Renoir – my daily art display

Maritime Art. Part 3.

The pleasure the sea and the shoreline brings to us.

Having looked at Marine Art with depictions of mighty sailing ships in Part 1., and the plight of fishermen and lifeboatmen battling raging seas in Part 2., this third and final part will concentrate on the tranquillity of the sea and the shoreline A and how people enjoy the elements.

When I was last in Madrid and had spent a few days and many hours in the main Museums of Art, such as the Prado, Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Museo Reina Sofia, I decided to visit the Sorolla Museum, featuring work by the Spanish artist Joaquin Sorolla as well as by members of his family such as his daughter Elena.

Strolling along the Seashore by Joaquin Sorolla (1909)

Sorolla completed a number of beautiful works featuring the serenity of simply walking along a beach. It is an abnormally large square canvas (200 x 208cms) for a seascape work with life-sized figures. The two figures are of his wife, Clotilde and his daughter Maria as they walk along the Playa de El Cabanyal beach in their hometown of Valencia. Both women wear long white sundresses. There is an air of elegance and sophistication regarding mother and daughter and they appear to be members of the upper class whiling away their time at the beach on a beautiful summer’s day. Because of our viewpoint we do not see the horizon and the background is the sea with white foam atop the waves. Sorolla has used many shades of blue to depict the shimmering sea.

Running Along the Beach, Valencia by Joaquin Sorolla (1908)

Nothing expresses happiness and excitement more than children running along the shoreline without a care in the world. Sorolla’s painting entitled Running Along the Beach captures the energy and movement of the three children as they race along the water’s edge. The city of Valencia and its beaches were Sorolla’s great loves despite the fact that he resided in Madrid. He spent many hours at the beach painting en plein air capturing the effects of the beautiful Mediterranean sunlight.

Summer’s Day on Skagen’s Southern Beach by Peder Severin Krøyer (1884)

Boys Bathing at Skagen, Summer’s Evening by Peder Severin Krøyer (1899)

From looking at the marine/seascape paintings they produced, life at Skagen in Denmark must have been an idyllic way for the artist colony painters and their families to relax and enjoy their lives.

Summer Evening on Skagen Beach, Portrait of the Artist’s Wife by Peder Severin Krøyer (c.1899)

His painting, Summer Evening on Skagen Beach, Portrait of the Artist’s Wife, was part of Peder Severin Krøyer’s iconic, large scale ‘blue period’. Krøyer arrived in Skagen for the first time in 1882. Soon he became captivated by the light, the landscape and the simple lifestyle of the local community. He returned every year during the summer months, whilst spending the rest of the year travelling or in Copenhagen where he had his studio. In the summer of 1889, around the time he completed this painting, he had married Marie Triepeke, a Danish painter, whom he had had met in Paris, shortly after she arrived in the French capital in December 1888. Marie ran into Krøyer at the Café de la Régence, a favourite with the many Danish artists living in the city at the end of the 1880s. As Krøyer affection for Skagen grew, he began to take more of an interest in the vast expanses of sea, sand and sky. In the painting the two figures are set into a blue half-light, which was a favourite with the artists of the Symbolist movement.

Anna Ancher and Marie Krøyer going for an Evening Walk along Sønderstrand by Michael Ancher (1897)

A Stroll on the Bach by Michael Ancher (1896)

Another Skagen painter, who depicted the sea and shoreline was the Dane, Michael Ancher. He is renowned for his many works of Skagen’s fishermen and their battle with the harsh nature of the seas around Skagen, but he also produced paintings which highlighted the more tranquil side of life in the coastal town. When in the early 1890s Peder Krøyer painted his first blue-toned atmospheric pictures depicting Skagen South beach, Ancher was inspired by these images. In Ancher’s early paintings of Skagen from around the 1880s, the beach is first and foremost a place of work for the fishermen, but in the 1890s, Ancher saw the beach as becoming a promenade for the bourgeoisie, and in this work, this is just what Ancher has depicted. In the painting, A Stroll on the Beach, we see the merchant and counsellor, Lars Holst’s four daughters and a friend: In the front, Ida Holst, on the left, her sister, Anna Holst with her friend Elisabeth Bang, then Minne and on the right, Sophie Holst.

