Renoir's Dancer

The Secret Life of Suzanne Valadon

Catherine Hewitt

• Publisher: Icon Books
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781785782749
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: French History
• Index: History

In the 1880s, Suzanne Valadon was considered the Impressionists' most beautiful model. But behind her captivating façade lay a closely-guarded secret.
Born in poverty in rural France, as a teenager in Montmartre, Suzanne began posing for – and having affairs with – some of the age's most renowned painters. Then Renoir caught her indulging in a passion she had been trying to conceal: the model was herself a talented artist.
Some found her vibrant still lifes and frank portraits as shocking as her bohemian lifestyle. At eighteen, she gave birth to an illegitimate child, future painter Maurice Utrillo. But her friends Toulouse-Lautrec and Degas could see her skill. Rebellious and opinionated, she refused to be confined by tradition or gender, and in 1894, her work was accepted to the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, an extraordinary achievement for a working-class woman with no formal art training.
Renoir's Dancer tells the remarkable tale of an ambitious, headstrong woman fighting to find a professional voice in a male-dominated world.

CHAPTER 1

Life-cycles

Ne pura pu, bravo novio, rizio dounc!
Faras pa maû sechâ to grimaço, rizio dounc!1

(Do not cry, sweet young bride, laugh;
You would not be unwise to dry your eyes, laugh!)

COUPLET FROM A TRADITIONAL LIMOUSIN WEDDING SONG2

When eighteen-year-old Madeleine Valadon awoke on 13 February 1849, she knew to expect a thick morning fog to have enveloped the town of Bessines, while the frosty air would sting and redden her bare hands once she stepped outside.3 It was a Tuesday; soon, the deserted place in the town centre would spring to life, as labourers, shopkeepers, artisans, seamstresses and laundresses hurried across the cobbles in all directions to take up their posts. The tap of wooden clogs on stone was a familiar sound as men in blue smocks made their way through the streets. White bonnets bobbed in time with female footsteps, subtle variations in each cap silently declaring its wearer’s social standing and origin. The skirts and capes beneath them were sombre, often being worn for mourning.4

The festivities of Christmas had now long passed; calls of Boun Anado in the local patois which resounded through the streets on 1 January were just a memory; Easter was late that year and the colour of Mardi Gras would pass all too quickly.5 February days were short and the nights could be bitter. And in just a few weeks, the truly hard work would begin. The following month, the whole town would be absorbed as the task of preparing the fields and then planting the year’s turnip crop commenced.

In one way or another, everyone in Bessines was affected by agriculture and the rearing of livestock. Most households were self-sufficient, and those individuals who did not work the land themselves had a husband, brother or son who surely did.6 All would need meals prepared and clothing mended. Then there were the associated trades, so vital in the struggle to turn out bountiful yields of crops and herds. Born as she was to the local cartwright, Madeleine belonged to one of the many families whose livelihoods were dependent on the town’s dominant commercial activity.

Moneyed, upper-class families were in a minority in the Limousin and countryfolk led a rude existence.7 Poor soil and a variable climate made it difficult to obtain good crops. Spring frosts could bring tragedy to farms and winters were glacial; hamlets were frequently cut off by snow, and heating the stone-walled cottages was a relentless task. Better off families might boast a home of two or three rooms with adjoining outbuildings, such as a barn, stable and bread oven (for most households had to be able to bake their own; often they would take turns with neighbours to bake for the whole hamlet for the week). There might also be a dryer for chestnuts, that important Limousin staple. Even the poorest peasants owned a shelter for the pig kept in readiness for sacrifice at Christmas. However, the less fortunate among them could be reduced to just one room. For many families, the chief objective was simply to survive.8

In such circumstances, the spectre of death cast a shadow over everyday life. The Limousin was a region steeped in folklore and ruled by superstition. All manner of rituals and customs were employed to anticipate and forestall death’s arrival. Placing a jar of honey in the stable was reputed to be a good way of protecting a cow, while a nut shell containing a live spider worn round the owner’s neck was said to safeguard the wearer from the fever. Rural superstition held that a creaking piece of furniture presaged an imminent death, while a hen that crowed like a cockerel was an equally sinister omen; the creature should be dispatched without further delay and served at table.9

But such methods did not always prove reliable deterrents. Indeed, death was an uninvited visitor Madeleine knew only too well. That winter, it had plunged the Valadon household into despair. In early October, just days before his 44th birthday, the young girl’s father had died.10

Aside from the emotional distress, Mathieu-Alexandre’s death had sobering practical implications for Madeleine, her mother and her brother Clément, who at fifteen was still a minor. That Valadon owned several parcels of land gave a deceptive impression of affluence. He was proprietor of some ten plots besides the family’s house and garden, which included heathland, grazing and even a small chestnut wood. Yet with some fields located several miles away from the family home, Valadon’s property betrayed a patchwork estate of land acquired and reapportioned through inheritance. Such plots were often financially inconsequential; the Valadons were not a wealthy family.

Madeleine had already been put out to work as a linen maid by the time her father died. It was a low-paid, physically gruelling profession, liable to attract sniggers and disdainful looks from the daughters of better-off families. Every channel of income available to the Valadon family was already being exploited, and Madeleine was still unmarried. The loss of the household’s head and main breadwinner would have terrifying repercussions.

Even for Limousin girls who had not lost a father, finding a husband was a primary goal from adolescence. Whereas a single man could work and make a living, a woman, with her sphere accepted as the domestic environment and wages meagre even when they were earned, was dependent on male income. Women enjoyed little status outside marriage. The daughters of artisans and peasants alike felt the same sense of urgency when it came to the question of matrimony. Much was at stake, and for many more people than the young couple directly concerned. The family remained the basic social unit in the 19th century, and the marriages of its younger members was its principal means of shaping its identity. The fortunes and future of the entire family rested on the kind of marriage made by its teenagers. This was because marriage determined the distribution of that scarce resource: land. In selecting (or, as was increasingly common in the 19th century, approving) a partner for their offspring, parents needed to feel confident that the match ensured that their own needs in old age would be met. Then there was the question of status; opportunities for social advancement were limited, so it was vital that a youngster did not marry below his or her station. A mésalliance could shatter reputations and squander resources where they could never be reciprocated. The burden of duty and expectation weighed heavily on young shoulders. Personal pride naturally came into the equation, too. And living in small, isolated communities, the range of marital options was painfully restricted.11

For all these reasons, life for the typical Limousin girl became a veritable man hunt once she reached marriageable age. With such limited pickings, competition between village girls could be fierce. And no means were considered too outlandish when it came to ensnaring a husband. Mystical legends, magic and ancient traditions were still a very real part of everyday life in the Limousin. Many villages and towns had their own ritual practices which young girls were advised to adopt if they wanted to be sure of finding a husband. In the village of La Villeneuve near Eymoutiers, gaggles of single girls were to be found dancing wildly in the mud at the January fair, and the more soiled their skirts became, the better; they would undoubtedly secure a husband within twelve months. Meanwhile, seamstresses in the town of Ambazac, a short distance from where Madeleine lived, swore by a different technique. Whenever they were commissioned to make a wedding dress, they would stitch a lock of their own hair into the hem of the garment to guarantee that they too would become a wife before the year was out.12 Every community defended the unparalleled efficiency of its own method. But the girls of Bessines had the advantage of a very special tool for performing their ritual, an object few other villages could rival. It took the form of a vast monolithic stone basin, which locals had baptised Pierre Belle.

Nobody could explain how the enormous circular stone of 5m diameter and 80cm depth had arrived on the north bank of the G...