Durham E-Theses Shadows of Childhood: The Emergence of the Child in the Visual and Literary Culture of the French Long-Nineteenth Century HANDLER, SOPHIE,RACHEL How to cite: HANDLER, SOPHIE,RACHEL (2017) Shadows of Childhood: The Emergence of the Child in the Visual and Literary Culture of the French Long-Nineteenth Century , Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/12563/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Sophie Rachel Handler Shadows of Childhood: The Emergence of the Child in the Visual and Literary Culture of the French Long-Nineteenth Century ABSTRACT This thesis examines the evolutionary journey of the concepts of the ‘child’ and ‘childhood’ during the French long-nineteenth century, as expressed through the period’s literary and visual culture. It analyses in what ways these concepts reflect a ‘shadowland’ existence in this period, and in turn how the shadow metaphor symbolises both the child itself and its complex, changeable condition. The shadow metaphor not only characterises various concepts associated with children and childhood, but extends to represent the nature of the study itself. The long-nineteenth century forms a stretch of ‘shadowland’ reflective of the abstruseness of the topic which lies between pre-Enlightenment ‘darkness’ and the illuminating ‘light’ of the twentieth century. The thesis focuses on this crucial though oft overlooked developmental period between the scholarly inception of children and childhood in the late Enlightenment, to their establishment as creative blueprints in twentieth-century modernism. Supported by a socio-historical grounding, an exploration of the work of Baudelaire, Hugo, Rousseau, Proust, Redon, Degas, Renoir, and Loïe Fuller, amongst others, enables us to ‘unpack’ the ways in which this shadowy quality gave rise to not only a curiosity to explore the fascinating ‘other’ of the child and its condition in this complex epoch, but also a proclivity to explain and control it. Investigating the rhetoric of children and childhood, considering their artistic and literary significance at this time, the thesis both accounts for how writers and artists reflected upon childhood, and explores the process by which children and childhood were harnessed by intellectual and creative endeavours. Various as the case studies prove, they can all be united in their fulfilment of a regression towards and reimagining of one’s childhood and personhood, like a re-engagement with the ‘shadow child’ within, in the face of the disturbing ephemerality of self alongside the destabilising onset of modernity. 1 Shadows of Childhood: The Emergence of the Child in the Visual and Literary Culture of the French Long-Nineteenth Century Sophie Rachel Handler Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of the History of Art School of Education University of Durham 2017 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 4 STATEMENT OF COPYRIGHT 16 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 17 INTRODUCTION 18 Lighting the Candle CHAPTER ONE 32 From the 20thCentury to the 19th Century: Revisiting the Shadows CHAPTER TWO 85 Romantic Enlightenment: Bleaching out the Shadows CHAPTER THREE 128 Negotiating the Dark Underbelly: Fear and Destitution in the Shadows CHAPTER FOUR 177 Blinded by the Light: Solace in the Shadows CHAPTER FIVE 229 Toy Town Theatre: No Shadow, No Soul CHAPTER SIX 269 Breaking the Mould: Shadowy Symbolism and Silhouetted Sovereignty CONCLUSION 320 Illuminating the Shadows BIBLIOGRAPHY 334 INDEX OF IMAGES 367 3 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CHAPTER ONE From the Twentieth Century to the Nineteenth Century: Revisiting the Shadows Fig. 1.1: Alfred Jarry, illustration in Ubu Roi, 1896, Dover Publications, 368 New York, United States of America (2003). Fig. 1.2: Paul Cézanne, Jas de Bouffan, 1885-1887, oil on canvas, 369 60.8 x 73.8cm, National Gallery, Prague, Czech Republic. Fig. 1.3: Paul Cézanne, Still Life with Cherub, c.1895, oil on canvas, 369 57 x 70cm, Courtauld Institute of Art, London, United Kingdom. Fig. 1.4: Henri Rousseau, Child with a Puppet, c. 1903, oil on canvas, 370 100 x 81cm, Kunsthalle Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland. Fig. 1.5: Henri Rousseau, Child with a Doll, 1892, oil on canvas, 370 67 x 52cm, Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, France. Fig. 1.6: Henri Rousseau, The Repast of the Lion, 1907, oil on canvas, 371 113.7 x 160cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States of America. Fig. 1.7: Henri Rousseau, Struggle between Tiger and Bull, c. 1909, 371 oil on canvas, 46 x 55cm, Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, Russia. Fig.1.8: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Marzella, 1910 372 Oil on canvas, 76 x 60cm, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden. Fig. 1.9: Erich Heckel, Girl with a Doll, 1910, oil on cardboard, 372 private collection. 