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Black Woman with Peonies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Black Woman with Peonies by Frédéric Bazille (1870) located at the National Gallery of Art

Black Woman with Peonies also known as Négresse aux pivoines, Young Woman with Peonies, or Negress with Peonies, is a series of two paintings created by the French impressionist painter Frédéric Bazille in the spring of 1870. Both paintings are oil on canvas, with one version on display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, and the other version on display at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, France. The dimensions of both paintings are 60.3 cm (23.7 in) × 75.2 cm (29.6 in).

Black Woman with Peonies by Frédéric Bazille (1870) located at the Musée Fabre

The first of the paintings depicts a Black woman with a bundle of peonies in her hand, staring directly at the viewer with a basket of flowers in her other arm. In the second painting, the same woman is shown arranging flowers into a vase, with the remaining flowers resting on a workbench. The subject of the painting is thought to be an homage to Éduardo Manet's 1863 oil painting, Olympia.  

Background and social context

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As part of his training, Bazille frequently visited the Louvre and attended Impressionist salon exhibitions. It was at the Paris Salon in 1865 that he first encountered Manet's Olympia.[1] By the early 1870s, Bazille was living and working in Paris, where he painted two versions of the same Black woman arranging tulips, narcissi and irises. [2] These paintings are thought to have originally been gifts for Bazille's sister-in-lawn, Suzanne. [3]

During the late 19th century, Paris experienced an influx of immigrants from across Europe and France's colonies. Unlike the controversial depiction of Black models in American art, which was often tied to issues of slavery, Black models in French art did not carry the same social stigma. Although, they were still often regarded as being from a lower social strata. [4] As the Black population in Paris grew, their representation in art did too.[5] Bazille's studio, seen in his painting, L’atelier de Bazille was located on the Rue da La Condamine in the Batignolles District, a socially and racially diverse area of Paris. In this series of paintings, Bazille modernizes the portrayal of the Parisian working class, marking a shift towards representing all demographics of city life in art at the time. The woman in Bazille's paintings is depicted conducting a mundane, boring task in a way that does not exoticize her; whether a housekeeper or a florist, her occupation is left to the viewer's imagination. [1]

Composition and analysis

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The two paintings share many features, including the same model, though their compositions differ. In the painting housed in the National Gallery of Art, the woman holds a bundle of flowers in her right hand, with the rest of the flowers located on the tray, and she is making direct eye contact with the viewer. In contrast, the painting located at the Musée Fabre, the woman is arranging the bouquet in an ornamental vase, with her focus seemingly fully occupied with her task. The irises in this version bloom late in the spring, and since the peonies are more fully opened, it is thought that this version was painted after the painting located in the National Gallery of Art. [6] Peonies, considered exotic and fragile, were not native to France, making them a challenging subject for painters at the time.[7]

La Toilette by Frédéric Bazille (1869-1870) located at Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Female Model by Thomas Eakin (1868) located at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

The female model, is believed to be a friend of Bazille and may have been the same model that posed for Bazille's La Toilette in 1869-1870. [8] She also wears an identical printed headscarf to the woman from Thomas Eakin's study Female Model which he painted as a student studying in Paris in 1868. [9][10]

In the context of 19th-century art, depicting women arranging flowers was traditionally linked to femininity and often portrayed as a private, intimate act. However, Bazille subverts this allegorical link by presenting the woman’s expression as neutral and somber. [11][12] Some critics argue that instead of the de-Orientalizing of his subject, Bazille re-Orientalizes her as both the woman and the flowers take up equal parts of the canvas. This equal spatial importance could be interpreted as Bazille making a comparison between the woman with the Earth and thus possibly alluding to the primitive view of Black women.[9]

Influences

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Upon moving to Paris in the 1860s, Bazille quickly befriended other Impressionist artists including Claude Monet, Pierre- Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley. Most importantly however, was his friendship with Manet, Bazille wrote in a letter to his father that "Manet made me myself" [13] acknowledging the impact Manet had on his artistic development. Bazille shared his studio on Rue de La Condamine with Renoir, the space seen in his painting L'Atelier de Bazille.

Olympia by Éduardo Manet located at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Notably, Black Woman with Peonies shares many similarities with Laure, the Black woman featured in Manet's earlier work Olympia, and it is often cited as a homage to his close friend. Pertaining to the subject matter, all three paintings feature a black woman holding flowers, wearing a headscarf and in a dress that was common attire for a Black working-class woman [14]. The use of vibrant colors and the careful way in which Bazille emphasizes the details of his model and the flowers sets his work apart from the more muted and subdued colors that Manet uses. Bazille’s approach to the subject of the Black woman may be seen as a more respectful and individualized portrayal compared to the more symbolic representation of a Black working-class woman in Manet’s work. [15]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Murrell, Denise (2018). "Chapter 1. Olympia in Context: Manet, the Impressionists, and Black Paris". Posing modernity: the black model from Manet and Matisse to today. New Haven New York: Yale University press The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art gallery, Columbia university in the city of New York. ISBN 978-0-300-22906-6.
  2. ^ Pitman, Dianne W. (1998). Bazille: purity, pose, and painting in the 1860s. University Park, Penn: Pennsylvania State University. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-271-01700-6.
  3. ^ Tinterow, Gary; Loyrette, Henri; Galeries Nationales d'Exposition du Grand Palais; