The Female Avant-Garde: Challenging Ideas of Gender in Morisot’S Wet Nurse and Valadon’S the Blue Room

Caroline Woods

(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 avoided 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. It would not have been considered careless or neglectful, for it was within the appropriate cultural constructs of her time. Morisot turning to a wet nurse as subject matter for a painting was not un- heard of either. In Degas’ At the Races in the Countryside, 1869, he depicts a husband and wife who are accompanied by a wet nurse in the act of feeding an infant (Fig. 2). (Figure 2: Edgar Degas. At the Races in the Countryside, 1869. While representing French Musuem of Fine Arts, Boston.) society in his A Sunday on La Grande-Jatte, 1884, Georges Seurat also includes a depiction of a wet nurse, although heavily geometri- cized and barely recogniz- able (Fig. 3). As in the case of Morisot’s painting, the wet nurse is identifiable by her uniform, which consists of a white dress, red scarf, and a white bonnet.

(Figure 3: Georges Seurat. A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.) Morisot’s case was Morisot was, in fact, a Just as the woman blends particularly special because professional painter and a into the surrounding land- she was a female painter. mother at a place and time scape, the child seems to Not only does the viewer get in history when the two melt into the woman’s lap, to see this depiction through things were mutually exclu- almost as if they are one be- the lens of a woman, some- sive.19 She must watch, as ing. Morisot gives the wom- thing unusual for the time, she works, another woman an two brown dashes for but through the lens of the perform an act of mother- eyes and a red smudge for infant’s mother. This image hood upon her daughter. lips, but that is the extent of is now no longer a simple This tension becomes her facial features. The only mother and daughter scene, apparent when looking at spot of relative clarity is the but one with many more the formal aspects of the face of the infant suckling at complications. Morisot, while painting. At first glance, the the woman’s breast. working, watches another viewer is confronted with a It is temping to suggest woman work. The crux of triangular whitish lump that that Morisot’s handling of this painting is two women seems to be dissolving into this figure’s body is reflec- workers from different social a chaotic yet rhythmic green tive of the tension she must classes, with very different backdrop. Under further have felt in the paradox of lives, coming together over inspection, the viewer creating this work. She was something they share in begins to make out a a mother, but also a worker. common yet also do not bonnet-wearing head on She was a woman, but also share: motherhood of this top of the lump and the a painter. She took pleasure particular infant. The women rosy-cheeked, red-headed from painting, but also may confront each other over a child in its center, and begins have felt conflict watching child with whom they do not to realize that it is a seated another woman perform share the same connection. woman with a child in her an act of motherhood on This tension reflects an lap. Morisot’s broken and her own child. This tension unavoidable conflict: visible brushwork is so seems to manifest in the heavily applied, that if she openness of the facture, the had gone any further, the disembodiment and erasure viewer might not be able to of the woman’s form, and the distinguish the imagery at all. lack of outline that begs the question of identity and dissolution.

