maurice remained in the asylum, Suzanne filled her life by concentrating on her art and spent nearly all the time at her studio in rue Cortot where she completed a series of nude drawings for which she served as her own model. Maurice was finally released from the asylum and according to his mother, “he looked better than he has for years – and so beautiful”. He was off drink but was very listless, avoided everybody and sat reading his books. A turning point came when Suzanne persuaded him to take up art as a hobby. Reluctant at first, he soon took a liking to it and within two years, would spend most of his time in his mother’s studio in Montmartre. In that time, he had completed no fewer than 150 works. By the age of twenty-three he was living in her studio. The only think he disliked about life in Montmartre was the people. People everywhere and he just wanted to shut himself away from them all. They annoyed him and soon the rages returned and to cope with the rages he turned back to drink and would, during the day, paint with excruciating hangovers. Despite his abhorrence of people he would still go out and wander around Montmartre painting en plein air. When buoyed by alcohol he would engage in conversation with others in the drinking establishments he frequented. He always introduced himself as Maurice Valadon, adamantly shunning the name “Utrillo”. The drinking resulted in his old habits returning – the violent outbursts of rage often culminating in fights with the locals.

One day in 1909, which was to have an effect on his life and the life of his mother Suzanne, he was sitting outside painting when he was approached by a young man who introduced himself as a fellow artist. He was André Utter.

…………………………. to be continued.

Suzanne Valdon. Part 4 – Henri Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas

In my last blog, Part 3 of the life story of Suzanne Valadon, I talked about her relationship with the French painter Pierre-August Renoir and looked at his 1883 Dance Series of painting, two of which featured Suzanne. At the end of the blog I stated that Renoir had nurtured Suzanne’s interest in art. I suppose nurturing was the wrong word to use as although Renoir’s art influenced Suzanne it was more his dismissive attitude to her early attempts to paint and sketch that had an effect on her. Renoir had a somewhat condescending attitude towards her attempts at drawing and painting and this along with his preference for Aline Charigot over her rankled Suzanne all her life. However Renoir’s indifference regarding her artistic attempts galvanised the young woman in her mission to prove him wrong and at the same time it fostered in her a desire to become a great artist in her own right, for if nothing else, Suzanne was a very headstrong and determined character and one who would never accept failure lightly.

Suzanne Valadon did however receive valuable help and support with her quest to become an artist. This help came from two completely different sources. Her initial help came from a young French artist who had just come on to the Parisian art scene and it was through his good auspices that she was introduced to an elderly artist who, at the time, was viewed as The Master of all the French artists. The young artist was Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and the Master was none other than Edgar Degas.

My Utrillo at the Age of Nine by Suzanne Valadon (1892)

Unabashed by Renoir’s attitude Suzanne set about sketching with pencil and charcoal. She sketched avidly. Any free time she had from her modelling engagements were spent sketching. It was in the Spring of 1887 that she first met the twenty-two year old, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, who had a top floor studio at No.7 rue Tourlaque, the same building in which Suzanne, her mother Madeleine and her son Maurice were living. Toulouse Lautrec was once described as having a grotesque appearance. At the age of fourteen, he slipped on a floor and broke his left thigh bone. The following year, while out walking, he fell and broke his right thigh bone. Neither leg healed properly. It is now believed that this was due to a genetic disorder. After these breaks, his legs never grew any longer which resulted in him attaining a height, as an adult, of just 1.54 m (5 ft 1 in) despite have a full sized torso. His walk was just an embarrassing shuffle. Add to this physical deformity his oversized nose, his dark and greasy skin and full black beard which masked his face, one can envisage the physical and mental torment he must have suffered. However, despite this, he was quite a gregarious person and had a buoyant character and soon after setting up his studio it took on a new role as a meeting place for local artists and members of the literary set. Lautrec would often provide food and drink at these meetings and conversation would often centre on art, artists and artistic trends. Suzanne Valadon often helped Lautrec with these get-togethers and soon she was considered the unofficial hostess of Lautrec’s soirées. One should remember that Suzanne was quite short in stature and so standing next to the diminutive Lautrec they made for an “ideal couple”. Suzanne had always been a very good looking woman and so, when standing next to him her physical beauty meant eyes were immediately focused upon her and not her little companion.

Suzanne was not “backward in coming forward” at these events and would unreservedly give her opinion on current artistic trends. As ever, her wit and the acidity of her tongue came to the fore ensuring that the evening would never be dull and of course, her physical beauty was always admired by all the male guests. As Suzanne helped Lautrec to run his parties and add her own brand of verbal entertainment at them Toulouse-Lautrec expressed his gratitude by taking an interest in her early art. He was also the first person to buy a couple of her sketches. He hung them on the wall of his lodgings and was often amused when visitors attributed them to artists such as Degas and Théopile Steinlen, the painter and printmaker, but all viewers of these works were in agreement that they had been done by an accomplished artist.

The Hangover; Portrait of Suzanne Valadon by Henri de Toulouse Lautrec (c. 1888)

Suzanne and Toulouse-Lautrec would often wile away their time together sketching. He completed a number of portraits of her but would never pose for her. One of the best portraits Toulouse Lautrec did of Suzanne was his 1888 painting entitled Gueule de Bois (The Hangover) in which we see her sprawled across a café table. She received no payment from Lautrec for modelling for this picture. It would have been unthinkable considering all the help he had given her. Soon Toulouse-Lautrec began to advise Suzanne, not just on things artistic, but everyday things such as how she should dress what hats she should wear and would often accompany her on shopping trips.

Portrait of the Artist Suzanne Valadon by Toulouse Lautrec (1885)

It was Toulouse-Lautrec who persuaded her to change her name from that which she was baptised, Marie-Clémentine, to Suzanne as he believed her birth name was just too mundane for an up-and-coming artist. Suzanne agreed to the change of name and she gave Lautrec the very first painting she completed, which had been signed “Suzanne Valadon”.

It was on the insistence of Toulouse-Lautrec that in 1887, Suzanne went to see Edgar Degas and took along some of her sketches. She recalled the time:

“…Lautrec’s great brown eyes laughed behind his thick glasses and his mouth was solemn and grave as a priest’s when he told me I must go to M. Degas with my drawings…”

When she arrived at Degas’ house for the first time, Suzanne always recalled that day stating on a number of occasions that it was “the wonderful moment of my life”. She arrived at the house in rue Victor Massé clutching her portfolio of sketches. She was extremely nervous in his presence. She recalled the time vividly. Degas took her sketches, moved to the window to see them better and slowly thumbed through them mumbling comments to himself, occasionally looking up at her. On completing his examination of her work he turned to Suzanne, who was sitting straight-backed in a chair, and uttered the words that she would never forget:

“…Yes it is true. You are indeed one of us…”

Nude getting into the Bath besides the Seated Grandmother by Suzanne Valadon (1903)

Degas, who had once described himself as simply a colourist with line, could see the merit in Suzanne’s work despite her work was in a pure and savage state and the sketches were totally without refinement, and yet there was a sense of grace about them. Suzanne and Degas became good and long-lasting friends. It was a friendship which would have, in some ways, seemed strange as Degas and Suzanne came from different backgrounds and different social classes but it could be the fact that Degas was uneasy in the company of women of his own social strata and that made Suzanne and ideal companion. During their many meetings she would show him her latest work which he would assess and give advice and she in return would tell him all the gossip and news from Montmartre, for he rarely set foot outside stating he was too ill and it was also around this time that his eyesight began to fail.

Although Suzanne Valadon was a self taught artist it is generally accepted that she owed a lot to Edgar Degas. It was he that supervised her first engravings and it was he who ensured that Ambroise Vollard, one of the most important art dealers of the time, presented an exhibition of Suzanne’s engravings at his gallery in 1895. As far as Suzanne was concerned, Edgar Degas was “The Master”, an artistic genius. Of all the artists she came across, he was the one she respected the most. She hung on his every word, basked in his praise for her work and although he had lost a number of friends due to his petulance and grumpiness, she looked on his irascibility as part of his charm and charisma. Degas could do no wrong in her eyes. Degas too loved her companionship and Suzanne Valadon was one of the few people who could call herself a friend of the great man and she was immensely proud of this mutual friendship.

