by Cecil Beaton
Perhaps the one creative artist who represents both the triumph of individuality and, at the same time, a tragic compromise with contemporary pressure was Christian Bérard. His recent death makes it fitting to include him in a survey of the last decade, though Bérard’s talents had been in full flower during the previous years as well, stimulating the thirties and even the late twenties.
In his serious work Christian Bérard limited his subject matter to the tragic world of the poor: melancholy urchins, acrobats, and peasants were his favourite sitters, and painted them with a palette of restrained colours. These canvases could have little influence on fashion, but it was Bérard’s other gifts which made him such a powerful catalyst on the arts and styles of his time.
It was, more than anything else, through the medium of his very personal colour sense that Bérard’s influence was most felt. Like some virulent germ, these poisonous colours attacked the beholder and created horror throughout the salons of Paris. His colours were seldom of a mood of gaiety. The wide use of black and the sombre colours of the funeral parlours (from which Bérard’s father made his fortune) had a lasting impression on his consciousness. He revaluated all sorts of colours and by bringing them together in unusual combinations could create an effect that was entirely his own; red seemed like blood again, a primitive yet sophisticated colour. Bérard knew how to make the best use of “cheap” colours, and by placing a particular pastel mauve or baby pink in conjunction with a deep plum colour or dark emerald green he gave the pale shades a great force of impact. Mauve mixed with orange created a strange atmosphere. He could turn a dark red plush or an old lady’s cape of moss green, both of which had hitherto been considered dowdy, into things of regal richness and grandeur.
Bérard’s ballet and theatre décors, contrary to their seeming facility, were the product of long, hard work and reflected an inspired use of the stage. Here his colour scheme was given full rein, for he was able to use all forms of colour that the brightest ink or gouache could not convey. Even such a gay trifle as the ballet Cotillon contained a few drops of deadly poison among the colours; even here the presence of death was only partly hidden behind the dark red curtains festooned about the stage boxes of his decor.
Many times during his frantic, overcrowded life Bérard said that he would give up designing in the theatre, eschewing all his many other more frivolous activities in order to restrict himself to being a serious painter. But fashion’s deadly toxin had made serious inroads, and some irresistible offer would soon beguile him back to the footlights. He would then illustrate more books, design more dress materials, handkerchiefs, or scarves, or give his inimitable flourish to decorations on glass and on china. All of this work, even the most meretricious, was touched by a flicker of his genius. Indeed, though he enjoyed fashion, it never poisoned his artistic side: he was able to split his life into two separate units and in his serious paintings was all artist.
Unfortunately the sweetness of the poison usurped much of his time. Bérard worked in a torrent of enthusiasm for fashion magazines. His sketches, suggesting so much by elimination, were far freer in line than the usual fashion plates, and he could indicate a face without delineating its features. When his drawings first appeared in Harper’s Bazaar, William Randolph Hearst was so irritated by them that he dubbed the French painter “Faceless Freddie.”
Faceless Freddie’s influence was to extend to the far quarters of the world of advertising. Most young students tried to draw like Bérard, imitating his Japanese use of a brush dipped in India ink. But without Bérard’s mastery they could not imitate their god to any degree of proficiency: Bérard defied eclecticism.
Behind Faceless Freddie’s apparently facile fashion drawings was an enormous knowledge. They were the work of a man who knew architecture (he was at one time trained to be an architect) and had an intimate friendship with all painting as well. Bérard was a connoisseur of antiques; he had a great sensuous appreciation of rich and beautiful objects. An enormous amount of time was spent in reading, and I imagine that he slept very few hours, devouring everything from Balzac to Screenland magazine by the light of a late lamp.
In all manifestation of the minor arts Bérard had a profound interest. He was in many ways a disciple of Beau Brummell, for though he enjoyed feathers and fashion, he indulged his taste in very broad strokes, just a Brummell, had introduced many notes of simplicity into men’s clothing. Bérard’s settings for the stage, as well as his colour schemes, exemplified the simple and bold style. Fundamentally he was a purist.
CHRISTIAN BÉRARD
Christian Bérard was something of an anomaly and more than a little paradoxical. He was a serious artist, yet adored fashion and the smart world, much as his literary predecessor, Marcel Proust, had before him.
For years he lived in a small bedroom several flights up in a somewhat squalid and liftless hotel. It was one of those hotels where people could sign the register (or not sign the register) and have a room for an hour. Bérard’s small den had a brass bed, a chair, a table, a yellow-stained cupboard, and futuristic wallpaper of magenta roses. In this room he smoked opium, painted as he sat on the bed, and accumulated piles of books and magazines. To his hotel came not only engraved invitations from the beau monde, but the most pampered and spoilt ladies who knew that, without Bérard’s approval, they stood no chance of being considered elegant.
The day arrived at last when there was so much litter that the painter was obliged to move into an apartment. Since his taste was always eagerly watched by the public, there was naturally much curiosity as to what the new apartment would be like. Bérard enjoyed keeping up the excitement of the secret. The baroque chi-chi or surrealist rococo had reached its fantastic peak, exemplified by Charles de Beistegui’s apartment in the Champs Elysées, with its welter of glittering silver, peppermint pink, white ostrich feathers, and blackamoors. Bérard’s friends naturally imagined that his new apartment would even surpass this fantasy and that perhaps feathers, paper flowers, and crystal chandeliers, would run wild.
