Renoir
Page 9
Renoir realized that the Salon was better suited to advertising his talents at portraiture than to displaying his genre pieces; over the next few years, he primarily sent portraits to the Salons and each year received many portrait commissions.36 These commissions came from a diverse group of people. Besides the French Catholic majority, many patrons were Jewish – like the Bernsteins, the Cahen d’Anvers, Ephrussi, the Foulds, the Grimprels, the Halphens and the Nunès. Others were Protestant – such as a new patron, Paul Bérard, who became a close friend.
In the winter of 1878, at a Charpentier soirée, Renoir met Bérard, a wealthy foreign affairs attaché with ties to the banking world.37 They were introduced by Renoir’s patron and friend Deudon, who had bought Renoir’s Dancer from Durand-Ruel for 1,000 francs in May 1878, as noted earlier.38 Deudon persuaded Mme Bérard to have Renoir paint a full-length portrait of her daughter, Marthe.39 For this single portrait, the Bérards paid him the same amount, 1,500 francs, that Mme Charpentier had paid for her large portrait with her children. Pleased with Marthe’s portrait, the Bérards invited Renoir to spend the summer painting at their Normandy chateau in Wargemont near Dieppe. Renoir explained to Caillebotte why he was leaving Paris: ‘I have to go spend a month at the Bérards’.’40 Over the summers of 1879–85, Renoir stayed one or two months and lived in the chateau as if he were a member of the family.
During these seven summers in Wargemont, Renoir would paint about forty paintings for the family.41 Most were portraits of Bérard, his wife, Marguerite, their four children (André, Lucie, Marthe and Marguerite) as well as their nephew and niece (Alfred and Thérèse Bérard). Renoir even painted their concierge. He also painted genre scenes, landscapes, still lifes and an allegory, The Celebration of Pan. In addition, the Bérards encouraged Renoir’s love of architectural decoration by asking him to paint some of the wood-panelling. In the first summer, he made an oil painting of flowers for the library door and for one bedroom.42 During his time at Wargemont, Renoir worked not only for Bérard but also for other wealthy Parisians who summered near Dieppe. In addition, Renoir painted other works that he sent to his dealer, Durand-Ruel.43
Dieppe was a popular place where many wealthy Parisians purchased large homes in which to spend their three-month summer vacations. They included the Bérards, Durand-Ruel and Edmond Maître’s friends, the Blanches. Dr Émile Blanche was a prominent Parisian alienist (psychiatrist), the director of a mental clinic in Passy in the sixteenth arrondissement, who was also an art collector. He and his wife, Félicie, had a son, Jacques-Émile, then aged eighteen, who aspired to become an artist. During the first summer that Renoir stayed with the Bérards, the Blanches invited Renoir to visit in order to see their son’s paintings. Since Dr Blanche was working in Paris, Mme Blanche wrote to her husband describing the artist’s visit: ‘My dear friend, I see that Jacques has been too humble in his account of M. Renouard’s [sic] visit…. They were chatting together in the yard. I begged M. Renouard to come up and see the little paintings that Jacques painted for his studio, and the other paintings. Jacques objected, saying that he was completely opposed to this, that what he did was dreadful. Fortunately, the young man [Renoir] did not listen to him, and after much bickering between Jacques and me, he ended up seeing almost everything. This visit was extremely beneficial for our child who often loses heart, especially when he paints a face from life; this child wants to succeed at the first attempt, like a Master. I’ll get back to what Renouard said. I promise he said this very seriously, mentioning the flaws within his praises: “I am absolutely amazed; there are some perfectly remarkable parts; it would be quite a shame if you did not become a painter; you have extraordinary qualities of colour and composition; there are even some things that are well drawn; I would be very happy to give you some advice in Paris.”…. All of this made Jacques really happy. [Renoir] told him that sometimes he spent four months believing that he was not capable of doing anything any more, and all of a sudden, he started painting even better. All of this gave Jacques great enthusiasm. He is working hard in drawing. Besides, you know, my dear friend, that my opinion has always been that he needs a professor who knows how to appreciate his great qualities; otherwise he will not make himself any greater if he only sees and talks about his flaws.’44