Eagle Head Massachusettes (High Tide} by Wilmslow Homer (1870)

Spending time at the beach can be a way of relaxing and clearing one’s mind of bustling city life. It can also be a place when one can enjoy solitude and try and rid our minds of things we strive to forget. This painting, Eagle Head Massachusetts (High Tide} was completed by American artist Wilmslow Homer in 1870. In 1861 his employer, Harpers, sent him to the front lines of the American Civil War, where he sketched battle scenes and camp life, the quiet moments as well as the chaotic ones. During his time as an illustrator for the magazine he witnesses the horrors of war and this painting was one of serene tranquillity which Homer had desired after his time at the Front. After the long war, he turned his focus to lighter scenes and started concentrating on fashionable young women. The High Tide painting is believed to be Homer’s most daring subject. It depicts three women on the beach having emerged from a swim in the sea. The woman in the centre rings out her wet hair, startling the small dog which looks on. The painting received mixed reviews with some focusing on issues of decorum and class, criticizing the women’s state of undress, despite the fact that they are wearing typical bathing costumes of the era. Another criticised how Homer had depicted the women as “exceedingly red-legged and ungainly”.

At the Seaside by William Merritt Chase (c.1892)

William Merritt Chase was the most important teacher of American artists around the turn of the 20th century. From 1891 to 1902, Chase served as the director of the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art in the town of Southampton, on Long Island, New York. The school and Chase’s stay on Long Island were organised by Mrs. Janet S. Hoyt, a wealthy patron of the arts and an artist who lived in the Shinnecock Hills. Chase taught two days each week and spent the rest of his time painting and enjoying the company of his family. In his painting, At the Seaside, we see women and children enjoying themselves on the beach, along Shinnecock Bay. It is a depiction of genteel leisure on a perfect day, at a perfect location. Chase has depicted a broad expanse of sky that fills the upper half of the canvas. We see the rushing clouds cleverly echoing the bright white forms of the children’s dresses and the Japanese-style parasols.

Crowd at the Seashore by William Glackens (1910)

William Glackens, known as an urban realist, favoured the crowded Coney Island beaches of New Jersey to depict the egalitarian throngs that came together there to relax and enjoy the sun and sea. The mass of figures depicted in his painting Crowd at the Seashore, suggested that the folk from New York and New Jersey who came were of mixed socio-economic backgrounds. Glackens desire to introduce liveliness into the work was achieved by using a vibrant palette. To heighten the scene’s energy, Glackens used a vivid palette and vigorous brushstrokes, and he added saturated oranges and blues to conjure up the midday sun’s heat and glare. William Glackens painted many pictures featuring beach scenes which became very popular.

Shadows on the Sea. The Cliffs at Pourville by Monet (1882)

Monet’s painting entitled Shadows on the Sea is an excellent example of Impressionism and we are able to observe the individual brushstrokes of the wave. Monet has depicted shadows, reflections and movements by a series of short, curved brushstrokes in pure, unmixed pigments. It is interesting to note how Monet has used pure colours such as yellow and turquoise blue on parts of the wave and placed them next to each other. Our eyes blend them from a distance and we begin to see green waves. The setting for the work is a hot summer day by the sea, and we note that the strong wind flowing across the water disturbs it, and it becomes a million small, flashing mirrors, which is exactly what Monet had hoped to convey.

Cliff Walk at Pourville by Claude Monet (1882)

The Cliff Walk at Pourville is an 1882 work by Claude Monet and is currently part of the Art Institute of Chicago collection. Monet had a three-month stay between February and April 1882 at Pourville, a commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in northern France, in 1882. He fell in love with the coastal town and the surrounding area and wrote to his future wife, Alice Hoschedé, extolling its merits:

“…How beautiful the countryside is becoming, and what joy it would be for me to show you all its delightful nooks and crannies…”

She was impressed by Monet’s enthusiasm and so they returned to Pourville in June that year. The painting features two ladies on the cliff above the sea who could well be Alice and her daughter Blanche. Many years later an X-ray of the painting indicated that the artist originally painted a third figure into the grouping, but later removed it. In John House’s 1986 book, Monet: Nature into Art, he talked about Monet’s marine art:

“…His cliff tops rarely show a single sweep of terrain. Instead, there are breaks in space; the eye progresses into depth by a succession of jumps; distance is expressed by planes overlapping each other and by atmospheric rather than linear perspective- by softening the focus and changes of colour…”

Figures on the Beach by Renoir (1890)

Another seaside scene I like was painted by Auguste Renoir in 1890 and entitled Figures on the Beach. The setting is thought to have been a beach on the Cote d’Azur in southern France. It is a sun-filled work in which we see two females at the beach, one shown in profile, sitting whilst holding a parasol on the sand, the other standing with her back to us holding a small wicker hamper. Besides the two female we also have a small white dog lying in the sand next to the seated woman. In the mid-ground we see a young boy dressed in blue standing by the water’s edge throwing stones into the sea.