……………………………………….. to be continued

Suzanne Valadon. Part 3 Pierre-August Renoir

Dance at Bougival by Renoir (1883)
(featuring Suzanne Valadon and Eugene Pierre Lestringuez)

I ended my last blog about Suzanne Valadon with her relationship with Pierre Puvis de Chavannes ended and she had moved back in with her mother. That summer she had become pregnant and in December 1883 had given birth to a baby boy whom she named Maurice. The following year, after she had got herself back in shape and had employed a nanny to look after her son, she went back to her old life of modelling for artists by day and revelling in café-bar life at night…..

In 1883, before she became pregnant Suzanne was employed as a model by Pierre-August Renoir. Besides being an artist an artist’s model they had something else in common – they both originated from Limoges. Renoir had returned to Paris after extensively travelling around Europe and North Africa. Despite being moderately well-off due to the sale of his paintings he chose to live in the less salubrious area of Montmartre. Suzanne and Renoir would stroll along the streets of Montmartre arm in arm and nobody was in any doubt that they had become lovers. They would go dancing at the Moulin de la Gatte on Sundays and picnic at Argenteuil and Chatou on sunny summer days.

However, I want to turn the clock back two years to 1881 to look at what Renoir was doing at the time and, by doing so, look at the interaction between Suzanne and him a couple of years later. Renoir had completed his famous painting Les Déjeuner des Canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party) in 1881 (see My Daily Art Display August 2^nd 2011), which had been a group portrait of his friends dining on the upstairs terrace of Restaurant Fournaise which was in the small village of Bougival on the bank of the River Seine. It was here that his friends would gather to eat and dance and watch the oarsmen row their boats up and down the river. One of the people depicted in the painting was Aline Charigot who Renoir would eventually marry in 1890 albeit Aline had already given birth to their son, Pierre, in 1885.

In 1882, a year after completing the Déjeuner des Canotiers painting he was commissioned by Paul Durand-Ruel to complete three paintings, which became known as the Dance Series. The series consisted of Dance à Bougival, Dance in the City and Dance in the Country. These were life-sized works measuring about 180 x 90 cms. In all three paintings there are two main characters, a male and a female dancing. In the first two paintings, the model for the female was Suzanne Valadon and in the third one, the model was Aline Charigot.

Dance in the City by Renoir (1883) (featuring Suzanne Valadon and Paul Lhôte) — Dance in the City by Renoir (1883)
(featuring Suzanne Valadon and Paul Lhôte)

The setting for Renoir’s painting Dance in the City is a high class Parisian establishment, for this is a “white ball”, which was favoured by the upper classes. Although the painting once again depicts a couple dancing, this work is all about the woman as the man is almost hidden from our view. There is a shimmering opulence about this work. Renoir has depicted the woman, modelled by Suzanne Valadon, wearing a two-piece white silk gown, – her toilette de bal (dance dress). The cut of her dress reveals her back and shoulders. Her partner, was thought to be modelled by Renoir’s close friend, Paul Lhôte, a journalist and writer of short fiction. He is wearing formal evening wear and the tails of his long coat swish with the movement of the dance. Both the man and woman wear white gloves which in a way makes the dance a more formal event ensuring that the bare hands of the man do not touch the delicate skin of the woman. Their hands are clasped as in the Dance à Bougival but in this painting it is just the lightest coupling of hands.

Suzanne Valadon always maintained that the Dancing à Bougival work featuring her was painted in-situ at Bougival thus implying that she was part of the Bougival “in-crowd”. In later life she talked about her relationship with Renoir and the Dance à Bougival painting saying:

“…He fell in love with me and at Bougival he painted me in his famous picture…”

However Renoir stated quite categorically that he simply made a few sketches of Suzanne and the paintings was completed at his studio. The painting Dance à Bougival is housed at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston which acquired the work in 1937. In this painting we see Suzanne Valadon dancing with Eugene Pierre Lestringuez, another of Renoir’s friends, who was an official at the Ministry of the Interior and who featured in a number of Renoir’s works including Les Déjeuner des Canotiers. In this outdoor dance scene there is not the formality that we saw in the painting Dancing in the City. Gone is the woman’s formal toilette de bal, replaced by a light pink dress with red piping. The hands of the dancers are not gloved. Gone is the man’s formal attire, replaced by a loose fitting blue jacket and wool sweater and atop his head he wears a yellow straw hat which hides part of his face and his eyes. Gone are the lightly touching hands and in its place we see the left hand of the man gripping the lady’s hand tightly while his right hand snakes around her waist pulling her body into his. Suzanne wears a large bright red hat, the colour of which draws your eyes to it and, by doing so, we focus on the faces of the dancers. Look at the faces closely. The woman pulls her face away from that of her partner and looks downwards avoiding any eye contact with the man whilst he stares at his partner with an unnerving intensity. What is going on between the pair? There is a strange uneasiness, tenseness, between the couple. There is no sense of intimacy between the dancers.

Facial expression (Detail from Dance at Bougival) — Facial expression
(Detail from Dance at Bougival)

As the artist, Renoir, was the one to decide on how he would depict the pair’s facial expressions and body language, what made Renoir portray the couple in this way? Was Renoir in some way transferring Suzanne’s character into the painting? This was supposed to be a joyful event in which couples twirl in the open air so why this pensiveness? It is almost as if the man has said something inappropriate to the woman and she is slightly offended or could it be that the averting of her eyes is simply her way of teasing her dancing partner?

Dance in the Country by Renoir (1883) (featuring Aline Charigot and Paul Lhôte — Dance in the Country by Renoir (1883)
(featuring Aline Charigot and Paul Lhôte

Another question posed by Renoir’s Dancing series paintings that although Suzanne Valadon modelled for Dancing à Bougival and Dancing in the City why did the artist decide to switch to Aline Charigot for Dancing in the Country, who we see depicted partnering Paul Lhôte. When I look at and compare the faces of the two females depicted in the paintings I have to say that Suzanne’ thinner and more delicate face is the more attractive and sophisticated and it could be that for a country dance scene Renoir decided that the fuller face with the rosy cheeks of Aline were more suited when it came to the ambience of the country. Or could it be that Aline Charigot’s insisted that she, and not Suzanne, featured in the third work.

The one aspect that the Bougival and City paintings have in common is the distracted expression on the face of Suzanne Valadon. In both paintings she pays little attention to her partner and lacks the smile which Aline Charigot has on her face in Dancing in the Country. Is this just coincidental? Could it be that Renoir’s depictions of Aline and Suzanne give us a better feeling as to how he viewed his two lovers.

Suzanne travelled to Guernsey with Renoir in order for him to paint some pictures including a nude portrait of her. Although he later destroyed the painting it is thought that he used the face for the central character in his painting The Bathers which he completed in 1887. Amusingly, Suzanne was adament that it was not just her face that was used for the painting, but her whole body !! Their painting trip to Guernsey was rudely interrupted with the news that Aline Charigot was coming to visit Renoir and one can only imagine Suzanne’s anger when Renoir arranged for her to return to Paris immediately so that the women would not meet. There was obviously no love lost between Aline and Suzanne both vying to be Renoir’s one true love. As I said earlier, Aline won that battle as she and Renoir eventually married.

Suzanne Valadon by Pierre Auguste Renoir (1885)

Suzanne’s position as Renoir’s lover ended almost as soon as it had begun but she still modelled for him and in 1885 he completed a head and shoulder portrait of her. At our first glance of this portrait we are aware of her facial expression. It is not one of happiness but is one of despondency but it is still a charming depiction of his one time lover.

