“Her name is Berthe Morisot, and she is a curiosity.” – Le Figaro, 1880

Welcome back to The Land of Desire, a French history podcast dedicated to exploring all the weird adventures, mysteries and surprising backstories behind French cultural icons. This week’s episode continues my new series which I’m really excited about: La Belle Époque, the Golden Age of Paris. This week I’ll focus on one of my favorite artists and female heroes, the Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot. I wish I could devote an entire series to Berthe’s story, but today I’m going to focus on one of the more interesting, and underpublicized, aspects of her life: her complex relationship with Edouard Manet…and his brother, Eugene. Zut alors! Christmas must have been awkward at the Manet household… This week, put on your painter’s smock and join me as we discuss the inner lives of “Manet & Morisot & Manet”.

Episode 6: “Manet & Morisot & Manet”

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Transcript

Bienvenue, and welcome back to the Land of Desire, a podcast about the weird, wacky and wonderful stories from French history. This week, we’re continuing our series on the Belle Époque, that legendary Golden Age of Paris, perhaps most famous for its groundbreaking art movement: Impressionism. Last week, we discussed the lives of the women who posed for these new artworks. This week, we’ll turn our attention to one incredible woman who preferred to make the art instead.

On a warm summer evening in 1868, Berthe Morisot attended a party that would change her life. She was 27 years old, with jet black hair; impossibly deep, dark brown eyes that pulled you in like a whirlpool; and a passion for painting that worried her mother. She loved painting, and what’s more, she was good at it. Yet her passion for her art had driven away suitor after suitor, and 27 was overdue for marriage. One can only guess at Berthe’s state of mind, therefore, as she made her way into the drawing room. That evening, Berthe entered the home of a friend of her family, a woman who enjoyed the company of all sorts of interesting artists and intellectuals and musicians and writers and other great minds of the time. Among those present that night was a charming man Berthe had somehow never met before: the son of her family friend, a fellow artist and someone who would become the most influential person in Berthe’s entire life: Edouard Manet. Today’s episode is a tricky one because Berthe’s own life is usually spoken of, when it is spoken of at all, in relation to the men in her life. She is mentioned in passing as part of the group, as one of the gang, as the token woman along for the ride. At worst, she’s treated like a groupie. But Berthe was the complete equal to – and in many ways, more successful than – those men she considered her dearest, closest friends and her most trusted mentors and allies: the Impressionists. But I don’t have the 17 hours I wish I could devote to this subject, so today we’ll focus on one of the most interesting and understudied relationships in the art world: Manet & Morisot.

The drawing room of Madame Manet was an elegant affair: “Gleaming top hats, scarves, canes and shawls would be handed to the footman before the guests made their entry into the salon, which was hung with chandeliers…a butler or maid circulated with drinks on silver trays.” This was the world Berthe knew: as the daughter of the Chief Councillor of the Audit Office, she moved in well-bred circles. As a child, Berthe and her sisters had all received painting lessons, as part of the standard education for fancy young ladies. Yet Berthe distinguished herself at an early age, growing bored by art instructors who were, frankly, less talented than she was. It’s little wonder that these insecure teachers started sidling up to Berthe’s mother, warning that if Berthe knew how good she was, she might – gasp – attempt a career in art. Little did they know, Berthe’s mother was a bit of a rebel, in her own way: she was unusually supportive of her daughter’s career, and took it upon herself to manage her daughter’s career prospects as well as her marriage prospects. To many men in the room, they were one and the same. As Edouard Manet would observe that first night, it was a pity the Morisot girls weren’t men, but perhaps they could marry a man trained at the academy and push the work of their husbands further. I like to imagine young Berthe dumping a drink on his head at such a comment. She had career prospects of her own: four years earlier, at the precocious age of 23, her first works were selected by the royal Academy for display in the official Salon, the make-or-break event for any new piece of art. That year, the Academy had been particularly picky, rejecting over 2/3 of the submissions. The rejected artists were furious, and one particular breakaway group of artists staged their own exhibition, the “Salon des Refusés” a.k.a. the salon of the rejected. More than one thousand visitors crowded into the Salon des Refusés every day, curious to see what all the fuss was about. Well, there was definitely fuss, and we know what it was about: Edouard Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass. I don’t have enough time today to give this work the attention it deserves, but this groundbreaking painting, featuring a nude woman lounging at a picnic surrounded by clothed men, was the scandal of the year. So, when Berthe and Edouard first met, they were both talented artists in their own right, with the beginnings of their careers under their belts. Yet, Berthe was intrigued by the artists of the Salon des Refusés, and when she finally met its mysterious leader five years later, she forged a friendship immediately. Within months, Manet had invited Berthe to pose for his next painting, depicting two women sitting on a balcony surveying the scene on the street. The next spring, Manet’s Balcony, featuring Berthe Morisot, would be accepted into the Salon. What’s more, through Manet, Berthe Morisot herself would be accepted into a circle of friends: men like Monet, Renoir, Degas and Pissarro, the groundbreaking artists we now know as the Impressionists.

