The Female Avant-Garde: Challenging Ideas of Gender in Morisot’S Wet Nurse and Valadon’S the Blue Room
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Caroline Woods 54 (Berthe Morisot. The Wet Nurse, 1879. Private collection, Washington D.C.) The Female Avant-Garde: Challenging Ideas of Gender in Morisot’s Wet Nurse and Valadon’s The Blue Room Berthe Morisot and Suzanne I compare Morisot’s The Wet It was her father’s job that Valadon have long been Nurse of 1879 with Valadon’s allowed the family to live considered pioneering The Blue Room of 1923 in comfortably at the upper women artists whose lives order to analyze how the end of the bourgeois class, and work coincided with the lives of these two women as but would also limit Morisot’s emergence of modernity. individuals as well as opportunity as an artist. In Each artist is representative gendered subjects play out 1852, he finally settled his of the avant-garde from a in each of her works both family in Passy, an area on different generation – Berthe formally and iconographi- the western outskirts of Paris. Morisot was born in the first cally. By doing so, I hope to In 1855, Morisot’s father half of the nineteenth centu- ascertain the terms by which took a position at the nation- ry in 1841, while Suzanne each woman was al accounting office as senior Valadon was born in the revolutionary. council. He had studied to second half in 1865. The Berthe Morisot was born become an architect in his two artists had very differ- in Bourges, France on Jan- youth and as a result, ent lives, were very different uary 14, 1841. She had two aesthetic pursuits were a people, and had very differ- older sisters, Yves, born in high priority for the family. At ent class limitations. In addi- 1838, and Edma, born in one point, Morisot’s mother tion, they come to maturity 1839, and a younger brother decided to surprise him on at transitional moments in Tiburce, born in 1848. Her his birthday and have their socio-historical conditions for family moved from one pro- daughters study painting un- women and women pro- vincial capital to the next, for der the tutelage of a private fessionals. In the following her father was a high ranking master, Geoffroy-Alphonse analysis, civil servant who frequently Chocarne, an advocate for had to move posts. the Neo-classical style of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres. However, the Morisot girls Given your daughters’ natural gifts, it Cadart, but this was largely soon lost interest in their will not be petty drawing-room talents in vain.7 This type of behav- that my instruction will achieve; they will teacher’s lessons, perhaps become painters. Are you fully aware of ior was very unusual for the pointing to Berthe’s what that means? It will be revolution- time, as it was exceptional preference for a less ary – I would almost say catastrophic – for a woman to pursue a in your high bourgeois milieu. Are you traditional style. Since the sure you will never one day curse the professional career as a Ecole des Beaux-Arts would art, once allowed into this household, painter in the 1860s.8 The now so respectably peaceful, that will not accept women until become the sole master of the fate of Morisot parents were not yet 1897, the Morisots hired a two of your children?4 worried, though, for Edma new private teacher, Joseph and Berthe’s interest in Guichard.1 Berthe’s mother was painting still appeared to Guichard took his job as unaffected by the warning, them as just a hobby. A teacher very seriously. It and the girls continued to successful career in painting was normal for the daugh- paint. Not long into their produced commissions, ters of upper-class families tutelage, they requested medals, high-priced piec- to receive an art education, lessons in plein air paint- es, and memberships in but only at an amateur level ing, which introduced them state academies. In order to to produce a commonplace to the famous landscape achieve these accomplish- 5 hobby.2 Guichard, however, painter, Camille Corot. He ments, one had to study recognized the daughters’ lent the sisters several of in the central school at the talent and potential early his own works to copy, and École des Beaux-Arts. It on.3 According to Tiburce, it was these paintings that was only there that a young Berthe’s younger brother, inspired Morisot to utilize the painter could find access to Guichard approached Ma- same undisguised brushwork the full program of anatomy dame Morisot once realizing found in his work. and learn to draw after clas- this potential and said, In 1864, Morisot and her sical art. More importantly, it sister Edma submitted was in that atmosphere