Sea Bathing, the Beach at Étretat by Eugène Lepoittevin, (1864)

Sea Bathing in Étretat by Eugène Lepoittevin (1866)

My final two offerings featuring marine art and the way people enjoy their time on beaches and in the sea are from the French artist, Eugène Lepoittevin, who achieved an early and lifelong success as a landscape and maritime painter. In the upper painting entitled Les Bains de Mer, Plage d’Étretat (Sea Bathing, the Beach at Étretat), completed in 1864, we see a large group of people enjoying their day at the seaside. Of these figures some have been identified. They include the prominent French author, Guy de Maupassant (in blue cap at left), Charles Landelle, the French portrait artist, (in red cap, centre), and the French illustrator, engraver, Bertall (reading newspaper at right). The painting which was completed in 1864 was lost and only rediscovered in the last decade and was sold at Sotheby’s in Paris, in December 2020, for €226,800, a record for a work by Lepoittevin.

Sea Bathing, the Beach at Étretat is also the title of another of Lepoittevin’s works and was completed in 1866. The setting is the tranquil shores of Étretat, a place for plein air painting favoured by the artist. It had everything he wanted – pristine beaches and dramatic cliffs with its natural arches carved by the relentless seas. Add to this people enjoying the good weather and the opportunity to bathe in the clear water and the scene becomes idyllic.

Alfred Sisley. Part 1: The early years.

The artist I am looking at today is not one of my “unknown” painters I often showcase. This artist is well known and his works are in collections all around the world. Today’s featured painter is Alfred Sisley.

Felicity and William Sisley, Alfred’s parents.

Alfred Sisley was born on October 30th 1839 at 19 rue des Trois Bornes which was in what was then the 4th arrondissement of Paris. He was the son of the British couple, William Sisley, and Felicity Sisley (née Sell) and although born in France, he retained his British citizenship. Little is known about his siblings. Some articles say he was one of four children, others say he just had one older sibling who died young. Alfred’s maternal ancestors came from the English county of Kent and were said to have been smugglers and tradesmen. His parents were affluent. His father owned a silk exportation business which he had established in 1839. Little is known about Sisley’s schooling except to say in the Spring of 1857, when he was almost eighteen years old, his father sent him to London to learn how to embark on a career in commerce. It is clear that Sisley had neither an aptitude for, nor a love of, commerce. However, the upside for young Alfred was that being in London he was able to visit museums and exhibitions and began to fall in love with the works of Gainsborough, Turner and Constable as well as the Dutch and Flemish artists, such as Hobbema and Ruisdael, which he saw at the National Gallery.

Portrait of Alfred Sisley by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (ca. 1875)

In 1860 Sisley returned home to Paris. Whether his father realised that his son lacked the ability to follow in his footsteps as a tradesman or whether Sisley had bombarded his father with his desire to become an artist, will never be known, but in 1860, Alfred Sisley began studying at the Paris École des Beaux-Arts within the atelier of Swiss artist Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre. Many famous French artists had passed through Gleyere’s studio, such as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frédéric Bazille, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and Auguste Toulmouche.

Sisley, like his friend Renoir and Monet, left the atelier Gleyre around 1864 when it closed and they decided to move to the rural area of Fontainebleau and the small town of Barbizon. Sisley worked in Chailly-en-Bière and later in Marlotte near Fontainebleau. Renoir recalled the days spent with Sisley. In a letter to the art critic Adolphe Tavernier, Renoir wrote:

“…When I was young, I would take my paintbox and a shirt, Sisley and I would leave Fontainebleau and walked until we reached a village. Sometimes we did not come back until we had run out of money about a week later…”

The Inn of Mother Anthony by Renoir (1866)

Renoir had been sharing Sisley’s Paris studio since July 1865 and in February 1866 the two of them along with Renoir’s friend, the artist Jules Le Coeur set out to walk across the Forest of Fontainebleau passing through the villages of Milly and Courances on their way to Marlotte, a village on the southern edge of the Fontainebleau Forest, close to the River Loing. Renoir immortalised the group in his 1866 painting The Inn of Mère Anthony. In the depiction we see that Renoir has had his friends, Le Coeur, Sisley, Mère Anthony and her daughter pose for the painting in the main room of the inn at Marlotte.

Rue de village à Marlotte (Village Street in Marlotte) by Alfred Sisley (1866). Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

One of many paintings completed by Sisley around this time was entitled Village Street in Marlotte. The painting portrays a solitary figure chopping wood. A sombre palette of greens, browns, and grey-blues underscores an overall feeling of isolation. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Sisley seldom travelled and did not feel compelled to depict urban life, industrialization, and the more dramatic aspects of nature, contenting himself with painting the world close at hand.

