Renoir
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Berthe Morisot Manet and her Daughter, Julie Manet, 1894. 81.3 × 65.4 cm (32 × 25¾ in.). Private collection
Julie Manet, age 16, c. 1894. Photographer unknown
Two weeks after Morisot’s death, Renoir poured out his heart to Monet. Along with his deep grief, he expressed concerns about Julie, now an orphan at sixteen. Renoir explained that Julie was being cared for by Paule: ‘The older cousin, Paule, is a charming girl who is very sensible and can very well perform her role as mother. The poor little one [Julie] is very weak and worries us a lot.’ In the same letter, Renoir says that he goes often to see Julie in hopes of lifting her spirits: ‘That shakes her up a little. That’s all that one can hope for right now.’ He explains how Morisot had made sure that Julie would not be alone: ‘Morisot also left a considerable amount of money to the little Gobillard cousins, which will make them more comfortable to stay with Julie.’ Renoir was deeply moved by Morisot’s devotion to her daughter: ‘This poor woman did not lose her mind for a moment and thought of everything. A few minutes before her death, she said goodbye to all her friends without forgetting anybody, asking them all to take care of Julie.’38
Renoir was also struck by Morisot’s generosity to Mallarmé’s daughter, Geneviève, then aged thirty-one, who Morisot had suspected was unmarried because Mallarmé, a poor high-school teacher, could not afford to give his daughter a dowry. Morisot had made an addition to her will to give a small dowry to Geneviève. Renoir concurred with the hope that by Morisot’s kindness, ‘she can perhaps save this poor child from solitude. A little money will help her to get married.’39 Morisot’s benevolent foresight for her own daughter, her nieces and Mallarmé’s daughter, moved Renoir profoundly.
One of the ways that Julie began to recover was by helping Renoir, aided by Degas and Monet, to plan the retrospective of her mother’s art that Durand-Ruel held a year after Morisot’s death, on 5–23 March 1896. Julie helped choose which works to exhibit, how to frame and display them and how to prepare the catalogue. In her diary, she wrote: ‘M. Renoir is quite touching in the way he looks after us and in the way he talks to us about Maman’s exhibition.’40 In about February 1896, Renoir wrote to Julie: ‘Dear little friend… Now you need to busy yourself with framing; start with the main things. We’ll have to see Braun, the photographer, to find out if he will be able to hire us an easel. We can use it to show some drawings and some watercolours, if at all possible. Be kind enough to write to Monet so that he gives titles for the catalogue. We’re in a rush and I’m still waiting for the photographer. Think about the catalogue.’41
Julie became a frequent guest of the Renoirs. During the five years after her mother’s death until 1900, Renoir came to her home seventeen times, which sometimes included dinner, according to her diary. Eleven times, they met at other people’s homes – six times in 1898 at the Baudots’s, twice at Degas’s in November 1895, and at Mallarmé’s in December 1897, Henri Rouart’s in January 1898 and Henri Lerolle’s in November 1899. Julie visited Renoir’s studio nine times. She came to his home, usually with her cousins, ten times for dinner and seventeen times without dinner. He also met the three girls at the Louvre three times in November and December 1897.42
Aline, too, became close to the girls. In October 1897, she wrote to Paule: ‘The bouillabaisse is set for Sunday the 31st of October at noon; please join us because I am making it in your honour. My best wishes…and to the three of you, all my friendship. A. Renoir. P.S. If Charlotte [Lecoq] can come, bring her.’43 Aline was extremely kind to the three orphan girls. Perhaps she had wanted girls of her own, or perhaps she wanted to give these motherless children the affection that she had never had as a child.
Julie and her cousins also went on vacations with the Renoirs, travelling with the family on five short trips of one to three days from July to December 1898.44 The Renoirs also invited them on significantly longer trips. Perhaps these travels began as a way for Renoir to help Julie recover. The first, a two-month holiday in Brittany from August to October 1895, was only five months after Morisot’s death. Then, starting two years later, the Renoirs took the three girls on yearly long trips together: in 1897, 16 September–19 October in Essoyes; in 1898, 7 September–24 October again in Essoyes; and in 1899, 28 July–12 August in Saint Cloud.45 Unlike Renoir’s letters to his daughter Jeanne, which always mention money, neither Renoir’s letters to Julie nor Julie’s diary ever mention this subject.