Renoir’s kindness and encouragement to the young aspiring artist was much appreciated, and Mme Blanche soon learned to spell his name correctly. Later in 1879, the Blanches commissioned Renoir to paint three oil paintings, all illustrations of scenes from Wagner’s Tannhäuser. One, the Apparition of Venus to Tannhäuser, was created for their Paris dining room. The other two, Tannhäuser resting in Venus’s Arms and Wolfram restraining Tannhäuser from reaching Venus, were overdoor decorations for their Dieppe chateau, based on the first and third act of the opera.45 Renoir painted these decorations in Paris but, unfortunately, they were the wrong size. When he discovered this, he redid the paintings in the correct size and gave his dealer the original versions to sell.46
Although written several years later, Jacques-Émile described Renoir’s appearance when he first met him: ‘His face already lined and wrinkled with a sparse and ragged beard, brilliant teary eyes under bushy and fierce eyebrows that didn’t manage to make him look any less gentle. He spoke like a working-class labourer with a rasping guttural Parisian accent.’ And of the Normandy summers Blanche wrote: ‘Every market day he would come from Paul Bérard’s in Wargemont on the seat of the chateau’s omnibus, wearing a funny pointed hat, pipe in mouth, chatting to the butler…. I would look forward to these Saturdays for the joy of showing Renoir whatever I had painted during the week.’47
Even though Renoir was becoming more popular by fulfilling portrait commissions for wealthy patrons, he still preferred painting modern life. For these paintings, he was still using a wide variety of models – actresses, professional models and friends. The only real evidence we have of any specific model during this time is of Margot Legrand.48 She is mentioned in several of Renoir’s letters dated early 1879. The intensity of his feelings about her suggests that she was personally important to him. In January and February 1879, when Renoir was thirty-eight and Margot twenty-three, she became seriously ill. Renoir wrote a series of distraught letters to two friends who were homeopathic doctors.49 He wrote to Dr Paul Gachet: ‘Dear Doctor, Please be kind enough to go to Miss L…’s house, 47, rue Lafayette…. Some spots have appeared. As she scratches them, they form a white blister.… She writes me that she is suffering greatly…. It could be smallpox. In short, I am very anxious to find out, so anxious that I have accomplished nothing today as I waited for you…. Yours, RENOIR, 35, Rue Saint-Georges.’50 Receiving no answer, he wrote another anguished letter: ‘Dear Doctor, The dear child writes me that she is suffering and does not know what to do. Please be kind enough to go see her, or to let me know if you are ill, or if something has happened to you. I am very worried and very distressed. Your friend, RENOIR.’51
Dr Gachet had not responded because, on 17 January 1879, he was in a train accident and was unable to travel to see Margot. Once Renoir learned this, he sought the help of another homeopathic physician friend, Dr Georges de Bellio, who was an early Impressionist collector.52 Renoir also wrote again to Dr Gachet: ‘This morning, M. de Bellio went to see my sick patient. He had seen her several times at my studio and he has a head I painted of her, I think.’53 Again, he wrote: ‘I have given up on smallpox; it might be more humane to let this poor child die peacefully. If there was the faintest hope, I would do anything in my power. But it is extremely serious.’54 Subsequently, he wrote to Dr de Bellio: ‘Dear Doctor, The young girl you were kind enough to treat, unfortunately too late, died [on 1 February 1879]. I am nevertheless extremely grateful to you for the relief you provided her with, even though both of us were convinced it was quite worthless. Your devoted friend, RENOIR.’55
These letters show Renoir’s heartbreak about Margot’s condition, since he cared deeply about her. His use of endearments such as ‘
dear child’, ‘this poor child’, ‘my sick patient’ and ‘the young girl’ could be interpreted today as somewhat belittling – after all, she was twenty-three and he was fifteen years older than her – but at the period they were normal expressions of fondness from a man to a woman.