Women going to the Woods by Alfred Sisley (1866)

Another work by Sisley was entitled Women going to the Woods and depicts three elderly women wrapped up against the cold who are setting out to the forest, probably to collect firewood and is a reminder that people were reliant on the forest for their existence. Both of Sisley paintings were exhibited at the 1866 Paris Salon.

In 1866 Sisley met a thirty-two-year-old florist named Marie-Louise Eugénie Adelaide Lescouezec. According to Renoir she seemed “exceedingly well bred.” Little is known about her upbringing but reports have it that her family’s financial hardships forced her to become an artist’s model, which often had an unsavoury connotation. Yet another account tells of her early life being difficult after her father, an officer, was killed in a duel when she was a young girl. None of this affected in any way Sisley’s love for her and he was to remain devoted to her until her death in 1898. On June 17th 1868, a year after they met, the couple’s son Pierre was born, followed by a daughter, Jeanne-Adèle, on January 29th 1869. Renoir painted the couple the year they were married. She was dressed in a bright-coloured red and yellow gown.

Avenue of Chestnut Trees near La Celle-Saint-Cloud by Alfred Sisley (1867)

At the 1868 Salon, Sisley had just one of his paintings exhibited. It was his Avenue of Chestnut Trees near La Celle-Saint-Cloud which he had completed the previous year. It was a large painting (96 x 122cms) and depicts a verdant view through a densely wooded part of the forest, six kilometres west of the village of La-Celle-Saint-Cloud, located in the western suburbs of Paris, 15 kms from the centre. This was the third time Sisley had depicted the forest in his painting. There had been two earlier works of differing sizes, both entitled Avenue of Chestnut Trees at La-Celle-Saint-Cloud, which he completed in 1865. The forest was very popular with Parisians who wanted to briefly escape city life. Look how Sisley has used a shifting range of greens and browns to bring the picture to life. Note the clever way he has used dappled brushwork on the trunks of the trees. Look how we are led through the avenue of trees which propels us back, penetrating the depth of the canvas. If you look closely at Sisley’s work you will notice a solitary deer on the right mid-ground almost lost from view camouflaged by the dark tree trunks. So why the solitary deer? It could well have something to do with having the painting accepted into the Salon by the jurists. Landscape paintings had an inferior position in the hierarchy of pictorial-subject matter by the art establishment, so maybe Sisley realised that a connection with the monarchy would stand him in good stead of having the Salon jury accept the work as his depiction was of the royal hunting grounds of Napoleon III.

The Avenue at Middelharnis by Meindert Hobbema, (1689)

This view down a majestic avenue of trees harks back to paintings Sisley may have seen whilst in London, such as one of his favourite artist’s works, The Avenue at Middelharnis, by Hobbema which hangs in the National Gallery.

Forest of Fontainebleau, undergrowth at Bas-Bréau by Gustave LeGray (1852) Albumen print from a waxed paper negative

Another work which may have influenced him and which he had probably seen at Musée d’Orsay, was Gustave LeGray’s 1855 photograph Forêt de Fontainebleau, sous-bois au Bas-Bréau [Forest of Fontainebleau, undergrowth at Bas-Bréau]. LeGray had received a commission from the committee for historic monuments to photograph the most noteworthy monuments in France and in 1852 and again in 1857 he produced two large collections of photographs of the Forest of Fontainebleau. It is reported that during his walks around Bas-Bréau, in the heart of the forest, LeGray would place his camera right in the middle of the path, at the exact place where he had been struck by the light shimmering through the foliage and he used the line of the path, in this rich composition, to draw the eye towards the clearing where the tree trunks are bathed in light. In this way he produced the image of a site that was very popular with painters. The depiction is all about the forest. There are no human or animal presence to disturb the natural spectacle.

Barges on the Canal Saint Martin in Paris by Alfred Sisley (1870)

Of all the Impressionist, Sisley was the one who loved the countryside the most and liked to paint rural scenes. He was not an urban painter and only completed a smaller number of works which focused on Paris and the Parisian scene favoured by the likes of Renoir and Monet. Indeed, of the very few paintings directly inspired by the French capital, some were depictions of the Canal Saint-Martin in the north-east of the city. It is a 4.6 km long canal in Paris, with nine locks, connecting the Canal de l’Ourcq to the River Seine. Originally built to supply the city with fresh water to support a growing population and help avoid diseases such as dysentery and cholera while also supplying fountains and allowing the streets to be cleaned. Construction of the canal started in 1802 and was completed in 1825. The canal was also used to supply Paris with grain, building materials and other goods, carried on canal boats. It formed part of a continuous network of waterways extending across the city connecting the upper and lower parts of the Seine. One of Sisley’s painting featuring the waterway was his 1870 painting Barges on the Canal Saint-Martin.