The Ponytail (Suzanne Valadon) by Renoir (1886)

In 1886 he completed another portrait of her which is sometimes referred to as The Braid (Susan Valadon) or The Ponytail (Susan Valadon) and which is housed in Museum Langmatt, Baden. This is a far more sensuous portrait of Suzanne and her downward gaze adds to her innate sensuality. There is no doubt that she was an extremely beautiful woman and one can see why artists like Renoir were drawn to this amazing young lady. Renoir, besides employing her as a model and becoming her lover, did something else which was to change the course of her life. He took an interest in her desire to draw and paint and nurtured the idea that she, one day, would become a great artist.

………………………….. to be continued.

If you would like to have a more in-depth view of Suzanne Valadon’s lifestory then I would recommend that you read a book entitled The Valadon Drama, The Life of Suzanne Valadon, written by John Storm in 1923.

Susan Valadon. Part 2 – The artist’s model

In my last blog I looked at the early life and upbringing of my featured artist, Susan Valadon. She and her mother Madeleine had moved from Limoges and had come to live in the Montmartre district of Paris. They had survived the siege of the capital by the Prussian army as well as the bloody fight between the Communards and the French government troops which followed. Suzanne had been trained as a seamstress but had ended up as a teenager working in a circus which culminated in her being injured in a fall whilst standing in for a trapeze artist. She now needed to find an alternate income source……………

A friend of Suzanne suggested that she should consider becoming an artist’s model despite the modelling profession was looked upon as a risqué form of employment and just one inevitable step from becoming the artist’s lover and it was a profession which was frowned upon in many quarters. Her mother believed that her daughter would become nothing more than a common prostitute but Suzanne, headstrong as ever, was not to be deterred. Suzanne would meet every morning at the fountain in the Place de Pigalle with other young girls and wait to see if she would be chosen by an artist. She had a lot of things going for her. She had an elfin-like vivaciousness. Her skin was soft and ivory in colour. Even though she was till just sixteen years of age her figure had ripened. She was a cross between an attractive and charming child and a self-assured voluptuous woman and more importantly ,as far as her job prospects were concerned, she was just what an artist was looking for. She was constantly being chosen to model and she adored this new life. She recalled the first time she was picked out of the waiting group of prospective models and sitting before an artist for the first time:

“…I remember the first sitting I did. I remember saying to myself over and over again ‘ This is it! This is it!’ Over and over I said it all day. I did not know why. But I knew that I was somewhere at last and that I should never leave…”

For her, modelling for artists meant that she was one of the players on the Montmartre artistic stage. Her daily routine was fixed. She would pose for the artists in the afternoons until the light started to fail, then in the evening she would accompany them to the bars and café-concerts and partake in what was known as the “green hour” – the time for relaxation in the pub, the time for stimulating conversation, but most importantly, the time for imbibing the 136 proof, anise-flavoured, green spirit, absinthe.

In 1882, when she was seventeen years of age, she was summoned by the French artist, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, to attend his studio at Neuilly. Pierre Puvis, who was fifty-seven at the time, was still a bachelor but was involved in a long lasting loving, but non-sexual, relationship with Princess Marie Cantacuzène, the wife of a Romanian nobleman. Pierre and Marie would eventually marry in 1898, a few months before both of them died, Marie in the August and Pierre in the October. Despite the forty year age gap Pierre Puvis and Suzanne became lovers and she moved into his Neuilly apartment. She was dumbstruck by the opulence of his home. This was a far cry from the lodgings she shared with her mother. Pierre and Suzanne however could not have been more dissimilar in temperament. She was wild, edgy and vocal whereas the artist was quietly spoken, laid back, and often lost in quiet contemplation. She would hanker after a night at a café-cabaret while Puvis wanted nothing more than to go for a quiet stroll with her along the banks of the Seine.

Suzanne Valadon by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1880)

Susanne Valadon modelled for Pierre Puvis de Chavannes for his pastel on paper work which he completed in 1880. The nude study was untitled but one can see the physical attraction of the model to the artist. It is a stunningly beautiful work of art. Suzanne, like many of the artists’ models had no problems with posing nude and early photograph below shows her in such a pose.

Suzanne Valadon (photo) — Suzanne Valadon
(photo)

The liaison between Pierre Puvis and Susan Valadon lasted for six months and during that time he probably became a slightly more spirited person through being around Suzanne and in return he seemed to have instilled a calming influence on the hyper young woman. It was the first time that Suzanne had been in some ways dominated by a man. It would appear to be a similar situation to the Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins scenario in Pygmalion. Inevitably the liaison came to an end. It did not end in a fiery confrontation with insults being hurled. Their liaison as lovers had run its course. It was just a quiet and mutual ending to a relationship which they had both enjoyed. Suzanne returned home to live with her mother in her one-bedroom Montmartre lodgings on the rue du Poteau but still on occasions modelled for Pierre.

Suzanne soon returned to her old ways of modelling by day and celebrating at night and one evening whilst in Le Chat Noir she met Miguel Utrillo, a Spanish engineering student who was studying in Paris. Soon the two became close friends which inevitably lead them to become lovers. Utrillo was not the first man since Puvis that Suzanne had slept with as she had quite a number of sexual partners and so maybe it was not surprising that in late summer of 1883 she became pregnant. The question on most people’s lips was – who was the father of Suzanne’s child? Her friends would question her and put forward a name, to which Suzanne, not at all upset by the questioning, would just smile and amusingly state: “It could be” or “I hope so”. Suzanne gave birth to a baby son on December 26^th 1883 after a very prolonged and painful birthing process overseen by an irritable midwife and her ever drunk mother. After giving birth Suzanne lapsed into a coma for two days. The baby was registered at the town hall in Montmartre as Maurice Valadon. Why Maurice? Suzanne’s reasoning behind the choice of name was that none of her recent lovers had the name Maurice!

Her old one-bedroom apartment in which she had been living with her mother was now not big enough and so after the birth Suzanne and her baby along with her mother Madeleine moved into a three-bedroom apartment in rue Tourlaque. This was more expensive but Suzanne was not concerned, nor had she been concerned when she was pregnant and too big to be used as an artist’s model and her money from modelling dried up. She was receiving money from an admirer or lover but she would never reveal the source of her income. Once up and about, Suzanne reverted to her nights out at the bars and clubs accompanied by different men including Miguel Utrillo.

……. to be continued

Susan Valadon, Part 1 – The early years

In my next few blogs I want to look at the life of a female who was both a great artist and artist’s model and whose name is synonymous with the artistic world of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century Montmartre. She was, and still is, loved by the feminist movement who applaud her guts and determination. She is Suzanne Valadon. I want to spend time and look at the artistic friends she made during her life and how they adored her. She was, to many artists, a model, a muse and, in some cases, a willing lover. To fully understand why her lifestyle was as it was, one must go back and examine her family roots and look at her early childhood which was , as is the case for nearly all of us, the sewing and the germination of the seed which would eventually blossom and shape our lives.

To examine her early life one needs to scrutinize the circumstances of her birth and for that it is necessary to look into the life of her family. Her mother was Madeleine Valadon who was born in the small rural village of Bessines, close to the town of Limoges. What we know of Madeleine comes from her own lips later in life and because she frequently changed the facts one needs to be careful as to what to believe. She maintained that as a teenager she had once been married to a man from Limoges named Courland and that he died in jail when she was just twenty-one years of age but by which time she had given birth to a number of his children. After his death Madeleine reverted back to her family name of Valadon and returned to her family home. As a young girl, she was taught to read and write by nuns who also taught her to stitch and sew. She then fortuitously managed to secure employment as a live-in seamstress to the well-to-do Guimbaud family who lived nearby. It was a position which she was pleased to accept and felt no grief for having to leave her children in their less than salubrious family home whilst she was living in comparative comfort close by. She soon established herself as the head of the servants in the Guimbaud household and, unlike them, even dined with the family. She remained in this employment for thirteen years but it came to an end when she once again became pregnant. According to her, the father of the child was a local miller who was killed in an accident at work. In later life she viewed the accident which killed him as divine retribution for making her pregnant!

Naturally the small Bessines community was shocked by the news of her pregnancy and lack of a husband to act as a father figure to her newborn. The Guimbaud family however treated her well and she remained in their house until her child, a daughter, was born. According to the official records, the child was baptised Marie-Clémentine Valadon on September 23^rd 1865. It was not until she was nineteen years of age that Marie-Clémentine started calling herself Suzanne and this apparently was the suggestion of her friend, the artist, Henri Toulouse Lautrec. It is also interesting to note that despite that documented official registration of her birth Suzanne always maintained she was born in 1867.

Madeleine Valadon with her daughter Suzanne

Madeleine Valadon left Bessines with her baby in January 1866 and headed for Paris. She never looked back. She never saw or communicated with her family, her other children or her former employer, the Guimbaud family, ever again and one can only wonder why she wanted this complete break from her past.

The windmills of Montmartre, taken in 1839 by Hippolyte Bayard

She arrived in Paris confidant that she would be able to earn a living as a seamstress. Madeleine Valadon was amazed at the sight that greeted her to the north of the capital city – a hill on top of which were a number of windmills, a vista which was similar to the rural views back home. The steep hill she viewed was the Mount of Martyrs, named after the execution of the first bishop of Paris, St Denis and his faithful lieutenants, St Rustique and St Éleuthère in the third century – Montmartre. Madeleine settled into lodgings at the base of the hill in the Boulevard de Rochechouart and then, with a glowing reference from the Guimbaud family, set off to procure employment as a seamstress. Her plans did not come to fruition as jobs were scarce and finally, in desperation, she had to settle for the menial job as a scrub-woman, cleaning floors whilst the wife of the concierge of her lodgings looked after Suzanne.

Madeleine, no doubt aware that for her daughter to succeed in life she had to be educated, and so arranged for a priest to teach her to read and write and then had her attend the convent run by the nuns of St Vincent de Paul as a day pupil for a continuance of her education and to be taught, as she was, to become a seamstress. However, once again her plans went awry with the start of the Franco-Prussian War which culminated in the siege of Paris by the Prussian army at the end of 1870 and the ousting of the French government, which retreated from Paris and based itself in Bordeaux. In May 1871, following the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian War and the lifting of the Prussian siege of Paris, the French government returned to Versailles on the outskirts of Paris ready once again to rule the capital. However many of the Parisians, who had suffered during the Paris siege, blamed their government for their misery and deprivation which they had to endure. They remembered with bitterness the days they had to scavenge for food eating dogs, cats and rats to survive. Out of this sense of bitterness and betrayal came the rise of the Communards. The Communards were a group of working class disaffected Parisians who did not want the French government to return to control Paris. They were very active around the area where Madeleine and Suzanne lived and their bloody determination that the defeated French government would not return to Paris from their bolt-hole at Versailles set up a clash which was in fact a mini civil war and which claimed the lives of more than twenty thousand Parisians.

Suzanne, during these times of turmoil, had still attended the St Vincent de Paul convent for her lessons and during the Paris siege had been fed by the nuns from their home-grown produce. However during the Paris Commune clashes between the government forces and the Communards the fighting had been so intense that the nuns barricaded themselves in the convent and closed it down to the day pupils and so Suzanne like many others lost their opportunity for learning and being fed. Suzanne, who was six years of age and like many children of her age, revelled in not having to go to school. Her mother, on the other hand, despaired and began to drink heavily. At the end of the Paris Commune struggle at the end of May 1871 and with it, the return to law and order under the French government, the St Vincent de Paul nuns felt it safe to re-open their convent to their day pupils and Suzanne, who had enjoyed the freedom from the discipline of school life and the boredom of lessons reluctantly had to return to the confines of the convent. She rebelled and was frequently absent preferring to play in the streets and on the hill of Montmartre with new friends both children and adults. She mixed with the lowest elements of society, the prostitutes, the beggars and the thieves and loved every minute of it. Later in life she recalled those times:

“…From that day the streets of Montmartre were home to me. It was only in the streets that there was excitement and love and ideas – what other children found around their dining room tables…”

Suzanne lived a feral existence. She was small in stature and had a fierce temper and would often succumb to uncontrollable rages and on the streets of Montmartre she was often referred to as “The Little Valadon Terror”. Her mother Madeleine became more morose and apathetic as the years passed. She lost total interest in life and frequently descended into an alcoholic haze. She rarely cleaned their lodgings and seldom did any laundry. She begrudged cooking and having to feed Suzanne and when they ate at meal times they would normally eat apart. Nothing Suzanne would do would lift her mother’s spirit. Despite this lack of maternal love for Suzanne the two lived together for almost sixty years. In later life Suzanne often depicted her mother in paintings. She would nearly always portray her as being old, wrinkled and toothless but showed her hard at work.

Le Moulin de Galette by Vincent van Gogh (1886)

Montmartre since the beginning of the 19^th century was the centre of artistic life and drew artists, musicians and writers to it like a magnet. Studio garrets shot up everywhere in which the artists would paint day in and day out and in the late evenings would look for some respite and so bars and music and dance halls, such as the notorious Moulin Rouge.

L'Absinthe by Degas (1873) — L’Absinthe by Degas (1876)

The Café de la Nouvelle-Athènes, was a meeting place for the up and coming artists of the time including the “new kids on the block”, the Impressionists and it was outside this establishment that Degas depicted the two drinking companions in his famous 1876 work L’Absinthe (See My Daily Art Display June 7th 2011). Another popular establishment was Le Chat Noir, which opened in November 1881 in Boulevard Rochechouart, the same street where Madeleine and Suzanne lived and was run by the entertainment impresario, Rodolphe Salis. The Divan Japonais, a café-concert (a combination of a concert hall and a pub) was a haunt of the French painter, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Probably one of the most popular was the Moulin de la Galette. This was originally a windmill, one of the thirty windmills on La Butte de Montmartre, which Madeleine saw as she arrived from Limoges. The windmill owners then added a goguette (a wine shop) which also sold galettes (flat round crusty pastries) and later incorporated a dance hall and restaurant. It was here that Suzanne Valadon reminisced that she had first set eyes on Degas whom she described as:

“…a small round-shouldered man, fragile and sad-eyed, in pepper-and-salt tweeds, his throat swathed in woollen scarves…”

In 1874, at the age of nine, Madeleine took Suzanne to an atelier de couture where she was apprenticed as a seamstress. Suzanne hated the life and made numerous attempts the workplace but unlike the nuns the workhouse owner would beat her when she was dragged back to the factory by her mother. She stayed there for three years but eventually left and took jobs as a waitress in a café, a push-cart vendor of vegetables and working with horses at a livery stable. It was this last job in which one of her jobs was to walk the horses around the streets. People would stop on the street and watch this small young girl with her large horses. Suzanne, ever the entertainer, was not content with just walking the horses but began to perform acrobatic tricks upon the horses to gain more notice and a modicum of applause. In later years, she reckoned that a circus owner witnessed one of her “performances” and offered her a job. She loved this new colourful and exciting life. Although her role at the circus/carnival was a horse riding act, one day she was asked to stand in for a trapeze artist who had been taken ill. She had done some trapeze work and so agreed. Unfortunately the performance went badly and she fell, injuring her back and her circus life came to an end.

…………………… to be continued.

Having been chastised the other day for not acknowledging some of my sources I thought I had better behave myself today and tell you that most of my information came from a book I read (and I am still reading it) on the life of Suzanne Valadon entitled The Valadon Drama, The Life of Suzanne Valadon, written by John Storm in 1923.

Other sites I visited to find some pictures were:

http://lapouyette-unddiedingedeslebens.blogspot.co.uk/

http://youngbohemia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/suzanne-valadon_8445.html

http://www.messynessychic.com

The Blog: It’s about time

http://bjws.blogspot.co.uk

Elderly Nude in the Sun by Mariano Fortuny

My featured painting today is a reminder to me of the glorious and unexpected summer weather we have been having these last five weeks and the rejuvenation of my battered and old body from basking in the sunlight. The painting is entitled Elderly Nude in the Sun and was painted in 1871 by the Catalan painter Mariano Fortuny. Fortuny is looked upon as one of the most esteemed and internationally renowned of the nineteenth century Spanish painters.