that paintings to the Salon de young painters found the Paris, and all four of them support of peers and pro- 6 were accepted. They fessional contacts that could pursued other tactics to lead to the advancement of display and sell their artwork, careers. such as placing paintings in a street-front window of a shop owned by Alfred 56 These studios did not accept Manet’s style was very She rarely painted the nude female students, and inspirational for Morisot, and figure for she did not have therefore Berthe and Edma he influenced her in many access to figure painting were excluded.9’ ways. Their relationship, classes and it would have In 1865, the Morisot however, was reciprocal. For been inappropriate, to say family had a studio built in example, Morisot convinced the least, for her to paint the garden of their home.10 Manet to attempt plein air her own body. Instead, she This studio was not just a painting.13 While Manet held turned to scenes of domes- building, but also a place himself somewhat apart from tic life and portraits, for she of independence. Set apart the circle of painters who could use her family and from the house, it was there later became known as the friends as models. She also where the sisters could Impressionists, Morisot painted landscapes and gar- escape from domestic ob- exhibited her work with them den scenes in the privacy of ligations to concentrate on from 1874 on. In 1874, her home in the countryside, painting. After a year of this, she married Manet’s brother, away from urban Paris.15 their mother finally began to Eugène, and they had a Morisot’s The Wet Nurse, worry. Berthe was twenty-six daughter, Julie. Morisot 1879 is an example of and Edma was twenty-eight, missed only one exhibition an ordinary event she and their mother began to with the Impressionists in experienced in her everyday complain that they were 1878, the year that Julie was life (Fig. 1). This painting, neglecting their family born.14 however, is anything but obligations and unapprecia- Morisot’s subject matter ordinary, in terms of both tive of the marriage in her paintings consisted style and iconography. The prospects she was seeking of scenes she experienced central focus of the painting for them.11 in her day-to-day life. Her is of two figures, a mother Morisot continued to paintings show the restric- and a child. They are hard to show her work in the Salon tions placed upon nine- make out, as they melt into regularly until 1873.12 In teenth-century artists of her the rhythmic green back- 1868, she became friends class and gender. She was ground. with the future Impressionist, unable to paint in public Edouard Manet. unchaperoned, so she avoid- ed painting city and street scenes. This painting could easily be During the eighteenth and These issues caused the mistaken as a Madonna and nineteenth centuries, the government to step in and Child, updated and secular- industrie nourriciére, or wet regulate the industry in 1874, ized, as the other prominent nursing, was a large-scale supervising wet nurses and female Impressionist, Mary industry in France. their clients across the na- Cassatt, was doing. Mor- Families of the urban tion. Morisot was a member isot’s rendition is different artisan and shop-keeping of the upper bourgeoisie, in that the woman holding class would send their babies however, so she was not tied the child is actually not her out to be nursed by women to this regulated industry. In- mother, but a seconde mère, in the country, allowing the stead, members of this class or a wet nurse. She is feed- wives to be free to work. This would hire a nourrice sur ing the child for wages, not industry had many issues, lieu, a live-in wet nurse. Her out of maternal obligation. however, including unsani- main purpose was to provide The subject matter of this tary practices, high mortality the infant with milk, but she painting is even more curious rates for the infants, and would also take the child to in that Morisot is not paint- financial arrangements that the park, comfort her, etc. ing just any wet nurse and were often unstable. Although this was a way for a child, but her daughter, Julie, poor countrywoman with feeding from her few skills to make a seconde mère.16 considerable amount of money, it did involve her own personal sacrifices. The wet nurse’s diet was strictly monitored, as was her sex life, although the biggest sacrifice was leaving her own infant at home in the country in the care of another family member.17 (Figure 1: Berthe Morisot. The Wet Nurse, 1879. Private collection, Washington D.C.) 58 Morisot’s choice of utilizing a nourrice sur lieu was the norm for someone of her class.