A similar work was his 1870 painting Vue du Canal Sint-Martin, which is housed at the Musée d’Orsay. Whereas other artists like Monet and Renoir

The Canal St Martin by Alfred Sisley (1870)

focused on the beauty of the French capital with its spacious sunlit boulevards created by Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann and the newly built apartment blocks. For artists like Renoir and Monet urban life was all about wealth and leisure. For Sisley it was about toil and poverty. He wanted to concentrate on the reality of Paris and life in the capital and not just the picturesque but idealised version of the metropolis and so he focused on the working quays of the Canal Saint-Martin. In the painting we see a wide stretch of the Canal St Martin near the Bassin de la Villette. On either side of the canal, houses and warehouses overlook the waterway and in the central midground is one of the locks. Further back and in the direction of central Paris buildings appear through the haze. Looking at his depiction we know there is a strong breeze which stirs up the water and the time of day deduced by looking at the length of the shadows made by the trees in the water, it must have been around midday. What is also important about Sisley’s painting is the way he has depicted the cloud formations and the nature of the light and its reflections on the water. He captures the moment with his use of a silvery palette of blues and greys, constantly thickening the paint for the highlights on the water. It would be one of the trademarks of his work as an Impressionist.

Alfred Sisley’s finances at this time were said to be at best, perilous and he often had to turn to friends and family for loans. Things were to get worse with the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. From September 1870 to January 1871, the French capital was besieged by Prussian forces and one of the dire consequences for Sisley was that his father’s business collapsed and William Sisley was financially ruined. His father lost everything and died shortly thereafter. Alfred’s money stream from his father was over. Sisley’s sole means of support became the sale of his works.

..……….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.

La Loge by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Today’s featured work of art was not my original intended offering. That sounds somewhat strange but actually there is logic to my decision. I was researching a painting when I came across today’s work and there seemed, at least in my mind, a good reason to offer you today’s painting before I showcased my original work.

The French word La Loge in the context of a theatre means the theatre box and it has been the subject of a number of paintings. Today I want to look at La Loge by Pierre-Auguste Renoir which he completed in 1874 and now hangs at The Courtauld Gallery in London. Today this work of art by the Impressionist painter is looked upon as one of the most significant works of the Impressionist movement. At the time of this painting it was estimated that over 200,000 theatre tickets were sold every week in Paris. However, going to a Parisian theatre in the nineteenth century was not just about taking in the latest plays by the likes of Victor Hugo or Alexandre Dumas or the less formal vaudeville shows which were also very popular at the time, it was about being seen by other theatregoers. Men would accompany and flaunt their wives or lovers. Proud fathers would show off their daughters and “out-of-towners” would take the opportunity of dressing up and sample the Parisian lifestyle. It was an almost indoor form of promenading, which was the leisurely walking in public places dressed in one’s finery and carried out as a social activity. Attending the theatre was a chance to showcase one’s most expensive clothes and accoutrements as well as parading one’s latest beau. What could be more satisfying than to flaunt one’s wealth or one’s new lover? It was a question of seeing and being seen and going to the theatre dominated the cultural life of the city. As well as seeing actors on the theatre stage the theatregoers were actually quietly performing on their own social stage.

The way Renoir has depicted the scene in the theatre box sums up this attitude. We see a lady and gentleman seated in their box. Take a look at their demeanour. Are they depicted as locked in concentration at what is happening on the stage below? No they are not. The lady stares out at us with her gloved hand holding her opera glasses and resting it on the lavish velvet frontage of the box whilst her other hand clasps a black fan and a white lace handkerchief in her lap. Protocol of the day demanded that ladies must wear gloves on formal occasions.

Her face is now not hidden from view by her opera glasses. She is revealing her face to all who may wish to gaze at her. So how would you describe her? Is there a delicate elegance about her or does she look rather brash. She is without doubt beautiful and has little trepidation about letting people admire her from afar. She wears a lavish dress, one she has probably saved for this very outing. This is her tenue de premiere or opening-night attire. Her costume would often be referred to as a robe à la polonaise or polonaise which was popular in the late eighteenth century and saw a was revival a hundred years later in the 1870’s. It consisted of a fitted overdress which extended into long panels over an underskirt. The magic of Renoir’s painting is that from a far one can see the three dimensional form of the dress with all its folds and yet up close it was just a series of brushstrokes. It is almost magical the way the artist has painted this work.