CHRISTIAN BÉRARD
But they were struck dumb with surprise when they discovered that Bébé had decorated his apartment with exquisite authority and formality, with all the seriousness of a master architect. There was, indeed, no form of decoration at all. A needlework rug, white walls, and no curtains set the tone of somber simplicity, in the middle of which was the Louis Seize mahogany furniture: architects’ desks that folded in many ingenious ways, together with pieces of cabinetmakers’ triumphs that unfolded and became something of bold, masculine simplicity. Nothing was persnickety; on the contrary, everything was solid and severe. As decoration on the chimney piece were two heavy terra-cotta dogs and a pair of stout black candlesticks. All this was baffling to many people, and of course it was something that could not be capitalized on the American market. The result was achieved through quality, which can never be reproduced wholesale, for it ill lends itself to mass production.
Bérard, so indefatigable, so generous in his vitality, gave off sparks of inspiration in every direction. It is little wonder that he is responsible for more creative activities in the world of décor than any other person of the last twenty years. Anyone working in the creative arts would go to him to listen to the thousand ideas that poured out of him; and so magnanimous was he that he was delighted when they were able to utilize his superfluous talents. He was amused if his work was commercialized by others. Friends would ask him to do a few scribbles on the back of an envelope, and with this in their pockets they embarked on the refurnishing of their houses, a hotel, a night club, or a scent shop. Dressmakers could get a few tips from him and then make up a whole collection as a result of half an hour spent in company with his fertile imagination. Florists were advised to include cornflowers, poppies and marguerites among their stocks of accustomed flowers, or they would arranged nasturtiums and sweet pea together in Bérard’s combinations of colour. He enjoyed, too, encouraging young designers, often working behind the
scenes with them until dawn.
In Paris it was considered that a word from Bérard could make a hat shop or break a dressmaking establishment. Whether it was a matter of a new shop, the latest interior, actress, or play, this opinion counted for more than anyone else’s. He helped to launch a friend of long standing when Christian Dior decided to go into a dressmaking business on his own. After Bérard’s death it was said that Dior would not be able to exist without him. Dior’s natural gift has, of course, been proved a thousand times since, but it was Bérard’s wholehearted support and enthusiasm that gave him such a send-off.
Bérard was not only a great figure, but that rare phenomenon in Paris, a man who was as well-known in the highest circles of the aristocracy as in the most bohemian coteries of art. Whatever stratum of society he moved in, he always looked the same: bearded and dirty, surprising, provocative, malicious, kind, generous, and with a genius that was the quintessence of Parisian taste.
Christian Bérard is dead. Apart from my personal feeling of loss for a great and dear friend, I find that Paris is a little less wonderful for me than it was when he was alive to interpret more of its diverting facets. Each time I arrived at an hotel I would telephone to him and at once find myself launched on exciting new voyages of discovery. His zest for life was unparalleled. George Davis, who for many years was an intimate and understanding friend of Bérard, has in his possession a scrap of paper that is an extraordinary self-portrait of Bérard. It is an acrostic from an after-dinner game, on which Bérard had scribbled a significant adjective for each letter of his name:
Cruel
Humain
Rapide
Instructif
Snob
Théâtral
Imaginatif
Angoissé
Noyé
Brilliant
Enfantin
Refoulé
Aimant
Reclus
Dérasé
On the day he was buried, Paris went into mourning; people from every walk of life filled the church. Bérard would have been pleased to see the care and love with which the flowers that were sent as tributes had been selected, for he himself had an extraordinary gift in creating wonderful combinations of flowers. He would select a bit of this and a sprig of that, and in an instant had made a bouquet that possessed his style, taste, and natural selectivity.
One day on his way to meet Alice Toklas for luncheon Bérard, as was his wont, rushed late into a small shop near his apartment off the Place de l’Odéon, where the patronne was accustomed to watch while her client frantically pulled out flowers from the vases standing in the window, spontaneously creating a most charming bunch of flowers. On this occasion Bérard selected several lemon-yellow carnations, one speckled red-and-white carnation, a scarlet rose, a sprig of fern, the top of a branch of apple blossoms, and some purplish-black wallflowers.
When Bérard died, Alice Toklas went, quite by chance, to the same shop off the Place de l’Odéon. The patronne watched while she chose three yellow carnations, one speckled red-and-white carnation, a scarlet rose, and a sprig of fern. Suddenly she exclaimed in astonishment that this was exactly the same combination of flowers that Monsieur Bérard had once made up. Alice Toklas was equally surprised. “But how do you know that?” The patronne explained how Bérard often ran into the shop and how she was always so spellbound by the arrangements of flowers he chose that she could never forget them.
Alice Toklas replied, “No one could bring flowers together in quite the same way that Monsieur Bérard did. You are quite right when you remember that he once made such a bouquet as this, for he gave it to me. I, too, have never forgotten it. Nothing could be more charming. And that is why I am taking these flowers to his funeral.”