60 Morisot’s take on this classi- However, Morisot devi- cal idea of mother and child ates from the Impressionist gives way to her reality and agenda by choosing to paint experience living as a woman figures, subject matter that artist in the mid nineteenth some of the other Impres- century. Unlike Renoir’s sionists avoided because of Mother Nursing Her Child, its inherent emotional 1886, which depicts the implications. Moreover, artist’s wife Aline breastfeed- Morisot has given us ing their child, both of them other images of mothers and content and happy in their children, such as The Cradle, mother and child relation- 1872, that are emotionally ship, Morisot’s depiction of realistic and unidealized motherhood is not ideal- views of the challenges of (Figure 4: Pierre-Auguste ized (Fig. 4). She does not motherhood (Fig 5). It is Renoir. Mother Nursing Her Child, 1886. Museum of Fine ignore, but confronts the difficult to imagine that, Arts, St. Petersburg.) tension she feels by almost consciously and/or erasing the identity of the subconsciously, Morisot man- wet nurse altogether. Even aged to paint an entirely her brushstrokes seem to objective image of this emphasize a contradiction, charged subject matter that as they are chaotic yet pur- is so relevant to her own life. poseful, turbulent yet Another revolutionary female calming. painter who focused on Of course, as an gender-based issues was Impressionist-identified Suzanne Valadon. Marie-Clé- artist, Morisot may very well mentine Valadon, was born have been exploring open on September 23, 1865, in facture for its own sake, Bessines-sur-Gartempe, a according to the premises of small town located in central that movement. France. (Figure 5: Berthe Morisot. The Cradle, 1872. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.) Her mother, Madeleine Her mother enrolled her in a During this period, it was Valadon, would never dis- day school at a convent near- assumed that many models close Marie-Clémentine’s by, where she studied until were sexually available to father. Madeleine worked about the age of eleven. She their artists. There is some as a maid in a bourgeois was not a good student, and speculation that these men household in the small town, would often skip school alto- may have become her lovers, and had been married to gether to explore the streets although some biographers Leon Coulaud, with whom of Montmartre, for she was disagree.22 she had two older daughters. not interested in her classes. On December 26, 1883, He worked as a blacksmith, She was finally removed from Valadon gave birth to her but was arrested for forgery school at the age of eleven son, Maurice. He was ille- in 1859, and died later that in order to help provide for gitimate, and although the year. With the death of her herself and her mother. She identity of his real father is husband, and the birth of the started and abandoned unclear, one of Valadon’s illegitimate child who would various jobs, and it was not lovers, Spanish journalist become Suzanne Valadon, until 1880 that she joined Miguel Utrillo, signed papers Madeleine fled to Paris, leav- the circus, fulfilling a child- recognizing paternity. After ing her two other daughters hood dream. She only stayed the birth of her son, Val- in the care of relatives.20 with the circus until she was adon’s mother took care of Madeleine settled in fifteen, when a serious injury the baby while she returned Montmartre, an inexpensive in the ring left her with im- to modeling. In 1896, Val- bohemian neighborhood paired agility.21 adon married stock broker perched on top of a hill At this time Valadon be- Paul Mousis, thus ushering known for its working mills gan modeling for artists. She in a new era in the Valadon and the large number of became Maria, and her family’s financial affairs. They musicians and artists who patrons included artists such became a bourgeois family, lived there. This place would as Puvis de Chavannes, and no longer had to worry be an important aspect of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and about money in the way they inspiration in Valadon’s Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. had.23 career.

62 Valadon had started In 1912, the couple visited With the closing of World drawing at the age of six, Corsica, and Utter posed War I, women’s roles in and began painting at the nude for Valadon’s Casting of society began to change age of fourteen. However, the Net, 1914, which was in Paris and elsewhere. she destroyed most of her revolutionary for its use of Women no longer had early attempts. For guid- a nude male model by a to be accompanied by a ance, she turned to the many female artist (Fig. 6).25 chaperone in public, they artists who surrounded her were fighting for the right to in the Montmartre neighbor- vote, and they had different hood. Through these artists kinds of jobs, such as blue she was eventually intro- collar work. These changes duced to Degas, although in roles were reflected in she never modeled for him. appearance. Women no He saw enormous talent in longer wore the constricting her, and even bought one corsets and modest dresses of her first drawings. They of the nineteenth century. would continue to be friends (Figure 6: Suzanne Valadon. Instead, they wore loose, throughout her career.24 Casting the Net, 1914. Musée shorter dresses that allowed National d’Art Moderne, Paris.) In 1909, Valadon met movement and wore shorter,

André Utter, a painter bobbed hair. Valadon’s The Blue Room and one of her son’s of 1923 is perhaps her most contemporaries. Although well-known work (Fig. 7). In she was twenty-one years the painting, Valadon depicts his senior, she began a love a curvaceous woman dressed affair with him. She asked in loose, striped pants and a Mousis for a divorce and she camisole. She reclines on a and her family left Pierre- day bed and has a cigarette fitte, where she had moved in her mouth. At her feet, with Mousis, and returned atop a richly decorated blue to Montmartre.At the sug- blanket is a pile of books. gestion of her new lover, she (Figure 7: Suzanne Valadon. She is the new, modern began to turn from drawing The Blue Room, 1923. Musée woman of Paris in the to painting. National d’Art Moderne, Paris.) 1920s.26

