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Rose Beuret acted as Rodin’s hands-on studio technician, as a curt, business-like letter from him proves, as well as model for, notably, ‘Genius of Liberty’, a bellicose flying figure done for La Défense. All three appear repeatedly in paintings. In Monet’s case, a large picture of Camille Doncieux, exhibited as Camille but later renamed ‘Woman in a Green Dress’ (by which title he himself then referred to it), made his name. It is one of many paintings in which she features, not always as wife, sometimes as a character, a persona — in ‘La Japonaise’ of 1876, wearing a blonde wig. There are 27 known paintings of Fiquet by Cézanne; like Monet, he paints her both ‘straight’ and in character.
In Hidden in the Shadow of the Master, the historian Ruth Butler presents a well-researched account of these, the unpaid models on whom their lovers built their fame: so visible to us now, once we are shown where to look, so invisible, so crudely or cruelly treated during their lifetime. It is a disturbing tale, made more so by being in triplicate. It is full of darkness, which Butler patiently lights, coaxing the women back from practically unmarked graves, revealing the scorn or jealousy heaped on them by their husbands’ friends.
Monet and Rodin were born within 48 hours of each other. The lives of all three overlap with Emile Zola’s, for whose novel L’Oeuvre (The Masterpiece), Butler convincingly argues that they provided substantial material. The book’s publication caused an irreconcilable breach between former school friends Cézanne and Zola, for the story of Claude Lantier and his model-wife Christine Hallegrain was obviously based on Cézanne and Hortense Fiquet.
All three women were working-class, Beuret almost illiterate. In contrast, both Cézanne and Monet had allowances — Cézanne still relied on his when he was 39. Monet comes over as a dreadful whinger about money, happy to sponge off friends, even when in funds. Meanwhile, the wives were left like packages in various parts of the country while their partners went off for work or affairs. Cézanne’s wife was known as La Boule (meaning ‘ball and chain’), despite bearing a son and generating so many paintings. Roger Fry called her ‘that sour-looking bitch of a Mme’.
Monet’s wife fared better, his friends found her ‘charming’. Even so, when his son was born, Monet was away in Normandy with his family. He also left her to have an affair with a client’s wife.
Rose Beuret was unschooled, a seamstress. She came to Paris at the age of 17 to try to make a living at that badly paid trade, from which many slid into selling sex to survive. Women got much less for doing the same job as men. Beuret met Rodin, modelled for him and became pregnant. After the birth, Rodin took her in. But later on, while Beuret was still what Rodin referred to as ‘une sauvage’, when he began to meet royalty and aristocrats she did not. Pushed into the background, deliberately left out, she was described as ‘the old lady’ even though Rodin was older. In 1913, Vita Sackville-West wrote unkindly: ‘She is an awful old bedint and a leech, so peevish and says nothing, or grumbles.’ While Rodin had affairs with younger, rich women, Beuret called him Maitre or Monsieur. ‘She stood while he ate, like a servant. His long affair with Claire de Choiseul, during which he abandoned Beuret, resulted in this ungrammatical, misspelled note, painful enough to make one weep: ‘My dear Auguste send me word for pity’s sake I am so unhappy why.’
Why indeed. Does fame make people monstrous or are successful artists always selfish? Sensibly, Butler lets the reader decide.
There was enough material here for three books, but Butler is generous, and provides good reason to look at these artists’ work again — for each look brings a lost soul back to life.
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