The elegant dress oozes a sense of wealth but that is not the only thing which advertises the financial situation of the couple. The style of the dress also oozes the ladies sensuality. Note the position of the rose which immediately draws our eyes to the décolletage which emphasizes her cleavage. The low-cut neckline was a popular feature of evening gowns of that era. Another rose placed in her hair once again draws our eyes to her simple but elegant coiffure.

Look at her neck and the pearl necklace she is wearing. Also we can just make out a pair of diamond earrings dangling from her ears and if we look at the hand which holds her opera glasses we note a gold bracelet around her slender wrist. The wealth is there for us to see but more importantly it is there for the other theatregoers to note.

This is a summation of the “seen and being seen” philosophy. She is wanting to be seen in all her finery whilst he is concentrating on seeing. Renoir used one of his regular models, Nini Lopez, as the model for the lady.

The sitter for her male companion in the theatre box was Edmund Renoir, the brother of the artist. He, like the lady, is dressed elegantly in his formal clothes. Renoir has depicted him wearing a white shirt with a starched cravat, black trousers and gold cufflinks. His attire, which is typical of that of the wealthy male theatregoer also exudes a sense of affluence but its plainness and subdued colour allows the more colourful female to be the centre of attention.

The aspect of this painting which we cannot be sure about and I will leave you to decide is whether we are seeing a husband and wife out for an evening at the theatre or are we looking a wealthy man accompanied by an elegantly dressed courtesan. Can we deduce the truth from looking at the painting but beware of falling into the trap of being too judgemental !!!

Renoir exhibited this painting in the First Impressionist Exhibition which was held in the former studio of the photographer Nadar at 35 boulevard des Capucines in Paris on April 15, 1874. This work, which gives us an insight into Parisian life in the late nineteenth century, is now hailed as a masterpiece of art and one of the most significant works of the Impressionist movement. At the time it was exhibited it helped establish the reputation of Renoir. The painting gives us an insight into life in the French capital during the late nineteenth century.

The Floor-scrapers by Gustave Caillebotte

Although I am sure people love to see the paintings of the so-called “Masters”, I believe it is good to look at the works of lesser known artists and by doing so, one can discover hidden gems. After Renoir’s famous painting Luncheon of the Boating Party,which I featured yesterday, I decided today that I would look for a painter, who until yesterday had been unknown to me. However, I do understand that this may be due to my simple lack of artistic knowledge and in fact the artist is well known to you, if so, I apologise!

It is often the case that when I am researching a painting I come across another artist, whom I have never heard of, and that is the reason for my choice of artist today. Amongst the guests at Renoir’s luncheon was his friend and lesser known Impressionist, Gustave Caillebotte and I decided to make him my artist of the day and I want to look at his unusual painting entitled Les raboteurs de parquet [The Floor Planers].

Caillebotte was born in Paris in 1848 and brought up in a very respectable and very wealthy upper-class family environment. His father, Martial had inherited the family textile business. Martial Caillebotte had been widowed twice before he met and married Gustave’s mother, Céleste. When Gustave was eighteen his father moved the family home from Paris to the town of Yerres, a south-eastern suburb of Paris on the Yerres River, an area which was familiar to the family as they had spent many summers there.

Gustave studied law when he was twenty years old and passed all his exams two years later. That year, he was drafted into army to fight in the Franco-Prussian War. It was after the war and on leaving military service that Gustave wanted to concentrate on art and study painting. He set up an artist’s studio in the family home and in 1873 he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The following year his father died and in 1878 his mother passed away, at which time the three brothers shared the family fortune. It was also around this time that Gustave met and became friends with Edgar Degas and came into contact with the Impressionists, a group of artists who had rebelled against Academicism art and academic painters, whose works were exhibited in the Paris Salon. This group of artists had their own Impressionist exhibitions, the first of which was held in 1874.

In 1876 the Impressionists held their second exhibition and Caillebotte exhibited eight of his paintings including today’s featured work, The Floor Scrapers, which he completed in 1875. The style of this work belongs to the Realism genre but unfortunately for Gustave the art establishment only considered peasants and farmers from the countryside as acceptable subjects in works of art which highlighted the realism of working-class life.

The Floor-scrapers, sometimes known as The Floor-strippers was painted in the artist’s family home. It is a painting which depicts working class people hard at work and although that in itself was not an unusual subject for French paintings as it had been done many times before but the difference was that in previous French paintings, the depiction of the hardships of the working class was all about working class farmers or country peasants. This painting depicts the urban working class and as such it was one of the first such representations. Caillebotte presented his painting for the exhibition at the Paris Salon in 1875 but it was rejected. The Jury of the Salon were shocked by its crude realism and some went so far as to describe it as being vulgar and offensive. The artist was both disappointed and angered by their stance and decided that exhibiting his works at the Paris Salon was not going to be the future course for his paintings. Instead, he decided to align himself with another group of French artists, who like him, were disillusioned by the narrow views of the academics and had formed themselves into their own artistic group – the Impressionists.

