Suzanne decided that it might prove a long-term economy to seek specialist input. Therefore in 1891, she took Maurice, not yet eight, to consult a paediatric specialist at the Hôpital du Kremlin-Bicêtre.32 They believed they could give a diagnosis: mental debility. Mme Valadon would do well to place her son in the nearby care home for children with mental handicaps, Suzanne was told. Appalled at the assessment, and never receptive to being ‘told’, Suzanne brought Maurice straight home and resolved that, in the long tradition of Limousin peasant families, the Valadons would deal with the ‘problem’ themselves.
Meanwhile, Miguel’s role and purpose remained unclear. He was far from assuming responsibilities of chef de famille, and he did not live with the Valadons. But his commitment was such that he did not conceal it from his own family. ‘Dearest mother,’ Miguel wrote on Maurice’s birthday that year, after the little boy had written a note to Señora Utrillo, ‘[Maurice] is well but remains fragile, his mother is still in a delicate state of health.’33
Still, if the relationship between Maurice and Miguel remained distant, scarcely more than the cold formality of a paper agreement, the Spaniard’s profound and complicated bond with the child’s mother was tangibly evidenced through drawings. In 1891, Miguel began a drawing of Suzanne, a delicate study in red chalk and coloured pencils. That same year, Miguel sat for Suzanne on numerous occasions, and allowed her sure hand to trace those features she knew so well, to study closely the subject who had assumed a new significance in her eyes. Her line caressed his elegant, aquiline profile, with his dark features and his straight nose. It was a familiar face – few observers would deny that besides the moustache, it was the very image of Maurice.
Suzanne’s art was starting to attract notice. In 1892, Degas arranged for her to have some of her studies of Maurice sent to Le Barc de Boutteville’s shop in the Rue Pelletier at the time of the exhibition ‘Impressionistes et Symbolistes’. It was a small venue, but acceptance there carried immense prestige. Originally a dealer in old paintings, by the 1890s, Le Barc de Boutteville had become one of the foremost exhibitors of avant-garde art and a tireless promoter of previously unknown talent.34 There, Suzanne, a woman, would have her work considered alongside canvases by Lautrec, Camille Pissarro and one of the leaders of the Nabis movement, Paul Sérusier.
The young art student Françis Jourdain was helping hang the exhibition, when Le Barc pointed out the work of one artist in particular.35 He held up one of Suzanne’s drawings of Maurice.
‘Not bad, eh?’ Le Barc mused. ‘It’s by a little model … She never had any training … Seeing one of the artists she was posing for at work, she thought she would have a go too … Seriously talented, don’t you think? … You’d never guess that a woman had done that …’
For the Mercure de France, Le Barc de Boutteville’s exhibition of ‘Impressionistes et Symbolistes’ confirmed ‘that real art can only be found outside the schools and official institutions’.36 To the reviewer’s mind, it was one of ‘the true exhibitions of the year, the only ones that we should speak about’.
For Suzanne, having her work handled by Le Barc de Boutteville was a spectacular achievement, at once personally reaffirming and publicly demonstrating that she should be taken seriously. And as her confidence grew, so her artwork became braver. That year, she produced her first female nude. She also faced her trepidation about painting in oils, producing Young Girl Crocheting and Portrait of a Young Girl.
When she drew or painted, Suzanne dedicated herself fully to the task. It was intense work, so novel entertainments were always welcome when she set down her pencil or brush. And it just so happened that a new leisure activity was taking Montmartre by storm. By the 1890s, Miguel and his friends had become fascinated by the art of Chinese shadow theatre.
Shadow puppetry as a means of storytelling had a long history in Asia, but it was particularly the Chinese form of the art that found its way back to France via missionaries in the second half of the 18th century. The art took hold and it saw a resurgence in the 19th century. At a time when flat screens typically presented a static image, the animation of shadow theatre was unparalleled. With its movement, sound, effects, and the intimate contact it encouraged between performers and audiences, shadow theatre was perfectly attuned to fin-de-siècle tastes.