Part of the reason I started this podcast is so I could force my opinions on the rest of the world. Here’s one: Edouard Manet is the worst! Yes, talented painter and all that, but he is like the difficult ex in a Taylor Swift song. His feelings are all over the place, he can’t decide whether he loves you or resents you or both, and he uses your feelings for him to get what he wants. For starters, Manet was married, married the whole time, married to a woman named Suzanne. At least, on paper. Shortly after the debut of the Balcony, Manet started, uhh, shall we say, tutoring a gorgeous young girl named Eva, painting her picture, singing her praises. In true friendzone fashion, Manet would rhapsodize about all of Eva’s charms and talents to Berthe, who was so not ready to hear that. Even Berthe’s mother could see what was going on in Berthe’s mind, “You’re out of his thoughts for the time being,” she wrote. Not to worry, since Eva wouldn’t last long. Much to Suzanne’s relief, and Berthe’s relief, Manet was about to get distracted by something much more important: the war.

In hindsight, Berthe Morisot really shouldn’t have been in town during the Siege of 1870. Berthe’s father was a civil servant, he was staying put, and the rest of the family refused to leave him. Berthe’s studio turned into a camp for soldiers, and the Morisots retreated further and further into their home, watching as their neighbors barricaded their buildings and padded the walls with mattresses. Once the Commune began, life was intolerable: the streets were filled with dying soldiers and screams, and after two months, Berthe left town. The Morisot family home barely escaped the Commune, and an exploding shell nearby broke every window and blew the paintings off the walls. Meanwhile, Manet had spent the war ready to stand and fight, or so he said. After moving most of his paintings to the basement of his art dealer, he signed up for the National Guard. Years later, Berthe would remark that Manet spent most of the war changing his uniform. Yet the harsh realities of war were real enough for Manet, and he missed Suzanne terribly. In some ways, these must have been some of the best days of their marriage: “I long to see you, my poor Suzanne,” he wrote, “I don’t know what to do without you.” Alas for Suzanne, once again, these feelings had an expiration date.

Suzanne, understandably stressed out and hiding up high in the mountains until the danger had passed, had gained a lot of weight. By the time husband and wife were reunited, the steadfast, loyal Wartime Manet had disappeared, and flirtatious ladies man Manet was back. His first move? Visiting Berthe, of course. He immediately asked to paint her portrait again, and they lapsed into their unspoken, undecided attraction, with a frustrated Berthe struggling to resist the charm of a married man who constantly withdrew whatever affection lingered in the air without warning. It was pointless, and Berthe knew it, but no other man seemed to support her art and challenge her mind. Manet painted her again and again in the next year and a half, with Berthe starring in some of his greatest works. When Berthe visited the debut of one of Manet’s portraits, “I found Manet, his hat on his head in the sun, looking dazed; he asked me to go see his painting. I’ve never seen such expressive features; he was laughing…I definitely think he has a charming character that pleases me infinitely.” In typical Manet fashion, after spending the last year and a half in the studio with Berthe, he decides he’s in love with his wife again, and takes Suzanne off for a second honeymoon. It was a terrible summer for Berthe, all alone in Paris while her closest friends paired off and left town. In a letter to her sister, Berthe wrote, “I’m sad and what’s worse, everyone is abandoning me; I feel lonely, disillusioned and old into the bargain.” Berthe’s mother was worried: ‘We must consider that in a few more years she will be alone, she will have fewer ties than now; her youth will fade, and of the friends she supposes herself to have now, only a few will remain…I know that now the activity and artistic milieu of Paris hold great attraction for Berthe. She should be careful not to yield to still another illusion, not to give up the substance for the shadow…How I wish the dear child had all this turmoil of feeling and fantasy behind her.”

In 1874, Berthe and her fellow artists decided the time had come to stage an exhibit of their own. They were excited: ten years after the Salon des Refusés had given the artists time to learn from one another, sharing techniques and perfecting their individual styles, and they felt that even if the Academy wasn’t ready, perhaps the forward-thinking circles in Paris were ready to see what they’d been cooking up. Berthe’s own career seemed to be taking off at last, with one of her paintings sold to her family friend for 800 francs. When the rest of the Impressionists met up at a cafe to talk about staging a show, Berthe of course wasn’t present. But Degas was such an admirer of her work by that point, that he took the step of writing directly to Berthe’s mother, stating that “we think that Miss Berthe Morisot’s name and talent are too important to us to do without.” Unfortunately, the show was…a disaster. Nobody was prepared for Monet’s blurry landscapes or Degas’s puny dancers. The crowd didn’t hate Berthe’s painting of a mother and child, but they were scandalized that a well-bred woman should participate with this rabble at all! After the show, Berthe’s horrible tutor – the same man who would put her to sleep during lessons, the same man who warned Berthe’s mother about her dangerous potential as an artist, had the nerve to write to Berthe’s mother again, saying that “one does not associate with madness except at some peril.” Things were about to get even worse: that same spring, Berthe’s beloved father passed away. With her career – and reputation – on the rocks, and mortality staring her in the face, Berthe found relief in the most unexpected place.

