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| Suzzane Valadon |
A photo of Suzzane Valadon painting from www.aloj.us.es.
"Valadon and Modersohn-Becker were two of the first women artist to work extensively with the nude female form" (Chadwick, 282) Suzzane Valadon subject of nude women, being painted by a woman was unheard of and most definitely unaccepted. Her work would create such confusion for critics that Chadwick writes, "Confronted with Valadon's powerful nudes, critics were unable to sever Valadon (not a respectable middle-class woman) from her femininity and allowed her circulate as a pseudo-male, complete with 'masculine power' and 'virility'. "(282) The reason this confusion existed is explained by the ideas being carried over from the 19th century. Most critics still believed in separate spheres of artist and in them limitations of what they could paint or create. A woman was not thought to be able to create nudes, of males of females, as nudes where located in the man sphere. Valadon's shattering of this sphere made the critics search for an a way to explain this ,which Chadwick describes as the critics labeling her a "pseudo-male" (Chadwick, 282) It is important to acknowledge that Suzzane Valador was a woman who was consider an outcast for her open sexual life style in a time where women expressing anything sexual was considered unappropriated. It her life style did not set her back enough, she was a women trying not only to make art, which was still a challenge, but now doing so without training, money, and by choosing subjects that was considered out of a woman's sphere. Even with all these set backs, she painted pieces to push the feminist agenda and did so with work and talent that is still being discussed 50 years later.
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| Suzzane Valadon, The Blue Room, 1923 |
A major change that came from a female, such as Valadon, painting a nude is the new perspective the nudes are given. " The self-absorption and vitality of her subjects, for instance, are in stark opposition to the essential passivity of female nudes that until then had been the traditional manner of representation of womanhood." (Ronoir Fine Art) Valadon's subjects where not drawn to be ideal women, they were not created to give pleasure to the view or even highlight the more pleasing aspects of the body, they were drawn to accurate represent a specific moment or action. (Chadwick, 285) The reason she choose to use this different representation was in part because France at the end of the 19th century had a major backlash against anti-feminism, which was brought on by new fights over reproductive rights and the advancement of women's rights in general. (Chadwick, 286) Understanding these movements and their impact also allows one to understand why Valadon would not want to paint the models the way she herself had been painted and why she would want to promote realistic looking woman, in their realistic domestic environments. Some of the other characteristics of her art besides female nudes were bright and power colors which were likely inspired by hanging out with the many post-impressionist artist listed above. (Renoir Fine Art) These characters came together allow Valadon to create some both beautiful and powerful pieces of art.
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| Suzzane Valadon, Grandmother and Young Girl Stepping into the Bath, 1908 |
The drawing above, found on www.studyblue.com, is an excellent example of what Suzzane Valadon's work is all about. It displays a female nude, in a domestic setting. It further shows a snapshot of the nude at an natural moment of a woman about to bathe. As the work is studied further notice how there is no connection with the nude, the viewer cannot even see her face, also how the woman's body is no a perfect model, but a realistic depiction including the flaws of the woman.
To discuss the impact of Suzzane Valador, is to discuss the movement of feminism. The ability for women to be depicted as humans and not as objects had been in the works for many centuries, however it is not till Valador that the idea becomes realistic. Woman painting female nude was a major step for woman to be shown fairly in art and it is in part because of Valador that this takes place. A sentence that really drives home her value to art was in Renoir Fine Art which stated, "When Suzzane Valador died in 1938, many notable from the Parisian art community came to the funeral, including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Andre Derain" (Renoir Fine Art) For people as famous in art as Picasso to come to her funeral, there can be no question of how strong her impact was.
Bibliography
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 1990. Print.
"Suzanne Valadon Biography." ArtNet. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Nov. 2013.
"Suzanne Valadon." Suzanne Valadon. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 Nov. 2013.
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