The work of art today is simply a painting depicting men hard at work. Here we see three men stripping the varnish off the floor of the artist’s new apartment. There is neither a moralising message nor is there a left wing political message. Caillebotte is merely showing the men hard at work carrying out a strenuous task. This is why the artist was looked upon as one of the most gifted French realist painters of his time. Look how Caillebotte has depicted the musculature of the upper body of his three workers as they perform their back-breaking task on their hands and knees. See how the artist has made the light of the late afternoon streams through the long balcony window and illuminate their backs. It harks back to the heroes we saw centuries earlier when we looked at the paintings of the heroes of Antiquity. France, like Britain, had just gone through an Industrial Revolution and with urbanization came a new social class which was termed la classe ouvrière or working class and it was in complete contrast to the bourgeoisie. The hard working men we see in Caillebotte’s painting may have been brought up in the countryside and therefore they were used to exhausting and strenuous work and had moved to the city to seek their fortunes.

At the time of this painting, France was in its Second Empire stage and Paris was undergoing massive change under the Haussmann’s Renovation of Paris which was the great modernisation plan for the city which had been commissioned by Napoleon III. The project encompassed all aspects of urban planning, both in the centre of Paris and in the surrounding districts: streets and boulevards, regulations imposed on facades of buildings, public parks, sewers and water works, city facilities, and public monuments. The planning was influenced by many factors, not the least of which was the city’s history of street revolutions. This was a time of great change and in a way Caillebotte wanted to change art and what had been previously unacceptable, he wanted to be accepted but he was a little ahead of his time as far as this painting was concerned. There is a great contrast in colours used in the painting from the light blue walls to the dark browns of the floor and the men’s clothes. I note that a bottle of wine and a glass has been added – a French prerequisite to help with a day’s work !

Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Luncheon of the Boating Party by Auguste Renoir (1881)

My Daily Art Display today features one of the best known Impressionist paintings. It is Luncheon of the Boating Party by Renoir which he painted in 1881. Although I would rank Impressionism outside my top three favourite art genres, I was fascinated by this painting and the story behind it.

Maison Fournaise c. 1890 — Maison Fournaise (c.1890)

I suppose firstly I should examine the setting for the painting, which is the balcony at the Maison Fournaise. This building is situated on the ÎlIe de Chatou, an island situated across from the small town of Chatou, which is situated on the right bank of the Seine. Boating on the Seine became a very popular form of recreation in the middle of the eighteenth century and whereas Argenteuil, a little way upstream from Chatou, where the Seine is wider and with its more prevalent winds, attracted sailors, the Îlle de Chatou was the ideal spot for rowers. Alphonse Fournier, who was a river toll collector and a part-time boat carpenter, set up his boat building workshop along with his boat rental business in 1857. Alphonse also used to organise boat regattas and water festivals. At the same time, his wife, an accomplished cook, opened a restaurant next door. This restaurant, combined with the boat rental facility and its many organised boating events, was a very popular family-run business. Their daughter Louise-Alphonsine, who became a popular and well-known artist’s model, greeted the clients whilst their son Jules-Alphonse charmed the ladies and assisted them into the boats. Artists visiting Maison Fournaise were never short of potential models for as Renoir wrote:

“…..I was constantly spending my time chez Fournaise-there I found as many beautiful girls as one could ever wish to paint!…..”

The Island of Chatou had other thing going for it. Rail travel allowed Parisians easy access to this area in the countryside. If you look carefully under the awning you can just make out, at the top left, the blue-gray outline of the Chatou railroad bridge, part of the government’s recently completed transportation projects that had made access to this riverside destination possible to everybody, not just to the members of the upper class.

The setting also radiated peace and tranquillity along with its ideal light conditions and proved a haven for artists with the likes of Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Berte Morisot, Edouart Manet and Camille Pissaro often visiting the location. Auguste Renoir was also a regular caller and he once described his love of the establishment in a letter to friend:

“…You could find me anytime at Fournaise’s. There, I was fortunate enough to find as many splendid creatures as I could possibly desire to paint……….. I can’t leave Chatou, because my painting is not finished yet. It would be nice of you to come down here and have lunch with me. You won’t regret the trip, I assure you. There isn’t a lovelier place in all Paris surroundings….”