Renoir always treated the girls as if they were his own daughters, going out of his way to help and protect them. When he invited them to Brittany in July 1895, he and his family were already there. The three girls needed to take a two-day train trip to join them, so Renoir left his family and met the girls after their first day on the train. Julie explained: ‘We were anxious to find M. Renoir. Thankfully we saw him at Châteaulin station and he took us to a hotel, where we spent the night.’ She added: ‘He is really very kind to take the trouble to come out and meet us.’46 A few months later in Paris, she recorded: ‘M. Renoir (who gives me the impression of being our protector) saw us on to the tram.’47 During this 1895 trip, Renoir made many paintings of two girls together, probably inspired by the cousins.48
Julie adored Renoir. She wrote extensively about him in her diary, continually praising him and never saying anything negative. After the Brittany trip, she noted: ‘M. Renoir has been so kind and so charming all summer; the more one sees of him, the more one realizes he is a true artist, first class and extraordinarily intelligent, but also with a genuine simple-heartedness.’49 Four years in his company did not diminish her admiration: ‘[Renoir] talks so interestingly. What intelligence! He sees things clearly as they are, just as he does in his art.’50 At the end of their last long visit with Renoir in 1899, Julie and her cousins hated leaving him. She wrote sadly: ‘We have just left M. Renoir who was so delightful, so kind, so high-spirited with us during the two weeks which we spent in Saint Cloud. He thanked us ever so kindly for having stayed with him. “People my age don’t tend to be very entertaining,” he said. We regretfully bade him farewell, while making all sorts of recommendations for his treatment in Aix [the health spa of Aix-les-Bains].’51 Over the course of these four years of visits, the girls even became comfortable making suggestions about Renoir’s paintings. Julie wrote in her journal in August 1899: ‘He is finishing a self-portrait which is very good.52 He first made himself look a little hard and too wrinkled; we insisted that he remove several wrinkles and now it looks more like him. “I seem to have sufficiently captured my inquisitive eyes,” he said’ (see page 199).53
In fact, Julie felt much closer to Renoir, her unofficial guardian appointed by her mother, than she did to her official guardian, Mallarmé, whom she saw much less often and rarely mentioned in her diary. After spending a month with the Renoirs in Essoyes in 1897, Julie wrote: ‘[Renoir] has a great deal of influence over the young people who admire him, and says such philosophical things, so charmingly, that one automatically believes them. If only all men of his age could have as good an influence over young people. M. Mallarmé doesn’t give enough advice. He could give ethical advice in the most delightful manner, and he has such a worthy lifestyle (M. Renoir greatly admires his character) that he ought to guide young people; instead of which he is over-indulgent with them…men of ability should lead the young.’54 A year later, the poet died unexpectedly at the age of fifty-six on 11 September 1898. At that time, Julie and her cousins were visiting the Renoirs in Essoyes. Shortly after Mallarmé’s death, cousin Jeannie wrote to Jeanne Baudot: ‘It is M. Renoir who took us to say a final farewell to our unfortunate friend. He [Renoir] was, as in all circumstances, absolutely kind, and he really touched the Mallarmé ladies [wife and daughter] more than others among their crowd of special friends.’55 Renoir was once again stricken by the death of a good friend (see page 203).