Mariano José María Bernardo Fortuny y Marsal was born in the Spanish coastal town of Reus in June 1838. He came from an impoverished background and attended the local school where, among other subjects he was taught, he was given his first rudimentary lessons in drawing. He was orphaned at the age of twelve when both his parents died and he went to live with his paternal grandfather, Maria Fortuny i Baró, who was a cabinet maker and amateur artist. His grandfather continued to look after his grandson’s education sending him to watercolour classes run by a local artist, Domingo Soberano. He also had him work in the studio of the silversmith and miniaturist, Antonio Bassa.

As well as being a joiner his grandfather built up a collection of wax figurines which he had made and travelled the country selling them. He spent much of his time teaching his grandson the art of making these wax figures. On one of Mariano and his grandfather’s sales trips in September 1852 they visited the nearby city of Barcelona. It was during this visit that Mariano met the sculptor Domingo Talarn who was so impressed with Mariano’s handiwork that he arranged for him to be paid a small monthly stipend which enabled him to attend the Escuela de Bellas Artes where he started on a four-year art course. It was here that he studied under the Spanish artist, Claudio Lorenzale y Sugrañes.

In 1857, aged 19 Mariano won an art scholarship which allowed him to travel to Rome the following year and, for the next two years he studied the art of the Italian Renaissance and Baroque periods. At the end of his Italian stay he received a commission from the regional Catalan government to travel to Morocco and record the conflict between the Spanish and Moroccan armies which had broken out at the end of 1859. In the Catalan and Basque regions of Spain thousands of young men with a burning sense of patriotism rushed to the army recruiting centres to sign up for the Spanish army to help their country defeat the Moroccans and the Catalan government wanted to have recorded pictorially their brave fight for their country. Fortuny travelled to Morocco in 1860 and completed numerous pencil sketches, highly colourful watercolours and small oil paintings of the Moroccan landscape and its people as well as the battle skirmishes. When he returned home to Catalonia these sketches were shown at exhibitions in Madrid and Barcelona.

Fortuny used a number of his battlefield sketches to build up a monumental history painting, measuring 300 x 972cms, entitled Battle of Teután which recorded the Spanish and Moroccan armies large scale clash in January 1860 which culminated in the fall of the Moroccan town of Teután to the Spaniards. Fortuny began work on this painting in 1862 but never fully completed it, adding and altering it constantly over the next twelve years. On his death in Rome in 1874 the painting was found in his studio. The Catalan government purchased the work and it can now be seen in the Museo Nacional de Arte de Cataluña, in Barcelona.

In 1867 whilst in Madrid, Mariano Fortuny married Cecilia de Madrazo. She came from a long line of painters. She was the daughter of the great painter Federico de Madrazo, a one-time director of the Prado Museum. Cecilia’s brother was the realist painter Raimundo de Madrazo who became a highly successful portraitist and genre painter in a Salon style. In May 1871, Cecilia gave birth to a son, named Mariano after his father. Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo went on to become one of the foremost Spanish fashion and tapestry designers.

Fortuny was based in Rome until about 1870 after which he made a number of trips. He then went to live in Paris but when the Spanish-French governmental relations began to break down, he decided to move his family back to Spain and for a two year period, he and his family lived in Granada. He made a return trip to Morocco in 1872 and later to Rome. By this time, Fortuny was disturbed and somewhat depressed with the necessity of churning out paintings which were saleable as he wanted the freedom to paint what he liked rather than what was popular and easy to sell. In a letter to his friend, the prolific French art collector, Baron Davillier, he wrote of his dilemma:

“…I want to have the pleasure of painting for myself. In this lies true painting…”

In the summer of 1874 he headed back to Italy and his studio in Rome but stopped off at Portici, a coastal town on the Bay of Naples, where he spent time painting scenes of the Bay and the town. Sadly, it was here that he contracted malaria which led to his death in Rome in November 1874, at the young age of 36.

Elderly Man in the Sun by Mariano Fortuny (1871)

My featured work today by Mariano Fortuny is entitled Elderly Nude in the Sun which he completed in 1871 whilst living in Granada. Fortuny was, at this time, at the height of his fame and his works were in great demand. This painting was one of many life studies he completed at the time. It is a painting which can be attributed to classical realism. Note the marked difference to the finish Fortuny has afforded the painting. The lower part of the torso is just roughly sketched whilst the detail of the man’s upper body and face are finished in such exquisite detail to make the work come to life. It is an amazing work and reminded me so much of the pained expression and emaciated figure one associates with the crucified Christ. Before us we have an old man with an old body which is well past its prime. There is a contemplative expression on the man’s face as he faces the sun with his eyes tightly closed. I have to admit that my initial and somewhat fleeting glance at the man’s facial expression made me believe it was one of anguish. However if one looks more closely I think it is more a look of quiet acceptance and even a look of pleasure as the sun’s rays warm up his frail body. Although it is a somewhat emaciated body we have before us, there is something truly beautiful about Mariano Fortuny’s depiction.

The Poor Fisherman by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

The Poor Fisherman by Pierre Puvis de Chevannes (1881)

My last blog looked at the early life of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes as well as feature a series of four large wall paintings he completed in the 1860’s. In today’s blog I will conclude his life story and feature one of his best known paintings entitled The Poor Fisherman.

Following the success of his wall paintings for the Musée de Picardie he went on to complete many other wall painting commissions, such as the staircase of the Hôtel de Ville at Poitiers. In 1874 the Department of Fine Arts in Paris commissioned him to paint a number of wall paintings depicting the childhood and education of St Geneviève, the patroness of Paris, for the church of Saint Genevieve, which is now the Pantheon. Puvis procured a second commission for work in the Pantheon in 1896, depicting Genevieve’s accomplishments in old age which consisted of a single composition coupled with a triad of panels, the whole of which surmounted by a frieze.

One of his largest commissions came in 1891 when Charles Follen McKim a partner in the architect firm of McKim, Mead and White, who had designed the new Boston library, went to Paris and approached Pierre Puvis to provide wall paintings for the grand staircase and loggia of their new building. Puvis agreed to carry out this extensive commission despite being sixty-seven years of age. Then Puvis had a change of heart when he accepted a commission for work in the Paris City Hall and so the following year, 1892, the Americans had to send over another representative to Paris to ask Puvis not to renege on his original agreement. After prolonged negotiations in July 1893 Puvis put pen to paper and the contract for the wall paintings was finalised, agreeing to pay the artist the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand francs. Puvis completed his Paris City Hall commission in 1894 and in 1895 he began on the paintings which were to adorn the walls of the Boston Library. To ensure that the wall paintings blended in with the internal architecture the architects sent Puvis samples of the marble which was to be used for the staircase and its surroundings. Puvis worked on the wall paintings at a purpose built studio at Neuilly, just outside of Paris and completed them in 1898. They were then shipped out to America. Puvis never saw for himself his paintings in situ in the Boston library. For a much more detailed account of this commission it is worth having a look at:

http://cool.conservation-us.org/jaic/articles/jaic36-01-005.html

Pierre Puvis did not exclusively work on large-scale wall paintings, he would often relax by carrying out smaller easel paintings and today I am featuring one such work which he completed in 1881 and entitled The Poor Fisherman, which is housed in the Musée d’Orsay. Although not the size of one of his wall paintings, it is still a large work, measuring 155 x 192 cms.

The Angelus by Jean-François Millet (1859)

In the painting we see a forlorn-looking man, head bent, standing up in his boat with his hands clasped together in front of him as if in prayer and it is his stance along with the connection between Christ and his Apostles and fishermen, which gives the painting a somewhat religious feel to it. Is he praying for success in his forthcoming fishing expedition or as some would have us believe it could be that it was noon and, as a practicing Catholic, the fisherman was reciting an Angelus prayer. This supposition is based on the similar stance of the figures seen in Millet’s 1859 The Angelus painting. On the bank there is a woman, his daughter, collecting flowers and his sleeping baby, lying on his back in a bed of wild flowers. One is struck by the bleak landscape and the contrast between the seemingly happy female as she picks the flowers, the peacefully sleeping child with the troubled poverty-stricken fisherman as he bows his head down in silent contemplation.