4 Fig. 1.10: Henri Rousseau, The Snake Charmer, 1907, oil on canvas, 373 169 x 189.5cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France. Fig. 1.11: Marcia Brown, illustration in La Féticheuse (The Shadow), 373 p. 28-29, 1995, Aladdin Paperbacks, New York, United States of America. Fig. 1.12: Marcia Brown, illustration in La Féticheuse (The Shadow), 374 p. 12, 1995, Aladdin Paperbacks, New York, United States of America. Fig. 1.13: Marcia Brown, illustration in La Féticheuse (The Shadow), 374 p. 3, 1995, Aladdin Paperbacks, New York, United States of America. CHAPTER TWO Romantic Enlightenment: Bleaching out the Shadows Fig. 2.1: Gustave Courbet, L’Atelier du peintre: Allégorie réelle 375 determinant une phase de sept années de ma vie artistique et morale (The Painter’s Studio: A real allegory summing up seven years of my artistic and moral life), 1855, oil on canvas, 361 x 598cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France. CHAPTER THREE Negotiating the Dark Underbelly: Fear and Destitution in the Shadows Fig. 3.1: Honoré Daumier, Gargantua, 1831, lithograph, 30.5 x 21.4cm, 376 Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, France. Fig. 3.2: Camille Pissarro, Capital from Turpitudes Sociales (Social 376 Scandals), 1889, pen and ink on paper, 31 x 24cm , Jean Bonna Collection, Geneva, Switzerland. Fig. 3.3: Émile Bayard, Cosette, 1886, engraving (from 1862 drawing), 377 private collection. 5 Fig. 3.4: Edgar Degas, Répétition d’un ballet sur la scène (Rehearsal 377 on Stage), 1874, oil on canvas, 53.3 x 72.4cm , Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, United States of America. Fig. 3.5: John Simmons, There Lies Titania, 1872, oil on canvas, The 378 Maas Gallery, London, United Kingdom. Fig. 3.6: Jean-Louis Forain, Le Client (The Client), 1878, pencil, 378 watercolour, and gouache, 24.7 x 32.8cm, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, United States of America. Fig. 3.7: Edgar Degas, Le Client (The Client), 1877, charcoal on paper, 379 21.5 x 15.9cm, Musée Picasso, Paris, France. Fig. 3.8: Jean-Louis Forain, Un Coucher (A Bedtime), 1877, 379 watercolour, gouache, and ink on paper, 73.7 x 30cm, private collection. Fig. 3.9: Edgar Degas, L’Étoile (The Star), c.1878, oil on canvas, 380 58.4 x 42cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France. Fig. 3.10: Alphonse Mucha, Printemps (Spring), 1896, oil on 380 wood panel, private collection. Fig. 3.11: Edgar Degas, Femme avec les Jumelles (Woman with 381 Binoculars), c.1865, thinned oil on paper, 27.9 x 22.4cm, British Museum, London, United Kingdom. Fig. 3.12: Edgar Degas, Danseuse ferme sa ballerine (Dancer 381 Fastening her Pump), 1880, pastel and chalk on paper, private collection. 6 Fig. 3.13: Edgar Degas, Le Tub (The Tub), 1886, pastel on card, 382 69.9 x 69.9cm, Hill-Stead Museum, Connecticut, United States of America. Fig. 3.14: Edgar Degas, Danseuse à la barre (Dancer at the Bar), 382 c.1885, pastel and chalk on paper, location unknown. Fig. 3.15: Edgar Degas, Danseuses à la barre (Dancers at the Bar), 383 1888, pastel on card, 130 x 97cm, The Phillips Collection, Washington DC, United States of America. Fig. 3.16: Edgar Degas, La baignoire II (The Bath II), c. 1896, 383 pastel on card, location unknown. Fig. 3.17: Edgar Degas, La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans (Little 384 Dancer of Fourteen), c.1881, wax, fabric and human hair (original sculpture), bronze (28 subsequent casts), 98.4 x 41.9 x 36.5cm, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom. View A (front diagonal). Fig. 3.18: Edgar Degas, La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans (Little 384 Dancer of Fourteen), c.1881, wax, fabric and human hair (original sculpture), bronze (28 subsequent casts), 98.4 x 41.9 x 36.5cm, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom.View B (reverse). Fig. 3.19: Edgar Degas, La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans (Little 385 Dancer of Fourteen), c.1881, wax, fabric and human hair (original sculpture), bronze (28 subsequent casts), 98.4 x 41.9 x 36.5cm, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom.View C (head and bodice in profile). 7 Fig. 3.20: Edgar Degas, La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans (Little 385 Dancer of Fourteen), c.1881, wax, fabric and human hair (original sculpture), bronze (28 subsequent casts), 98.4 x 41.9 x 36.5cm, Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom.View D (head in profile).