In September 1878, five months before Margot died, at a time when Renoir, then aged thirty-seven, was enjoying Mme Charpentier’s support and his prospects of becoming an eminent portraitist looked good, Renoir met Aline Charigot, who at nineteen was eighteen years his junior. For the next thirty-seven years, Aline was a key woman in the painter’s life. After Margot Legrand died, Aline became his primary model and posed for more masterpieces than any other woman. Many of these are his most vibrant, colourful and romantic images. They convey Renoir’s happiness with the woman who was his new model and who would become his mistress and later wife. The years 1879–84 were the time of Renoir’s courtship of Aline and the early years in which they lived and travelled together. This budding love brought him a joy that is evident in his letters to her and in the superb quality and prolific nature of his paintings. The period coincides with his new-found success as a portraitist, largely due to Mme Charpentier and his reception at the Salon of 1879.
Aline and Renoir had much in common, both being born outside the cultural hub of Paris and both from working-class families. She was from the devoutly Catholic village of Essoyes, on the Ource river in Champagne, near Burgundy. Eight years before she was born, a census recorded that the population of Essoyes numbered only 1,806 inhabitants.56 However, while Renoir came to Paris at the age of four from the small city of Limoges, Aline came at fifteen, having spent her childhood in Essoyes. But both grew up poor and lower class, and both mothers were seamstresses and their fathers, a tailor and baker, respectively. Their grandparents were also artisans, Renoir’s a wooden-shoemaker (as we have seen) and Aline’s a wine-grower.57
Despite their similar backgrounds, Aline’s childhood was harsher, since she grew up penniless, abandoned by her parents and ill-treated by her relatives. Although Renoir had been poor, he had the support of his family. While Renoir was driven to make whatever compromises he needed to pursue his art, Aline developed an iron will towards getting what she wanted. Even with her hardships, she excelled in schoolwork and was determined to make a good life for herself. It might have been that very iron will that attracted Renoir to her. Aline’s toughness helped her and supported Renoir through rough times, especially as Renoir, significantly older than she, struggled with ill health that first manifested itself when she was not yet thirty years old.
Aline’s mother, Thérèse Emilie (called Emilie) Maire, was born in Essoyes on 19 January 1841, a month before Renoir’s birth in Limoges. It was always awkward for the three of them that he and his future mother-in-law were the same age. Yet the fact that Renoir was of the same generation as her absent father was probably comforting to Aline, who grew up without a caring father figure. The circumstances around Aline’s birth were unfortunate. Emilie was a dressmaker aged seventeen when she became pregnant. Since abortion was illegal in Catholic France, Emilie was forced to marry a baker then aged twenty-two. Six months later, Aline was born. Her birth certificate reads: ‘On May 23, 1859, at 6 o’clock, Aline Victorine Charigot, a female child, was born of Claude [Victor] Charigot, a baker, and of Thérèse Emilie Maire a housewife, town of Essoyes, Canton of Essoyes, Arrondissement of Troyes, Département of Aube.’58
When Aline was fifteen months old, Victor abandoned his wife and child for his mistress, who lived in Selongey, on the Côte d’Or, 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Essoyes. When he fled, he left his wife a debt of 1,031 francs to a flour and grain dealer. With that much debt, Emilie could not pay the rent and she and Aline were evicted. After all their furniture and possessions were sold, Emilie still owed the landlord 66 francs. Although she had applied for a separation of goods between the two partners, it was not until two years later that a legal decree declared that Victor had ‘disappeared from his home…abandoning his wife’, thus clearing Emilie of the remaining debt.59
Emilie asked for a separation of goods rather than divorce because divorce was illegal in France from 1817 until 1884. Victor, meanwhile, did not find this to be an impediment. He left his mistress and on 17 August 1872, fled across the Atlantic to Quebec and made his way to Winnipeg, Manitoba. There, where the French marriage records were not available, he married an American widow, Louise Loiseau, in a church wedding. Technically, this was bigamy. Amazingly, eleven years later after Louise died in March 1884, Victor wrote to Emilie proposing that after a separation of twenty-four years she come to join him in Winnipeg.60 Emilie used this letter to obtain a divorce, which was granted in 1888. After Emilie rejected Victor’s 1884 proposal, he soon remarried. He and his new wife, Arméline (or Émeline) Reopelle (or Riopel) moved to America and settled in North Dakota, where, in 1886, their daughter Victoria Charigot was born. Despite his utter infidelity to his wife, he never quite forgot their daughter, Aline, and, over the years, occasionally sent tokens or letters.