Many more were educated that surrounds it. She The design on the wall and even smoked cigarettes, deliberately paints contrast- behind the model shows a mostly male habit. After ing geometric and floral pat- Valadon’s skill at “painterly the men came back from terns, but unifies them subtly painting” and also echoes War, however, there was with the blue that covers the the tones found in the mod- growing anxiety about this scene. Valadon may have el’s skin and shirt, unifying role shift. There were been looking to Matisse in the composition yet again.28 contradictions about this the curvilinear arabesque Valadon’s depiction of this seemingly newfound free- shapes that cover the blue reclining woman is a direct dom, for women had access fabric and contrasting pat- response to an earlier to more opportunities, such terns, as well as the poses depiction of a reclining as education, yet were still and heavily proportioned woman: Olympia, 1863, not equal to men in many bodies of his odalisques, by Manet (Fig. 8). Manet’s ways, such as the right to showing that she is well depiction was itself a vote. Valadon’s painting aware of the leading contem- response to a painting reflects and celebrates this poraneous male artists. The known as the Venus of Urbi- new woman.27 fabric’s cool values enhance no, 1538, by Titian (Fig. 9). Although the formal the model’s warm accents in Titian’s depiction of a reclin- aspects of this painting are her shirt and books.The blue ing woman serves as a mod- not quite as revolutionary as hue also alleviates the visual el of ideal womanhood in the iconography she depicts, discomfort the viewer might the 16th century. they are on par with her have felt from the complexity avant-garde contemporaries of differing patterned surfac- and contribute to her radical es. Valadon uses the model’s subject matter. The compo- striped pants to stretch the sition shows the culmination composition laterally and to of Valadon’s mature style and calm the claustrophobia of balances a careful harmony the heavily patterned fabric. between the woman’s figure and the décor (Figure 8: Edouard Manet. Olympia, 1863. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.)

64 he creates a controversial Valadon’s reinvention of scene that comments on Pa- this scene takes Manet’s risian society. In his painting, depiction of a working class rather than the goddess of woman and turns her into an love reclining on the bed, he image of the new modern paints a young prostitute. woman. This woman, like Prostitution was a major Titian and Manet’s, reclines industry in France in the upon a bed. She, however, (Figure 9: Titian. Venus of nineteenth century. However is not naked. Not only is she Urbino, 1538. Uffizi Gallery, widespread it was, people clothed, but she also wears Florence.) were still shocked when they pants. This would have been saw Manet’s depiction a very charged and radical The woman is called a displayed at the Salon de image, as pants were still “Venus,” the goddess of Paris of 1865. Rather than seen as men’s clothing. She love, and she reclines across enticing the viewer, she also smokes a cigarette, an the bed with her hand curled hides her genitals, waiting activity in which men in between her legs, ap- for her next client. Instead typically engaged. Instead parently masturbating. She of a dog lying at her feet, of a cat at the end of her looks out at the viewer with a black cat arches its back, bed, this modern woman an alluring and seductive alluding to female promiscu- has books, a reference to gaze. Curled up at the end ity. Her gaze stares directly at her intelligence, or at least, of the bed near her feet lays the viewer, confronting her literacy. Unlike Olympia’s thin a dog, a reference to the audience head-on, while her girlish figure, Valadon’s figure fidelity a woman must have maid approaches her with a is full-bodied and solid. She within her marriage. In the bouquet of flowers, a gift also appears to be sun- background, a maid watches from one of her customers. burned with red cheeks and over a young girl who looks a red “v” mark on her chest, through a chest, symboliz- possibly a result of work she ing matrimony and mother- performs outdoors. hood.29 In his Olympia, Manet reinvents this scene, and instead of depicting a model of ideal womanhood, Her bare feet also appear to The two paintings, subject matter and formal be large and rough-looking. although created by women style. The tension that she These aspects mark her as from different generations, possibly felt may have been working class, and combined both challenge ideas of the factor that pushed with her intellectualism and gender in their respective Morisot to be even more distinct modernity, show time periods. In Morisot’s daring in her technique. It is Valadon’s awareness of the case, her depiction of her possible that the facture is so new emerging woman.30 wet nurse and child counters open and free because she In both Morisot’s The the idealized, happy, felt liberated from some of Wet Nurse and Valadon’s mother-baby relationship the burdens of motherhood, The Blue Room, there is an that was expected at the and was free to explore aspect of truth surround- time. A woman’s duty was to more radical technique. ing the way these women be a mother, and although a Her wet nurse may have represent other women. In woman of Morisot’s class was not only been a source of Morisot’s case, she is unide- not expected to nurse an discomfort and tension for alized about the paradoxes infant herself, she was only Morisot, but also a conduit of motherhood and how she excused from doing so that allowed her to be represents the woman nurs- because doctors thought a daring and revolutionary ing her child. In Valadon’s healthy country wet nurse in her work. case, she is truthful in was a better alternative to Valadon challenges the way she represents the a nervous new mother. ideas regarding gender by modern woman emerging in Everything a mother did was representing the new Paris. Both of these images for the benefit of her child, woman as her model. Unlike are depictions of their which is why her world was the woman of the nineteenth perception of the world confined to her home. century, this new woman around them, and the Morisot challenged this works, is educated, and has women in it. notion in her depiction, agency, which is reflected in for she acknowledges the her solidly outlined body and tensions that surrounded books, both of which give motherhood with her use her a sense of identity. of psychologically charged