Always on the lookout for lucrative business ventures, Rodolphe Salis smelled an opportunity. He decided to try staging shadow shows at Le Chat Noir. The first show, The Epic, a retelling of Napoleon’s war in Spain in 1808, was performed on 27 December 1886.37 Audiences sat transfixed before the huge screen as the two-act pantomime unfolded. In the wings, machinists slid in some 50 plates cut out of zinc (which ensured a rigid form and a crisp outline) mounted on light pine chassis. And when lamps were directed on the action and Charles de Sivry’s stirring score began to play, spectators were transported to a magical world. Gliding panels in at different angles created the illusion of depth, while well-timed effects with smoke and puffs of air added to the effect. Salis improvised a commentary, and the throng of audience members (some squeezed in perching on upturned barrels) felt so immersed in the action that they gasped and called out in response as the show unfolded. In moments, full-grown adults were returned to childlike wonder and the success of the cabaret’s shadow theatre was confirmed. The performances became the venue’s calling card, and showcased the talents of such artists as Henri Rivière, Caran d’Ache, Louis Morin and Fernand Fau, with The Epic and The Walk by Starlight (performed in January 1890) becoming its flagship shows.38
Miguel was among those Montmartrois captivated by the evocative power of shadow theatre. But watching from the audience was not enough; he wanted to be involved. Miguel began to study the art of shadow performance seriously. With his technical training and artistic skill, he was just the kind of multitalented individual who could excel at shadow theatre.
Since Le Chat Noir’s venture, the craze for shadow theatre had spread. The proprietor of Le Chat Noir’s great rival, the Auberge du Clou, calculated that staging shadow shows could boost their average customer spend too. And it was there that Miguel was booked to stage his first public show. Miguel’s stage skills made him a big hit with the public. ‘Completely new and highly original,’ Gil Blas raved about one of the first productions Miguel was involved with, declaring it ‘a well-deserved artistic success.’39 Suzanne was among Miguel’s loyal supporters, and she often arrived with Mousis following not far behind.
In 1892, Miguel was entrusted with directing and designing the end of year show at the Auberge du Clou. The text for Noël would be provided by the writer, composer and actor Vincent Hyspa.40 And the music was to be composed by a friend of Miguel’s, a bizarre young pianist by the name of Erik Satie.
With his frock coat, goatee beard and top hat perched on a crop of wild brown hair, the bespectacled, Normandy-born Satie looked the quintessential Montmartre bohemian. Brought to Paris aged four, he had become acquainted with heartbreak early; between the ages of five and six, he lost his baby sister and then his mother in quick succession, and found himself being sent back to Honfleur with his younger brother Conrad to live with his paternal grandparents.41 A strict boarding-school education followed, where the only subjects in which Satie truly excelled were music and Latin. Happily, his grandmother also arranged for him to have music lessons with a local organist. But then tragedy visited Satie again in 1878 when his grandmother drowned swimming, and he and his brother were returned to their father in Paris. After a brief period of casual home-schooling from his father, Satie was enrolled at the prestigious Conservatoire of music on the initiative of his father’s new, musically orientated wife. The rigour and archaism suited him ill. He was declared ‘gifted but indolent’, the ‘laziest student in the Conservatoire’, and in 1882, Satie was dismissed.42 He was readmitted in 1883, but by then his attention was elsewhere; Satie had begun composing and had acquired a taste for Montmartre’s famous avant-garde art scene, with its smoky bars, its cabarets and it
s simmering cauldron of creativity. He left the Conservatoire in 1886 to begin military service, which he despised, and infected himself with bronchitis to hasten his release. By the end of the 1880s, Satie had rented a small apartment in Montmartre, the capital of the bohemian life with which he had fallen in love, and was dividing his time between composing and mingling with the artists, writers and musicians who haunted the area’s cafés.
Satie was delighted to discover Le Chat Noir, which became his second home. Shortly after his first visit, he was hired as second pianist. So comfortable did Satie feel that the shy, reserved young man he had appeared to some quickly gave way to an outgoing and humorous, if eccentric, bohemian. However, with Rodolphe Salis’s doubtful managerial skills and Satie’s inherently free spirit, it was not long before the pair argued. He left Le Chat Noir. Moving to an even tinier flat at 6, Rue Cortot (a spot high enough to evade his creditors, he was fond of informing people), he also found new employment, becoming the pianist at the Auberge du Clou, hired to accompany Miguel’s shadow shows.