The work was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1881 and received a mixed reception and was not sold until 1887 when the French State purchased the work whilst it was on show at the French art dealer, Durand-Ruel’s showroom. So what is there not to like about the work? Is it just too depressing? Does it fail to conform to the artistic norm? In an article in the December 1916 issue of the The Art World magazine entitled “A Trivial Work of Art: The Poor Fisherman by Puvis de Chavannes, the art critic Petronius Arbiter summed up the painting:

“…It is an absolutely trivial work; and, coming from him, was a complete surprise and much criticized at the time. In the first place the lines of the composition are so zigzag that the work is irritating instead of soothing to the eyes. Then the sprawling of the badly drawn child over a low shrub, every leaf and branch of which would prick out of it all sense of sleep or even of comfort, is absurd. Then the head of the mother is too large, and the hair that of a man rather than that of a woman. Then the man looks ‘sawed-off,’ for he is represented as standing with his knees against a seat in the boat. But where is the rest of his lower legs? The boat is either not deep enough or his lower legs are abnormally short, or sawed-off. This is also manifestly absurd. Then the head is so childishly constructed as to be ridiculous. Moreover, what is he doing – praying, fishing, philosophizing over his destiny, or what? The whole thing is childish to a degree. Here we have a meaningless ‘individuality’ with a vengeance…”

However the article’s author begrudgingly had some good words to say about the work:

“…The picture has but one redeeming feature – its charming colour. A delicate general tone of mauve pervades the whole creation and the gradation of the tones in the water are so skilfully painted that we are drawn into the far distance whether we will or no. That is, the values of the picture are remarkably true…”

Le Pauvre Pêcheur by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1881) The National Museum of Western Art

The artist painted another version of The Poor Fisherman in which he depicts just the fisherman and his baby child which this time lies in the botom of his boat. This copy can be seen at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo.

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes died in October 1898 aged 73. Shortly before his death he married his long time companion, Princess Marie Cantacuzène. She died just a few months before her husband.

Following my last blog, which looked at the early life of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, I was ticked off by the author Aimée Brown Price for using information from her books on the artist and not acknowledging the fact. To defend myself I have to say up until receiving her email I had no idea she had written these books and probably took her information unknowingly from a third-party source. However to rectify my misconduct I have given you below the title of her books on Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and I am sure if you want to read a more detailed account of the life and works of the artist they will be invaluable.

Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. Volume I: The Artist and his Art. Volume II: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. ISBN 9780300115710, box set, two volumes, 750 pp. 1200 illustrations.

Portrait of Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni by Domenico Ghirlandaio

When you walk around an art gallery I wonder how long you spend in front of each painting. I suppose it depends on the type of painting and whether it is part of a crowded special exhibition when you are jostled from one painting to the next by a crowded sea of viewers. I suppose it also depends on your time management as if you are coming to the end of your allotted time you tend to jump from one picture to the next in a desperate attempt to not miss a single one, although in a way your hurried state probably means that the last few painting remain just a blur in your mind. So why do I ask this question about time management and carefully appreciating the paintings before us? The answer is that during a recent visit to the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid I had left the room, which housed the fifteenth century art collection till last and I was constantly aware that my time at the museum was running out. I found myself flitting from one painting to another and I have to admit by doing so I failed to take in the beauty of the works in that section of the gallery. That was until I came across two stunning works which I could hardly drag myself away from. They were just such beautiful paintings. Yes, I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder but for me they were truly exquisite. I stood before them, totally mesmerised by their intrinsic charm and so I am dedicating my next two blogs to those two 15^th century works.

Today I want to offer you a beautifully crafted portrait by the 15^th century Italian artist Domenico Ghirlandaio entitled Portrait of Giovanna degli Albizzi Tornabuoni which he completed in 1490 and which is now part of the permanent collection at Madrid’s Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum. Giovanna was the wife of Lorenzo Tornabuoni who came from the wealthy Florentine banking family and whose father, Giovanni was Domenico Ghirlandaio’s patron. We know this is the image of Giovanna as at the time of her marriage to Lorenzo a series of bronze portrait medals with her image were made to commemorate the event and the likeness of the figure on the medal and in the painting is undeniable. Lorenzo and Giovanna married in June 1486 but sadly she died giving birth to her second son in 1488, at just twenty years of age. As the portrait was completed after she died, it is thought that it could be looked upon as a kind of remembrance painting. The painting hung in her husband’s private rooms in the Tornabuoni Palace.

We see Giovanna before us, half-length, in a somewhat rigid profile. In her hands she clasps a handkerchief. Giovanna is dressed in the most sumptuous way. She wears a giornea which is an open-sided over-gown, which is brocaded. The design on the brocade features the letter “L” and a diamond. The “L” is her husband, Lorenzo’s initial and the diamond was the Tornabuoni family emblem. There is no doubt that she is one of Florence’s élite by the way she wears her hair in the very latest Florentine fashion. The jewels she wears around her neck comprise of two rings and pendant which were given to her by Lorenzo’s family as a wedding gift. If you look closely at the pendant she wears you will also notice a matching brooch designed in the shape of a dragon which lies on a shelf behind her. The jewel with its dragon, two pearls and a ruby formed a set with the pendant hanging from a silk cord around her neck. Behind her, on the shelf, is a prayer book which is thought to be the libriccino da donna (little ladies’ book). Above the book hangs a string of coral beads which have been identified as a rosary. Ghirlandaio’s inclusion of this prayer book and the rosary in the painting was testament to Giovanna’s religious beliefs and her piety.

What did Ghirlandaio think of his sitter? Will we ever know? Actually the answer lies within the painting itself because just behind Giovanna’s neck we can see attached to the shelf a cartellino. A cartellino (Italian for small piece of paper) was a piece of parchment or paper painted illusionistically, often as though attached to a wall or parapet in a painting. On the cartellino added by Ghirlandaio in this painting are the words:

ARS UTINAM MORES

ANIMUMQUE QUE EFFINGERE

POSSES PULCHRIOR IN TERRIS NULLA TABELLA FORET

which translates to:

“…Would that you, Art, could portray her character and spirit ; for then there would be no fairer painting in the world..”.

At the bottom there is the date:

“MCCCCLXXXVIII”. (1488)

By these words there is no doubt Ghirlandaio is excusing himself to Giovanna for his belief that he has not been able to show her real inner beauty. These are fine words from our artist but in fact they were not quite his own as they are a slight variation on the words of an epigram (a short and concise poem) of the Latin poet Marcus Galerius Martial, whose works were all the rage with the Florentine aristocracy of the day.

My featured artist today was born Domenico di Tommaso Curradi di Doffo Bigordi. The name was derived in part from his father’s surname Curadi and the surname of his grandfather Bigordi. He was born in Florence in 1449, the eldest child of Tommaso Bigordi and Antonia di ser Paolo Paoli. His father was a goldsmith and was well-known for creating metallic garland-like necklaces which were worn by the ladies of Florence, and it was for that reason that Domenico was given the nickname Il Ghirlandaio (garland-maker). Domenico worked in his father’s jewellery shop and it was during his time there that he started sketching portraits of customers and passers-by. According to the famous biographer of artists, Giorgio Vasari, Domenico’s father decided to afford his son some formal artistic training and had him apprenticed to the Florentine painters, Alesso Baldovinetti and later Andrea del Verrocchio.

Domenico will always be remembered for his exquisite detailed narrative frescos in which he would incorporate portraits of the local aristocracy resplendent in their finery. Many of his frescos appeared in local Florentine churches. In 1482, he also completed a Vatican commission for Pope Sixtus IV – a fresco in the Sistine Chapel entitled Calling of the First Apostles. The frescos he will probably be best remembered for were two major fresco cycles, which he completed with the help of his brothers, Davide and Benedetto along with his brother-in-law, Bastiano Mainardi, who was one of Domenico’s pupils.