Shortly after they were abandoned, Emilie aged nineteen and Aline aged fifteen months went to live with relatives. Emilie earned a little money sewing. However, by the time that Aline was eight years old, Emilie came to the conclusion that she could not earn enough as a seamstress in Essoyes. She left Aline with family members and found a higher-paying job as a housekeeper far from Essoyes at Nogent-sur-Seine, Sarcelles, Dreux. Throughout the next seven years, Emilie rarely saw Aline though she sent money to pay for Aline’s clothes and school tuition. Subsequently, she left this employment and found another housekeeping job in Paris where she worked for a widow at 42 rue Saint-Georges, coincidentally close to Renoir at number 35. After the widow died, Emilie left rue Saint-Georges and rented an apartment nearby at 35 rue des Martyrs, in Pigalle, Paris’s red-light district, where she worked as a dressmaker.
During the years that Emilie was separated from her daughter, Aline’s relatives were not affectionate towards her. Most of the time, Aline lived with a childless uncle and aunt, Claude Charigot, the eldest of her father’s ten siblings, and his wife [Marie] Victorine Ruotte, who looked down on her. Claude owned his own home and was a wine-grower; Victorine was a dressmaker and the daughter of wine-growers. Although she harshly criticized Aline, Victorine sympathized with Emilie and called her brother-in-law ‘the bastard’.61 Occasionally, Aline stayed with her father’s mother or with her mother’s parents, who were cruel. On one occasion, her maternal grandfather tried to take half of Aline’s school money, since he felt that Aline was a drain on his finances.62 Another time, her paternal grandmother pocketed the New Year gift money that Aline’s father had sent her.63
In this loveless situation, Aline grew not to trust others. Her aunt lamented: ‘She never has been able to have a friend.’64 Aline’s deprived childhood could have been one of the causes of her lifelong weight problem. Being surrounded by people who disliked her, she turned to food for comfort. It might also have been partly genetic. Her father’s sister, Marie, was extraordinarily overweight.65 In Victorine’s numerous letters to Emilie, she focused on Aline’s appearance, though she occasionally also described her schooling and her behaviour. When Aline was ten, Victorine wrote: ‘Your Aline is well. She is fat.’66 When Aline was eleven, Victorine reported: ‘I wish you could see how fat she is…. She gained eight pounds during the six weeks that she was with me. The nuns complimented her, saying she looked well.’67 When Aline was thirteen, in August 1872, her aunt told Emilie: ‘she is tall and heavy’.68
Aunt Victorine was strict and often complained to Emilie about Aline’s wilful and disobedient behaviour. In an undated letter, Victorine related: ‘She is less obedient than last year…. She is very difficult to control.’69 When Aline was eleven, Victorine bemoaned: ‘I am at my wit’s end. Can you believe that she goes fishing every day? The eve of Ascension, she went into the water [with her shoes on]. Her shoes are no longer fit to wear…. She will never learn. I
don’t know what you will do with her.’70 Aline’s teachers at the parochial school had the same problem. Victorine reported: ‘The nuns say that they will do all they can to control her but that it is difficult.’71 Aline was independent, strong-willed and liked to be alone. Eventually, Victorine had a few good things to say about her: ‘She is becoming more reasonable; she obeys me well; she also works well; she finished knitting a pair of stockings’.72
Aline excelled at her studies. There was a free school in Essoyes and a girls’ private Catholic school that took day students and boarders. Despite her limited resources, Emilie sent Aline to the parochial school where she learned religion as well as reading, writing, sewing and cooking. When she was nine, her aunt informed her mother that Aline had won ‘first prize in spelling, first prize in arithmetic, and first prize in religious studies’, begrudgingly adding: ‘She works pretty well for someone her age.’73 From these letters it is evident that Victorine felt burdened by having Aline with them. When Aline was twelve, her maternal uncles were trying to get her to leave school. Aline herself wrote to her mother: ‘My…uncles are jealous. Sometimes they say that I must go to the vineyard [to pick grapes]; other times, that you should find a job for me. They send their children to get wine, milk, in other words, everything that they need.’74 But she wanted to stay in school, and her mother was willing to pay.