Mallarmé’s death was not the only loss Renoir suffered throughout the four years he spent hosting Julie and her cousins. His own mother, who had be
en widowed in 1874, died aged eighty-nine on 11 November 1896, in her home at Louveciennes. Marguerite Renoir was then living with Renoir’s brother Victor and his sister Lisa and her husband, Charles Leray. As his mother became more elderly, Renoir visited her more often and for longer periods. Sometimes he took Pierre along to see his relatives. For example, before going with Aline, baby Jean, Julie, Jeannie and Paule to Brittany in July 1895, Renoir wrote to Bérard: ‘I have settled for a little while at Louveciennes… I am working not too badly. I have models here, and that is going rather well.’56 A year later, Renoir wrote to Geffroy before picking up Pierre on a Friday from his boarding school: ‘I am going to get my kid in Neuilly at 6 p.m. and then I’m going back to Louveciennes till…Wednesday.’57
When his mother died, Renoir was in his mid-fifties and his own health was declining steadily. The progression of his rheumatoid arthritis manifested itself in attacks that came and went. During each episode, he was in pain and his feet would swell, his fingers would stiffen and part of his face would become paralysed. These ordeals were horrific for him because they interfered with his painting, the most important thing in his life. In her diary Julie Manet wrote extensively about his increasing debility, for instance in January 1899: ‘Spent the morning at M. Renoir’s who was ordered to stay in bed for his unremitting rheumatic pains. He does not seem too upset.’ A week later, she noted: ‘M. Renoir is still not doing very well. He can’t work, nor go out, and his rheumatisms are still plaguing him.’58 Seven months later, Julie wrote: ‘M. Renoir’s health changes every day. Sometimes he seems to be fine, then his feet or his hands swell up.’ And five days later: ‘It’s so awful to see him in the morning; he doesn’t even have the strength to turn a door handle.’59
It was not only Julie but all his friends and family who were deeply concerned about Renoir’s health. In December 1893, before Jean’s birth, the poet Henri de Régnier described the artist: ‘Renoir has a face that is agitated and yet paralysed on one side, with one eye already half-closed.’ While Renoir felt paralysed, it would not have been a true paralysis but an inflammation from his rheumatoid arthritis that caused swelling and stiffness.60 Régnier continued: ‘His features and body were thin and he appeared extremely nervous, his face twitching and intelligent, refined and with watchful eyes…. With a sombre mien and simple movements…Renoir partook of his meal with provincial, rustic gestures, his hands already deformed.’61
Despite the fact that Renoir knew he would never get better, he remained optimistic, refusing to give up his work or his life. When he was still a relatively young fifty-eight years old, Renoir explained to his dealer: ‘I have not mentioned my health because it’s pretty difficult to describe. One day it’s bad and one day better. All in all, I think I’ll have to get used to living like this. My feet still refuse to become less swollen. I have always predicted that when I matured artistically in relation to myself for my painting, it would not work any more. I have nothing to complain about; it could have been worse.’62 He felt lucky to be alive. A month later, in March 1899, he confided in his friend Bérard: ‘I think that I must get used to living with my pains. If they don’t get worse, I’ll be lucky.’63 Each rheumatic attack nevertheless left Renoir a little worse. He was acutely aware of the downward progression of his illness and that such a decline was inevitable. No cure existed for the disease. Gradually Renoir’s fine-motor skills decreased so that it was more difficult for him to manipulate the brush for fine details. Consequently, out of necessity, his strokes became looser and freer. Even so, he would live to paint for another twenty years. He refused to let his illness come between him and the people in his life. As an extraordinarily social person, Renoir no doubt feared that his debilitating illness would alienate his family and friends. To avoid this, he was determined to retain a positive attitude.
As a way to forestall the disease’s progress, Renoir remained as active as possible. To retain his hand–eye coordination and his agility, he played cup-and-ball (bilboquet), and to keep up his strength, he took long walks. On 27 October 1895, Julie recorded in her diary that Renoir walked from his house in Montmartre to pick up Pierre at his boarding school in Neuilly and back, a total of about 12 kilometres (7½ miles).64 In addition to long walks, Renoir did not hesitate to climb stairs. In April 1897, the family decided to move from their three-storey house in Montmartre to an elegant apartment at 33 rue Rochechouart on the fifth floor (which is described in more detail later in the chapter). It is astonishing that, during the five years that they resided there, both Renoir, with his worsening arthritis, and Aline, with her increasing weight, were able to climb five winding flights of stairs to reach their apartment.