The Resurrection of the Boy by St. Francis by Girlandaio — The Resurrection of the Boy by St. Francis by Ghirlandaio

The first of these frescos was for the Sassetti Chapel in the church of St Trinita in Florence. It had been commissioned by Francesco Sassetti, a rich and powerful banker who worked for the Medici family. This cycle of frescos was in six parts and depicted the life and times of St. Francis of Assisi, who was Sassetti’s patron saint. Seen within the frescos were a number of portraits of members of the Sassetti family along with some of the leading figures from the Medici family. To look at the two families within the frescos one would be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that the Sassettis and the Medicis were very close, which of course was precisely the allusion Francesco Sassetti had wished to convey. Alas for him, the close bond between the two families was all in his mind!

The second fresco cycle, Ghirlandaio’s last, and many art historians believe was his greatest, was commissioned to decorate the Capella Maggiore of the Santa Maria Novella Church in Florence by another banker, Giovanni Tornabuoni, who was related by marriage to the Medicis. There was a connection between the two fresco cycles as Sassetti had the rights to decorate the Capella Maggiore of the Santa Maria Novella Church and he had wanted to have the frescos in the church depict the life of St Francis. However the church was in trust to the Dominican order and they refused to allow such a design, so it was then that Sassetti decided to have the St Francis frescos painted instead in the Sassetti Chapel of the St Trinita Church in Florence and he sold the rite to decorating the Capella Maggiore to Giovanni Tornabuoni

Ghirlandaio had not even completed the Sassetti fresco cycle when he was given this second large scale commission and he had to bring in most of the workers from his large Florentine studio to help him in this four-year project which was finally completed in 1490.

The reason for talking about this fresco cycle is that I want you look closely at Ghirlandaio’s fresco, the part entitled Visitation. Look at the third woman from the right. Do you recognise her? It is a full length portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni who was the wife of Lorenzo Tornabuoni whose father, Giovanni was the commissioner of the fresco work and who was also my subject of today’s featured work.

The painting had a number of owners but in 1907 the American millionaire financier and philanthropist and founder of the J.P. Morgan bank, J. Pierpont Morgan bought it in 1907. It is believed that he adored the painting as it reminded him of his first wife, Amelia Sturgis, who like Giovanna had died very young. She died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-six, just four months after she and J.P. had married. It entered the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection from the Morgan Library, New York, in 1935.

Whereas J.P. Morgan had his painting on view in his home to remind him of his wife I have a print of it on my breakfast room wall to remind me of Giovanna’s beauty as I serve guests with their breakfasts.

Frederic Edwin Church, Part 2

For those of you who have just landed on this page I suggest you go back to my previous blog which looks at Frederic Church’s early life and talks a little about his exhibition at the National Gallery, London which I visited last week.

Our Banner in the Sky by Frederic Edwin Church (1861)

Another beautiful and moving historical painting by Frederic Church which was on display at the exhibition and which I found very moving was a small oil painting entitled Our Banner in the Sky which Frederic Church completed in 1861. I stood before this work, fascinated by the way in which Church had cleverly depicted the image of the Stars and Stripes American flag in tatters against an amazing daybreak landscape with its red and white bands of clouds. Church had painted this shortly after the attack on Fort Sumter by General Beauregard and his Confederate troops in January 1861 , which signalled the start of the American Civil War, which tragically went on to cost so many American lives. In the work we see a bare and tall tree slightly leaning over, which acts as a flagpole for the flag which blends in with the early morning sky. In it, we see the North Star depicted through a patch of blue sky. Church has cleverly managed to create a highly patriotic scene which in some ways connects the American landscape with the Northern cause. It was a heartfelt cry for unity which sadly was not listened to. It was such a popular work that the Manhattan art dealer, Goupil & Co. commissioned Church to produce a chromolithograph of the work and, within a few months, hundreds of copies were bought up by the public.

Isabel Carnes Church by Frederic Church (1860)

It was during the New York exhibition of his Andes painting that Frederic Church met Isabel Carnes. In 1860 just three months before his marriage to Isabel, Church bought some 126 acres of farmland, close to the towns of Hudson and Catskill and situated on a south sloping hill, overlooking the Hudson River. He was familiar with this site as he had visited the area whilst on a painting trip with Thomas Cole in 1845. As he still lived in New York, this new acquisition would be the family country get-away. Church employed the foremost architect of the time, Richard Morris Hunt, to construct a cottage and design this ferme ornée. The term means an ‘ornamented farm’, and describes a country estate laid out partly according to aesthetic principles and partly for farming. Church and his wife referred to the small cottgae on the estate as their Cosy Cottage and it was surrounded by gardens and orchards and Church even had a section of marshland drained so as to build his own expansive ten acre lake. Over time he bought up more of the adjoining land and eventually his estate encompassed 250 acres.

Fern Walk, Jamaica by Frederic Church (1865)

He and his wife lead a settled and happy life and he spent most of his time tending to his farm but his happiness was shattered in March 1865 when both his young children contracted diphtheria and died a week apart. In an attempt to counteract the intense grief suffered after their children’s death, he and his wife along with some friends travelled to Jamaica where, for five months, Frederic immersed himself in a painting frenzy whilst his wife collected numerous species of ferns which she would later bring back home and which would form part of her fern garden. Isabel’s interest in ferns and Frederic’s love of depicting nature in his painting were combined in his 1865 work entitled Fern Walk, Jamaica in which Church depicts a narrow path winding through luxuriant plants and ferns. The shades of greens and browns which he used in depicting the native flora is breathtaking. Frederic Church loved his stay in Jamaica. He loved sketching plein air in the tropical light and, on his return to America, would often encourage other landscape artists to venture on painting trips to the Caribbean island. In a letter he wrote to the landscape artist, Charles de Wolf Bramwell, he extolled the Fern Walk area of the island, writing:

“…the vegetation, next to that on the Magdalena River, the finest I ever saw –– The ferns, especially in the region known as Fern Walk — excelled every place…”

Ed Deir, Petra Jordan by Frederic Church (1868)

The couple returned home from Jamaica and in 1866 Isabel Church gave birth to a son, Frederic Junior. The following year Frederic and Isabel, along with their son and Isabel’s mother, set off on a two-year long journey of Europe and the Holy Land. They visited Jerusalem and from there headed to Jordan where Church, after an arduous ten day journey by mule, arrived at the ancient city of Petra. During the long trip Church continually sketched and painted. It was a trip which was fraught with danger from not only local bandits, but from the native porters which were helping Church’s party get to their destination. These Arabs were very superstitious about his sketching but were eventually won over by his skill. He finally arrived at Petra and made the long climb up above the city to the monastery of Ed Deir, which in the first century AD was a Nabatean temple. Frederic Church completed his beautiful oil and graphite painting entitled Ed Dier, Petra, Jordan, Unbelievable at it may sound but Church completed the work in just one sitting, in 1868.

From the Holy Land, Frederic Church returned to Europe visiting Rome and Athens and also the Bavarian Alpine region, Switzerland and Austria which had always been a popular venue for landscape painters. Church was drawn to this area as he was always searching for beautiful vistas to paint. He liked the area as he believed there was a marked similarity between the geography of the area and that of the rugged American landscapes which he knew so well. In July 1868 he visited the Königsee, the beautiful Upper Bavarian lake which nestles amongst steep-sided cliffs. Sheltered from the weather, the surface of the lake is often mirror-like reflecting the surrounding mountains. He completed a beautiful work entitled Königsee that month and it is a poignant reminder to me of the times I have visited the lake and stood in awe before it, mesmerised by its beauty.

