#french woman nude

[rearend]

Isabelle Chaudieu

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Paul Gervais (French, 1859-1944) The madness of Titania, 1897 Musèu dels Agustins

[life-imitates-art-far-more]

Jérôme-Martin Langlois (1779-1838) "Cassandra Imploring The Vengeance of Minerva Against Ajax" (1810) Oil on canvas Neoclassical

[peaceinthestorm]

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877, French) ~ La Femme au perroquet (Woman with a Parrot), 1866

[Source: metmuseum.org] 

[mindsynthcreations]

Love green

[californiasplit]

you try to turn it off but youre too turned on by it

[classic-art-favourites]

The Slave Market by Jean-Leon Gerome, 1866.

[pagansphinx]

Suzanne Valadon (French, 1865-1938)

Jean Fabris •  Suzanne Valadon • c. 1885 • age 20 • Photograph.

Suzanne Valadon (French, 1865-1938) • Family Portrait • 1912 • Musée d’Orsay

Suzanne Valadon led a fascinating life. As the young child of a poor woman living in Montmartre, she took an interest in the paintings of the local artists. Poverty made it out of the question she would be able to pursue becoming an artist. To earn a living, she made and sold funeral wreaths and vegetables. Then, at the age of 15, she joined the circus as an acrobat, a job she loved. An injury would not allow her to continue performing. She then put herself to work as an artist's model. She is one of a scant few artist's models to be easily recognized in the paintings she sat for. Among the artists who painted her were Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Berthe Morisot.

Pierre Auguste Renoir (French, 1841–1919) • La natte (The Braid) • 1886-87 • Museum Langmatt, Baden, Switzerland

Valadon began sketching as a young child and continued during the period she worked as an artist's model. Always paying careful attention to the artists at work, she was beginning to learn to paint. One day Edgar Degas saw her work and encouraged her to keep drawing.

In 1883, Valadon painted the above self-portrait in pastel.

As a model, Valadon went by the name Maria before being nicknamed "Suzanne" by her friend Toulouse-Lautrec. Rumors swirled around Valadon. One such was that she had an affair with Toulouse-Lautrec. Another rumor was that Renoir was the father of her son, Maurice, born in 1883. Renoir denied the allegation. It is documented that Suzanne had a torrid affair with the composer Erik Satie. Because she led an unconventional life and was not bound by strict adherence to the mores of her time, Suzanne Valadon developed a reputation in Paris. A Parisian art expert once remarked that Suzanne was ‘an excellent instinctive artist and a bit of a prostitute'. To illustrate how little respect women of the time recieved, Renoir once wrote to a friend that: “I think of women who are writers, lawyers and politicians as monsters, mere freaks . . . the woman artist is just as ridiculous.” Untraditional women were "whores" and talented women were monsters. According to these men, Suzanne Valadon was both despite her tremendous talent.

Femme à la contrebass, painted in 1908, is one of Valadon's earliest oil paintings. Though she would continue to draw in charcoal and pastel, her painting technique had started to improve and took on characteristics of a signature style.

As Valadon's painting career progressed, she painted quite a few female nudes. Perhaps because of her experiences as a model and her instincts as a woman, she painted the female body very differently than her male contemporaries. Her nudes were far less stylized and sexualized. Valadon painted her nudes with body hair and flabby thighs and they certainly had an air of confidence that was expertly portrayed to the canvas.

In 1911, the first solo exhibition of the work of Suzanne Valadon was held at the Galerie Clovis Sagot.

Nu au canapé • 1920

Young Girl in Front of a Window • 1930 • San Diego Museum of Art

An example of Suzanne Valadon's mature style, painted eight years before her death.

Sources:

Interlude

Literary Hub

Wikiart

Aware; Suzanne Valadon

The Art Stort

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (French, 1758-1823) Study of a Female Nude, ca.1800 The Getty Museum

[empirearchives]

Pierre-Paul Prud'hon dreams

Early 1800s, France

[katabasis-gallery]

«Woman as a Flower» Albert-Joseph Pénot (1862–1930)

More art, free and uncensored in Telegram: https://t.me/katabasis_art

[classic-art-favourites]

The Birth of Venus by Alexandre Cabanel, 1863.