Eugene Manet, the younger brother of the painter, first met Berthe years earlier, probably introduced to her by his scheming brother. Edouard Manet had had a curiously stupid idea, and I can only assume it was some sort of reaction to the fact that he knew he could not have Berthe for himself. Instead, he pushed Eugene to take Berthe away on a scandalous road trip – the two of them, unchaperoned, heading to Bordeaux, a trip which would have ruined their reputations and forced them to get married if they ever wanted to appear in society again. Berthe’s mother was obviously shocked by this idea, writing to Berthe, “He claimed he had wanted to arrange it so as to compromise the two of you so that you would become his sister-in-law!” Manet was acting like a spoiled child, determined to ruin the things he could not have. Even Manet’s wife, Suzanne, shook her head, “What a case! He’s mad, he has no common sense.” Needless to say, Eugene and Berthe were not interested in throwing their reputations to the wind, and any possible chance for romance died with the idea of the road trip. It wasn’t until 1874, when Berthe’s reputation was in danger of a different kind of scandal, that the two began to reconsider the idea of a holiday after all. The scandalous spring was ending, and Berthe realized with a heavy heart that another lonely summer, more isolated than ever without the presence of her father, was around the corner. I can only wonder at everything she was feeling when Eugene Manet reappeared in her life.

This time, Berthe’s mother was on Eugene’s side. He wasn’t perfect – Eugene was an artist himself, but he wasn’t very good and mostly lived off of an inheritance. But he was kind, and quiet, and he valued Berthe – and her professional ambitions – enormously. If you can’t tell, I have a tremendous soft spot in my heart for Eugene, who otherwise spent most of his life living in his elder brother’s shadow, where he seems to have been comfortable. Berthe’s mother actually revived the idea of a trip, though naturally she and Eugene’s mother would accompany them as chaperones. For those who haven’t done the math at home already, Berthe Morisot was 32 years old at the time. This time, the trip was a success: both mothers, who had been friends for decades, spent their time relaxing on the beach – well, as much as you can relax while wearing a corset – while their children strolled along the waterfront. One can only assume that at some point in their walks, Berthe’s skirt would have gotten splashed by a wave or two, so perhaps Eugene even caught a saucy glimpse of ankle. One night, Eugene and Berthe sat side by side, staring out at the harbor, painting the boats. It must have been an extraordinary moment for Berthe, finally able to relax in the company of a man who wasn’t afraid – or prevented by marriage – to fall in love with her, a man who deeply respected her art and her dreams of professional success, a man whom she could sit next to on a warm summer’s evening by the sea, painting boats together. By the end of the evening, as Berthe and Eugene began packing away their paints and canvases, Eugene proposed.

That winter, Eugene and Berthe were married in a quiet ceremony in Paris. Only their friends and family attended, with Berthe wearing “a plain dress and hat, like the old woman that I am, and with no guests.” She was ready for love. As she wrote to her brother that year, “I’ve found an honest and excellent young man who, I believe, sincerely loves me. I’ve entered into the positive side of life after having lived for a long time by chimeras.” As a gift, Degas presented them with a painting of Eugene, sitting by the beach, a lovely portrait of the man she loved in the environment where she loved him. His was not the only painting the couple received as a gift, however: Berthe’s new brother-in-law, Edouard Manet, presented the bride and groom with yet another portrait of Berthe. This time, she’s dressed in all black, her attention focused on something – or someone, off to the side of the room, certainly not on the artist. She looks distracted. In the middle of the painting is Berthe’s hand, delicately raised, revealing a simple, shining wedding ring. It was the last portrait of Berthe that Manet would ever paint.

With Eugene’s financial and emotional support, and the relief from a lifetime’s worth of worries about getting married, Berthe was finally able to focus on her career. At first, things were terrible: a month after her wedding, Berthe participated in an auction with Monet, Renoir and Sisley. The good news as, Berthe’s artwork commanded the highest prices of any of the 70 paintings there. The bad news is, even the highest bid was 480 francs, or about $6,000 in today’s money. Nevertheless, she was selling paintings, and if the crowds were mostly against the Impressionists, the crowds were getting bigger with every show. She exhibited with the Impressionists again and again, year after year, until one year, in 1878, Berthe took a year off because at long last, she had given birth to a daughter, Julie.