Along with Noël, Satie was composing another piece intended for the Auberge du Clou, a ‘Christian ballet’, Uspud, for which the libretto would be provided by his friend, the poet J.P. Contamine de Latour.43 By November 1892, Uspud was complete and ready for performance. Satie was excited. Uspud told the tale of a pagan’s conversion, and the composer had incorporated a number of interludes for harp, strings and flute. He had put his heart and soul into this production, not to mention considerable time. Uspud was expected to create an unprecedented stir, to astound and astonish. It did – though not in the way Satie had hoped. As Latour remembered, initial feedback to the work encompassed ‘wild approbation and violent reprobation’.44 Satie was outraged.
Suzanne had watched the activity at Miguel’s shadow theatre that Christmas with great curiosity. During that time, she came to know the odd figure of Satie a little better. The unusual fascinated her – and Satie was nothing if not unusual.
‘I breathe with caution, a little at a time and I dance very rarely,’ he warned.45
Where Uspud was concerned, Satie had the courage of his convictions. His work should – and would – be performed on the world’s greatest stages, he declared. And there were few greater than the Opéra.
Satie proposed Uspud to the Opéra’s director, Eugène Bertrand, and when, after persistent approaches, no response came, he challenged Bertrand to a duel.46 Terrified into submission, Bertrand hastily agreed to look at the work and arranged to meet with the composer on 17 December. Ultimately, Satie’s insistence that the project be overseen by a committee of musicians of his choosing scuppered any chance of the director yielding.47 But the meeting alone was cause for celebration.
Satie arranged to have a deluxe edition of Uspud printed in honour of his achievement and Suzanne, he decided, would design the cover. Suzanne presented her profile studies of the production’s authors in the form of a medallion. The work demanded a period of close contact, and in Satie’s case, that time was extended; Suzanne also judged the composer’s curious face sufficient motivation to gain mastery over her misgivings about working in oils. She began a portrait of Satie dressed in his uniform hat and frock coat, in which she captured his dark eyebrows, unkempt hair and pince-nez. So often, Suzanne found drawing to enrich her relationships. As they sat together, Satie holding his pose, Suzanne watching him closely, she began to understand the man behind the image of studied eccentricity. And Satie fell deeply in love.
One 14 January 1893 (a Saturday, Satie remembered), Suzanne and the musician began an intense affair. Two days later, Satie brought her back to visit his dingy, cramped apartment, with its drawings peeling off the walls, its rickety, wrought-iron bed and its spartan furnishings.48 They had barely got to know each other when he proposed. Suzanne quickly turned him down. ‘She had too many things on her mind to get married,’ Satie rationalised afterwards, ‘so we never brought up the subject again.’49
For Suzanne, the circumstances of this new liaison were hardly glamorous. Nor did the affair offer the stability and security she could have in a moment if she accepted Mousis’s advances. But it was exciting, intriguing, unpredictable. A person could never know what an afternoon with Satie might entail. There were trips to the Luxembourg Gardens to sail toy boats; gifts, including a necklace of sausages and a paper bag filled, Satie explained, with all the wonderful smells of the world.50 There were long, passionate love letters in which Satie poured out his heart. She was his love, his darling, his ‘Biqui’.
And then there was music, ‘man’s greatest invention’, Suzanne enthused after her time in Satie’s company.51 Music said what all the letters in the world could not. Rusiñol captured Suzanne’s bewitching effect on Satie and his smothering affection for her in his Una Romanza (1894), a painting for which, in a poignant reversal of roles, Suzanne became the maestro playing the piano and Satie the reverent audience. The claustrophobia was palpable, the casting perceptive; musically erudite though Satie was, in his journey to become a man of the world, he was but an infant, an uninitiated boy to Suzanne’s woman of worldly wisdom. He knew the emotive force of music, but he was unprepared to experience such surges of feeling from another human being.