South West Facade of Olana by Frederic Church (1870) — South West Facade of Olana
A watercolour by Frederic Church (1870)

Frederic Church in 1867 was becoming homesick and wanted to return to America and his country estate. Since he bought it seven years earlier he had been constantly planning the landscape design for the land and the architectural design for a large house on the top of the hill. Richard Morris Hunt, his architect, had submitted plans for a large French chateau-style house and Church had liked the idea and agreed to the design. However having returned from his tour of the Levant and studied the architecture of the area, he changed his mind. He decided to discharge Hunt and take on the British-born American architect and landscape designer Calvert Vaux who was based in Manhattan and had in 1858, along with Frank Law Olmstead had won a design competition to improve and expand New York’s Central Park.

Frederic Church and Vaux worked on the plans for the design of the house which was to be the centrepiece of Church’s estate, which he and his wife Isabel named Olana after a fortress-treasure house in ancient Persia which like Church’s estate also overlooked a river valley. The building project was completed in 1872.

As Church got older he spent more and more time on his farm and concentrated his time running the estate. From the 1870’s onwards Church suffered badly from rheumatoid arthritis which badly affected his right arm curtailing much of his art work although he did teach himself to paint with his left hand. Frederic Church died in 1900, aged 74 and is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery in Hartford, Connecticut.

I will finish this blog with a look at the painting by Frederic Church, which most impressed me at the exhibition. It is entitled Forest Pool and was completed by Frederic Church around 1860. It was almost the first work I came across as I entered the exhibition room and I had to keep coming back to it in order to savour its beauty. I stood before it and could not believe the quality of the painting. Such beautifully drawn details. Such beautiful colour and tones. The work was a close-up view of a dense forest and a small forest pool. Every square inch of the work is covered in rich shades of green and brown and although it was a study for a larger painting, it seems as if it is a finished work. The artist has delightfully depicted the tranquillity of the forest scene with the calm surface of the pond offering up reflections of the trees and their branches and spots of sunlight. If you look closely at the upper middle part of the composition you will just be able to make out a hint of blue sky which is otherwise blocked by the screen of trees.

The Frederic Church exhibition at the National Gallery is worth going to see for this painting alone.

“Moonlights” by John Atkinson Grimshaw

Moonlight, Wharfdale by Atkinson Grimshaw (1865)

Today I am featuring some works by the English Victorian painter John Atkinson Grimshaw, who was born in Leeds in 1836. His father, David, at various times during his life, served as a policeman, worked for Pickfords and then as a Great Northern Railway worker in Leeds. His mother was Mary Grimshaw née Atkinson. John Atkinson Grimshaw was the eldest of six children. He and his siblings were brought up in a very religious household with both his parents being strict Baptists. He left school at the age of sixteen and became a clerk at the Great Northern Railway headquarters in Leeds. It was whilst working and living in Leeds that he was able to visit one of the many art galleries and see the works of some of the Pre-Raphaelite painters such as Holman Hunt and Henry Wallis. He also loved and was influenced by the works of the Leeds-born Pre-Raphaelite landscape artist John William Inchbold. While he was employed as a clerk much of Atkinson’s free time was taken up by his love of art. He was a self-taught artist who received no formal training.

In 1857 Atkinson Grimshaw married his cousin Frances Theodosia Hubbard and the couple went on to have twelve children although sadly only six survived to be become teenagers. Of those who survived, many went on to become artists like their father. In 1861, much to his parents’ horror Grimshaw, gave up his work at the railway company and decided to become a professional artist. He first exhibited som of his art work in 1862 and at this time he had concentrated on still life works depicting fruit and blossom and some paintings of birds. He also managed to gain his first commissions from the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society. Over time, Grimshaw developed his own highly individual style, and subject matter. He became a talented painter of autumnal scenes and also works which depicted twilight and night time scenes, lit by moonlight reflected on the wet cobbled streets, sometimes depicting horse-drawn traffic and handsome cabs. These were known as his “moonlights”. His paintings would often depict street scenes swathed in fog and smog from pollution that so often enveloped cities and towns at that time.

Shipping on the Clyde by Atkinson Grimshaw (1881)

He also painted many nocturnal harbour and dockyard scenes with the spiky outlines of the ships’ masts rearing up against a darkening sky. Examples of this type of work can be seen in his paintings such as Liverpool from Wapping (1875), Nightfall down the Thames (1880), Shipping on the Clyde (1881), The Thames by Moonlight (1884), Liverpool Quay by Moonlight (1887) and Prince’s Dock, Hull (1887). Grimshaw’s works were more varied than just this as he painted many portraits, fairy pictures, and the most elaborate pictures of attractively dressed young women in opulent interiors. During his early period he signed his paintings “J.A. Grimshaw” or “JAG” but in 1867 Grimshaw dropped his first name, John, and from then on signed his works “Atkinson Grimshaw”.

Atkinson Grimshaw always considered himself to be a Northerner, a Yorkshire man and Leeds, for most of his life, remained his base. Grimshaw rarely travelled to London although he did set up a studio and live there for a short time in the mid 1880’s, and it was during this time he became friends with James McNeil Whistler. His reputation as an artist was further enhanced when one of his paintings was accepted for exhibition at the Royal Academy. However the fact that over the years, he only ever submitted five of his paintings to the Royal Academy probably meant that he set little store by what the RA could do for him and he knew he had numerous northern business men queuing up to buy his work. Over time, he slowly built up a large clientele for his work, including some London art dealers, especially the William Agnew Gallery, and with this artistic success came wealth, so much so that in 1870 he was able to move his family into Knostrop Hall on the outskirts of the city.

Knostrop Old Hall, Leeds by Atkinson Grimshaw

Knostrop Hall was a magnificent 17^th century stone-built manor house, which featured in many of his paintings. He also had a house in Scarborough for use in the summer. He called it Castle-by-the-sea.

Atkinson Grimshaw died of cancer in October 1893 at Knostrop Old Hall, and was buried in Woodhouse cemetery in Leeds. He was especially appreciated by middle-class clients, many of whom were northern industrialists. Grimshaw’s dock scenes of Liverpool, Hull and Glasgow, and the manor houses seen at the end of leafy, stone-walled suburban lanes, along which a single figure walks, were especially popular.

Atkinson Grimshaw had campaigned for a number of years for the building of Leeds City Art Gallery. After much wrangling and a prolonged struggle with the authorities the Leeds Art Gallery opened in October 1888 and was financed by public subscription, collected in honour of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. The artist Hubert Herkomer formally opened the building, and presented an example of his work to the collection. The Gallery mounted annual spring exhibitions in which Grimshaw always put forward works for inclusion.

Atkinson Grimshaw had a unique style and is remembered as one of the minor Victorian masters and his place in art history will be assured by his depiction of Victorian life and his haunting moonlight which became his trademark.

Having said that, there was an element of controversy about his work. As I said at the start of his biography, Atkinson had not received any formal artistic tuition, got married at the age of twenty-one and four years later despite now being a family man, had given up his job as a railway clerk to become a professional artist. He had now to make money from his art work and to do this had to reach a level of artistic competence which would guarantee that his work would sell. So how did he achieve such a feat? John Ruskin, the art critic had recommended that artists should paint directly from nature but to do this one had to have had some training in draughtsmanship and perspective and so Atkinson Grimshaw in a way decided to “cheat”. He discovered that by projecting a photograph or a lantern slide on to a blank canvas he was able to produce an immediate composition. Then he would go over the outlines in pencil. Over which he would add colours and the end result was a glossy finish which had removed all traces of the pencilled outline. The finished landscapes and cityscapes sold well and for a time made him very wealthy. However despite his success, other artists who had studied and trained in traditional academic methods for years despised his productions and in one of Grimshaw’s obituary notices it was written:

“…[his pictures] excited considerable controversy among contemporary artists, not a few [of whom] were doubtful whether they could be accepted as paintings at all…”

To be fair to Grimshaw the technique he used would not have caused such controversy nowadays and the question remains, does the end justify the means? So let me finish with a kinder obituary notice which simply stated:

“…A Leeds artist of very great ability has passed away. He may be regarded as self-taught in all that gave character and distinction to his art. His methods, treatment and colouring were quite unlike anything in ordinary practice…”