When after the war we were asked who were the new beauties and women of great individuality, we made excuses and said that beauty needs a frame, that there were no gilded, beautifully carved frames, or that our changed life did not permit us to squander praise on mere physical perfection. Yet great physical beauty is a coin that will never go out of currency; our attitudes towards beauty may change with the four winds, but true classical perfection is always the criterion.
Today we can still discover in various strata of humanity an enormous number of flowerlike women of timeless beauty. Among them we find the South American Madame Martinez de Hoz, as flawless in her nectarine perfection as she was twenty years ago, and still moving among the horse-racing members of the faubourg.
A dark Brazilian with the face of a sentimental madonna painted by Murillo, Madame Martinez de Hoz is one of the rare women who have sustained the tradition of great beauty through many vicissitudes. This is particularly surprising, since few South Americans seem to withstand the onslaughts of middle age without damage. During all these years Madame de Hoz has been acclaimed by everyone. No dissenting voice has been heard; all agree she is “a great beauty” whose particular type has never been “out of fashion.”
In appearance she is gracious, elegant, and every inch a lady. Her dark, thrush-like eyes are of such brilliance, her regard so bland, and her smile so serene that one feels she is exempt from the nervous disorders of her day and must surely have been sheltered from all the disconcerting winds of life. Like all luxurious ladies, she gives the impression of being cool in summer and warm in winter.
Madame Martinez de Hoz has never struck a note of originality, would never wish to launch a fashion or make an experiment or a discovery of her own in an unknown shop. She seems, indeed, to be disinterested in the artists who create innovations, and yet always appears essentially “herself” in her choice of “high style” fashions. She wears Madame Redoux’s most successful hats, the “safest” dresses that the most accomplished experts in Paris can offer her.
Madame Martinez de Hoz is not interested in being anything but “perfectly dressed,” and then only for the reason that any lady as gracious as she is must be beautifully turned out. That this takes endless time and money she knows, but she is willing and able to spend the time and the money. She will buy expert advice from the greatest specialists in the world. Jewellers, dress- and hatmakers have enough respect for her innate distinction to avoid experimenting with their latest ideas, reserving for Madame de Hoz only the safest and most truly tried concoctions: they cannot afford to risk a failure. By the time this great beauty gives her approval to a fashion, it has already been proved impeccable, and her acceptance of it is its highest reward.
Madame de Hoz is without doubt at the top of any list of “best-dressed women.” By temperament she is far removed from those who figure in this book. Artists and enlightened people know she as affinity with them, yet they inevitably pay homage to this vision of perfection.
In contrast to Madame de Hoz, Alice Astor Bouverie stands, by her own choice, very much apart from the fashionable world. Indeed, she makes that world’s values seem rather despicable simply by the way in which her personal style asserts itself with grace, breeding, and sensuality. Though Mrs. Bouverie does not play fashion’s game, she has a healthy regard for convention, and her more conservative acquaintances know that she could be the most fashionable woman in London, Paris, Rome, and New York if it gave her the slightest interest. She is, however, more interested in being herself and following her own sense of values, which she does with style and modesty. There is no anarchy implied in her choice of friends among true artists and valid bohemians: they are the people she finds most interesting and most rewarding; their ideas and their way of life correspond to her own. Yet she dislikes phony artistic movements, avoiding the solipsismal circles.
Alice Bouverie is one of the very few wealthy women who have used their riches in an imaginative way, and is even the more rare because she has in no way been spoilt by her possessions. If she can be more extravagant than anybody, she has at the same time a sense of money and knows how to be economical or uneconomical with the same sense of proportion. She may give large sums of money to charity or to organiz
ations that interest her; she enjoys the fun of choosing bargains from Sunday papers and ordering from Selfridge’s, Macy’s, or Bloomingdale’s. Over the years her interest in the arts has led her to patronize painters, writers, poets, and especially the ballet, which she adores, and whose catholic tastes reflect her own very catholic view of æsthetics. To all of these activities she brings a sensitivity, which is more European than that of almost any American woman.
In appearance Mrs. Bouverie is rather like an Indian, with her dark olive complexion, her sad, compassionate eyes, and a sweetness of expression that betokens an inward calm while all about her is rush and chaos. Although she seems fragile, with her tall, thin body and medieval slouch, she has tenacity and endurance and a violent enthusiasm that belies the outward calm. Since she refuses to be rushed, she may often be very late for appointments. On the other hand, even when she is interested in something, time means little to her. She can stay up all night and be surprised when the dawn light peeps through the window and a breakfast tray is brought to her: in this she shows an almost childlike quality of intensity and application.
MRS. BOUVERIE
Mrs. Bouverie has an unerring sense of the colours that are appropriate to her appearance. Maroon and olive, black and dull gold or dark grey are a part of her chosen range. The clothes she wears have the imprint of her subtlety and yet are so discreet that one has to look twice to realize how well-dressed she really is. Alice Bouverie accumulates vast amounts of clothes but always manages to wear them at one time or another and is apt to produce a dirndl skirt from five years previously. In most of her wardrobe there is a decided Eastern influence, both in the woven lamé tunics and skirts and in her jewellery.