66 She casts off her corset and She was depicted what she They were very different instead turns to loose-fitting, had access to in her every- people and lived very male-identified pants. day life. Her wet nurse was different lives, but the Although Valadon paints there, and therefore, Morisot experiences of these two her indoors, she challenges uses her as a tool in which women as individuals as the idea of separate spheres she creates a radically inno- well as gendered subjects in the way she depicts her vative painting. Valadon, on plays out in each of her model as the new woman the other hand, was from a works, creating innovative likely to have made the generation earlier than Mor- and revolutionary pieces. choice to remain on her bed, isot, and with the rather than confined to it, emergence of the new literally and figuratively. woman in Paris, her Although both of these challenging of ideas paintings are radical, the regarding gender is more artists achieve this radical- self-conscious. She knows ness in different ways. Where that although her formal Morisot’s work is perhaps style is in stride with her most profound in regard to contemporaries, she is its formal aspects, Valadon’s aware that her subject is revolutionary in terms of its matter is a groundbreaking iconography. Both artists are innovation. Although these signaling a new era for artists were revolutionary in women. Iconographically, different ways, Morisot and Morisot’s challenging of Valadon were both gender assumptions was representatives of the perhaps less intentional, avant-garde. almost accidental, even as she was living a revolution in gender expectations. Notes

1 Charles F. Stuckey, William P. Scott, and Suzanne G. Lindsay, Berthe Morisot, Impressionist (New York: Hudson Hills, 1987), 16. 2 Anne Higonnet, Berthe Morisot (New York: Harper & Row, 1990), 13. 3 Stuckey, Scott, and Lindsay, Berthe Morisot, Impressionist, 17. 4 Ibid, 18. 5 Ibid, 19. 6 Higonnet, Berthe Morisot, 27. 7 Ibid, 29. 8 Ibid, 30. 9 Ibid, 31. 10 Ibid, 34. 11 Ibid, 35. 12 Ibid, 102. 13 Jane Turner, The Grove Dictionary of Art. Late 19th-century French Artists (New York: St. Martin’s, 2000) 319. 14 Higgonet, Berthe Morisot, 27. 15 Ibid. 16 Linda Nochlin, Morisot’s “Wet Nurse”: The Construction of Work and Leisure in Impressionist Painting (New York: Harper & Row, 1988) 231. 17 Ibid, 236-7. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid, 241. 20 Thérèse Diamand Rosinsky, Suzanne Valadon (New York: Universe, 1994) 16. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid, 17. 24 Ibid, 18. 25 Ibid.

68 26 Paula Birnbaum, Women Artists in Interwar France: Framing Femininities (Farnham, Surrey, UK, England: Ashgate, 2011) 1-3. 27 Whitney Chadwick, Women, Art, and Society (5th ed. London: Thames & Hudson, 2012) 253. 28 Rosinsky, Suzanne Valadon, 72. 29 "Venus of Urbino by Titian." Uffizi.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2016. 30 Birnbaum, Women Artists in Interwar France: Framing Femininities, 196-7.