One of the few recommendations that Renoir’s doctors could make for his worsening arthritis was to retreat south, away from the winter weather. To alleviate his suffering, beginning in 1898, Renoir, accompanied by Gabrielle, started going south when Paris was cold. Aline and the children visited from time to time. Here, clearly, Aline was abdicating her role both as Renoir’s partner and care-giver. Each year, Renoir rented a different house on the Mediterranean, somewhere between Cagnes and Nice. On the first trip, in February 1898, Renoir and Gabrielle spent ten days in Cagnes. Renoir returned north, enthusiastic about the area.65 The next year, he and Gabrielle returned to Cagnes during February to April.66 With each passing year, the southern soujourn became more extensive. In 1900, Renoir remained in the south for more than four months, from January to mid-May. He wrote to Jeanne Baudot that he and Gabrielle, ‘have settled into a large, clean, and sunlit house…three kilometres [2 miles] from Grasse and one kilometre from Magagnosc’.67 Later, Aline and Jean joined them, but Pierre remained in boarding school in Paris that year.68
For his partial paralysis and pain, Renoir’s doctors recommended treatments at medicinal spas. Apart from aspirin (the German company, Bayer, was selling it worldwide by 1899), the only other treatment the doctors could recommend was at these spas. Renoir always resisted going to spas because he did not believe they were effective. As he realized, the heat has no long-term benefit and does cause some swelling. Nonetheless, in August 1899, Julie related that reluctantly and timidly Renoir went to Aix-les-Bains’s thermal baths at the foot of the Alps for a two-week treatment. Before he went, she wrote in her diary: ‘We talked about Aix – Renoir wants to be done with his treatment there, taking the waters, as he does not believe in it. He only goes to avoid being reproached for not having followed the advice given him. “If the treatment is too irritating, I’ll make Gabrielle take it”, he told us, for he is taking Gabrielle with him while Mme Renoir stays peacefully in Essoyes.’69 This suggests that Aline did not want to be involved with Renoir’s care. Seven months later, Renoir wrote to Jeanne Baudot with a contrast between Aline and Gabrielle: ‘My wife is putting on weight. Gabrielle is still the amazing cook you remember.’70 It seems that Renoir also did not want to be involved in this mode of care. When at Aix-les-Bains, he wrote to his dealer: ‘I was very tired and the treatment made me even more nervous than usual.’71 Even Julie noticed that his uncontrollable nervous tick had been worsening. She wrote in a diary entry of 1895 that he was continuously ‘rubbing his nose’.72 This was the same nervous tick that both Murer and Mme Blanche had written about twenty years earlier.
The epithet ‘high-strung’ was used by both Aline and Julie to describe Renoir’s temperament. In a letter to Jeanne Baudot in August 1897, after Renoir broke his right arm for the second time (while biking in Essoyes with the caricaturist, Abel Faivre), Aline wrote: ‘My dear Jeanne, You see that our patient is doing well, particularly his spirits, which is quite extraordinary considering how high-strung he is…. Very soon he will be able to work with his left hand.’73 Renoir downplayed the seriousness of his injury. Julie was impressed with his attitude and recorded in her diary: ‘“In life it’s the same as in art”, says M. Renoir, “everything is a matter of comparison.” He’s putting up with his broken arm very well, declaring that he’d rather have tha
t than something else.’74 Three years later, in early August 1899, Julie discussed his arthritis in her journal: ‘The illness is aggravating for him and yet he, so highly strung, puts up with it very patiently.’75
In 1896, Natanson published an article in La Revue blanche describing Renoir’s extreme anxiousness: ‘He comes and goes, sits down, stands up, has hardly stood up when he decides to sit down again, gets up and goes in search of the latest cigarette forgotten on the stool, no, not on the stool, or on the easel, no, on the table, not there either, and at last he decides to roll another which he may well lose before he has had the time to light it.’76
As his declining health worsened his nervousness, it also worsened his indecisiveness. Although at times Renoir could be decisive, at other times, he was trapped in agonizing uncertainty. In her diary, Julie described one such episode on 5 February 1898: ‘I went to M. Renoir’s studio to say goodbye as he’s leaving for the Midi [the south of France] tomorrow. Well at least he says he is from time to time, but at other moments he really doesn’t know what he’s doing. He keeps changing his mind.’ Renoir did go and on 26 February, Julie wrote: ‘M. Renoir got back this week.’77 A year later, she again commiserated in her diary about someone who ‘changes his mind all the time, like M. Renoir’.78