I really wish I had the time to tell Berthe’s entire story, but I want to finish by telling Julie’s. Probably no baby has ever been so adored by so many legendary artists as Julie Manet. Whatever hesitation the Impressionists might have felt in expressing their love and care for Berthe, whom they considered a friend but also a professional acquaintance and ally, they had NO problem showering all their tenderness and funny faces and tickles on baby Julie. Her entire childhood was documented by the Impressionists, who told her stories and sang her songs, but also painted her portrait over and over. Berthe adored her daughter, and together with Eugene, the Morisots finally found the sort of domestic bliss Berthe had always feared would be impossible for a woman in her profession. For the next 15 years, things were beautiful. Berthe’s paintings were being well-received around Europe, and far from her old loneliness, Berthe’s life was full of friends and family. Berthe and Eugene purchased their dream home north of Paris, and dreamed of the years they’d spend within it. But it was not to be. The spell was broken on April 1, 1892, when kind, gentle, thoughtful Eugene passed away from a long illness. “I have descended to the depths of suffering,” Berthe wrote. “I don’t want to live anymore. I have Julie…but it is a kind of solitude none the less for instead of opening my heart I must control myself and spare her tender years the sight of my grief.” A few years later, Julie grew terribly ill with the flu. Berthe cancelled all her appointments and stayed home to nurse her daughter, no doubt with visions of Eugene’s final days in her head. Julie managed to survive and slowly recover. Unfortunately, Berthe, having caught the same sickness from her daughter, would not. As she realized her final days were approaching, Berthe wrote her daughter a letter: “My dearest little Julie, i love you as I die, I will still love you when I am dead; I beg of you, do not cry.” As one of her final acts, Berthe named Renoir, Degas and the poet Stephane Mallarme as Julie’s caretakers. When Renoir heard the news, he took the next train to Paris and burst into the Morisot home to scoop Julie into his arms and cry.

Berthe Morisot’s legacy was felt immediately after her death. As Pissaro wrote, “You can hardly conceive of how surprised we all were and how moved by the disappearance of this distinguished woman.” Degas and Renoir, moved by grief and responsibility, took care of Julie and helped her remember her mother. The only artist whose reaction was missing was Edouard Manet. [DEATH]

After his death, included in the inventory of his estate, were all seven portraits of Berthe Morisot. Manet had never sold these works, or even let them out of his hands, except for the two he lent to Berthe herself. These portraits remained in his care when so many other great works were sold or given away. After his death, one particular portrait made its way into the hands of Manet’s cousin. It was immensely important to Julie, and in the year after her mother’s death, she would buy the portrait back and hang it in her bedroom, so that it was the first thing Julie saw when she woke up. In the portrait, Berthe Morisot is wearing all black, with a tiny gathering of violets at her neck. According to Julie’s diary, Berthe remembered everything about that sitting. Manet had completed the work in only one sitting, just before another one of his mother’s dinner parties. Before the two artists headed downstairs that day, Manet urged Berthe to marry his brother. “They talked about it,” Julie’s diary says, “for a very long time.”

Thanks for listening to The Land of Desire. My name’s Diana, and this is a one-woman show: I write, research and produce every episode. For each episode, I’ll post extra content at www.thelandofdesire.com – this week, I’ll be showing some of the paintings by and of Berthe Morisot. While you’re there, you can leave a comment or send me a message. Thanks to all of you who did so this week, I hope I’ve gotten caught up! If you have a moment, please rate and review the show on iTunes. You can also subscribe to this show through Stitcher or the Google Play store. It’s been another crazy week – we’ve had nearly 15,000 more downloads since I released my bonus episode! Thanks so much for your support, and I hope you’ll all join me again in two weeks for another episode. Until then, au revoir!

———

At some point over a lifetime of chasing women, Edouard Manet contracted syphilis. As he grew older, a complication called locomotor ataxia set in, a painful condition causing paralysis throughout the body. For six months, Manet had lingered on in terrible agony. Many of his paintings from this period show the beautiful flowers brought to him by visitors. Gangrene set into his left foot, and so Manet was carried to a table in his drawing room, where the foot was amputated. Eleven days later, he died. Shortly thereafter, Berthe wrote a letter to her sister, saying “His agony was horrible, death in one of its most appalling forms…If you add to these almost physical emotions my old bond of friendship with Edouard, an entire past of youth and work suddenly ending, you will know that I am devastated.”

I can’t recommend Sue Roe’s The Private Lives of the Impressionists highly enough. It’s terrific, I’ve reread it multiple times, and it was one of my original inspirations for beginning this podcast.

I’ve recommended it before, but you may also enjoy Ross King’s The Judgment of Paris.

 

Sources:

Dawn of the Belle Époque (Mary McAuliffe, 2011)

Berthe Morisot (Anne Higonnet, 1995)

The Private Lives of the Impressionists (Sue Roe, 2007)