The Fournaises’ two businesses flourished until 1906 when Madame Fournaise closed the restaurant and four years later Alphonse Fournaise wound down his boat rental enterprise. Then, unfortunately, over the years, the deserted premises started to fall into disrepair. Madame Fournaise died in 1937. By the 1970’s the buildings were at the point of complete dereliction. However in 1977 the town of Chatou bought the building and five years later it listed it as a building of historic significance, joining the register of Les Monuments Historiques and restoration work began with the support from The Friends of Maison Fournaise and The Friends of French Art. Currently the building is a museum, La Fournaise Museum, and in 1990 a restaurant reopened on the premises

So now we know the setting for the painting let me introduce you to some of the people featured in this wonderful painting. As in a number of Renoir’s paintings, he liked to include portraits of his friends.

Aline Charigot, seen holding a dog, was a seamstress and part time model for Renoir. Aged twenty-seven at the time of the painting met Renoir in 1880 and they were married in 1890, despite a thirteen year age difference. The couple had three children, Pierre, Jean (who became the well-known filmmaker) and Claude. Despite being much younger than Renoir she died four years before him in 1915, aged 61 and was buried in the churchyard at Essoyes in the Champagne-Ardennes region of France which was her childhood home. Renoir who died a few months before his seventy-ninth, in Cagnes, was laid to rest alongside his beloved wife.
Jules-Alphonse Fournaise, wearing a straw boater and sportsman’s T shirt leans against the balustrade. He was the son of the owner of Maison Fournaise and was in charge of the boat rentals.
Louise-Alphonsine Fournaise, leaning against the balustrade is the daughter of the owner of the establishment and a war widow.
Baron Raoul Barbier, sporting a brown bowler hat, has his back to us as he engages the proprietor’s daughter in conversation. Formerly a cavalry officer and war hero later became mayor of colonial Saigon. The two loves in his life were women and horse racing.
Jules Laforgue, a Symbolist poet, journalist on the La Vie Moderne newspaper and private secretary to Charles Ephrussi (No.8)
Ellen Andrée, seen drinking from her glass. Aged 24 at the time of the painting, she was a Parisian actress and mime at the Folies Bergère and sometime artist’s model for Renoir, Manet and Degas (See My Daily Art Display June 7^th where the actress has modeled for the Degas painting).
Angèle Leault, some time Parisian actress and singer and also a market flower seller.
Charles Ephrussi, wearing a top hat and in conversation with his secretary. Russian-born Ephrussi was a wealthy art collector and historian as well as being editor of the prestigious art magazine, Gazette des Beaux-Arts. He was a great supporter of the Impressionist painters.
Gustave Caillebotte, in the right foreground with a cigarette in his hand. He was a good friend of Renoir and a well-known painter in his own right. He was a collector of Impressionist paintings and also one of Renoir’s wealthy patrons. Renoir’s prominent positioning of Caillebotte was not accidental but was a measure of his importance to Renoir. He lived in a house overlooking the Seine, not far from Chatou. Caillebotte was trained as an engineer, built boats and was a great sportsman. This maybe accounts for Renoir’s youthful portrayal of him (he was 33 at the time of the painting) in his boating attire, consisting of a sleeveless white T shirt and blue flannel pants. On his head is a flat-topped straw hat around which a blue ribbon is tied. This indicates that Caillebotte was a member of the privileged Cercle Nautique de la Voile boating club. He was godfather to Renoir’s eldest son, Pierre.
Adrien Maggiolo , Italian journalist on Le Triboulet newspaper.
Eugène-Pierre Lestringuez, official at the Ministry of the Interior and close friend of Renoir who often modeled for his paintings.
Paul Lhote, wearing a straw hat in conversation with Lestringuez and the actress Jeanne Samary. He was a writer of short fiction and a journalist and close friend of Renoir.
Jeanne Samary, holding her black-gloved hands to her ears. Actress at the Coméie-Francais in Paris.

With this group of people we can see that Renoir was illustrating the nature of Maison Fournaise which welcomed customers from a variety of social backgrounds from the wealthy aristocrats to the humble actors. With the new rail system in place along with the shortened working week, everyone, no matter what their occupation, was able to escape the city and enjoy the pleasures of the Parisian suburbs at the weekends. The forty year old artist in producing this large masterpiece depicted the modern life of Parisians as they relaxed. Renoir’s painting captures the idyllic atmosphere as his friends wine and dine on the riverside terrace. Renoir gathered most of the participants in the painting together early on so that he could organize the composition. Later he worked on the individual figures as and when they were able to model for him. It was a grueling time for the artist and Renoir felt the pressure on him to complete the work. He had a love-hate relationship with the work commenting once:

“… I no longer know where I am with it, except that it is annoying me more and more….”

He made many changes to the work before he was completely satisfied. The final result was a veritable gem of Impressionism.