Friends remembered that in addition to her portrait of Satie, Suzanne good-naturedly gave him a line drawing of herself.52
But with two such unique and passionate characters, each at a very different stage of life, the affair was always destined to be a fleeting interlude, not the protracted symphony Satie had desired. Satie was diverting but he was no serious match for Suzanne’s tempestuous nature and could not provide the support she needed, either to counterbalance her own temperament, or in practical terms for her mother and Maurice. Before long, storm clouds were gathering over their transitory paradise.
The dawning realisation that he could never have and hold Suzanne lay behind a letter Satie penned on 11 March 1893. In the top left-hand corner was the crest of the ‘Society of Old Hens’, on which was inscribed the motto: ‘Eagle I cannot be, turkey I deign not to be, chicken I am’. The letter read:
Dear little Biqui,
Impossible to stop thinking about your whole being; you are inside me completely; everywhere I see only your exquisite eyes, your gentle hands and your little child’s feet.
You are happy; my poor thoughts will not wrinkle your untroubled brow; nor will you worry about not seeing me at all.
For me there is only icy solitude that makes my head feel empty and fills my heart with sadness.
Do not forget that your poor friend hopes to see you at at least one of these three rendezvous:
1. This evening at my place at eight forty-five
2. Tomorrow morning again at my place
3. Tomorrow evening at Dédé’s (Maison Olivier)
I should add, darling Biqui, that I shall on no account get angry if you cannot come to any of these rendezvous; now I have become terribly reasonable, and that in spite of the great happiness that it gives me to see you.
I am beginning to understand that Biqui can’t always do what she wants.
You see, little Biqui, there is a beginning to everything.
I send your heart the sweetest kisses.
Erik Satie53
The letter’s close betrayed a recent history of disputes over Suzanne’s limited availability. Satie’s nine-part Danses Gothiques, composed not long after that letter, captured his mood. ‘On the Occasion of a Great Suffering’, he titled one piece, ‘Concerning a Pardon for Insults Received’ another, and the final dance: ‘Having Been Granted Mitigation for One’s Errors’.54 Besides the suffocating nature of Satie’s love and his possessiveness, the breakup was due at least in part to Suzanne’s realisation of how much she would have to compromise if she remained with Satie. There were dreams she would never realise, demands she could not fulfil. The far more dependable presence of Mousis was hovering in the wings to remind her of the alternative. Meanwhile, Maurice now understood that he only h
ad a father in name, and he was growing more fractious. The difficulties were only magnified when Miguel took up the offer of a role with the shadow theatre group Les Ombres Parisiennes in March 1893 and was invited to go to Chicago for the World Fair. He left France.55
People reasoned that Miguel was jealous of Satie. Initially, however, Suzanne was not unduly concerned. ‘I thought he would come back as he had done so many times before,’ she reflected years later. But she soon realised that she was wrong. Miguel was not going to return.56
Satie’s Bonjour Biqui, Bonjour! was one of his last attempts to express the intensity of his affection. He composed the simple, four-bar song with just three chords and five notes on 2 April 1893, intending it to be an Easter Sunday gift for Suzanne. For the cover, he produced a pen and ink drawing of his beloved. But the plaintive tone bespoke a man who already knew that he had lost her. The affair was doomed. By the summer, it had ended acrimoniously, Satie having channelled his torment and anguish as the relationship deteriorated into the longer and repetitive piano piece Vexations. There was no agreement on how the affair finally ended, but Satie was broken. ‘My love affair with Suzanne Valadon ended on Tuesday 20th of June,’ he scrawled in blue and red ink, pinning a lock of her hair to the paper.57 Lashing out, he issued all sorts of accusations. Sometimes, he would declare that he had pushed Suzanne out of a window, at others, he boasted that he had called the police to come and arrest her.58 Just eight days after the breakup, he wrote to his brother, Conrad:
I have just broken finally with Suzanne.
I shall have great difficulty in regaining possession of myself, loving this little person as I have loved her ever since you left: she was able to take all of me.
Time will do what at this moment I cannot do.59
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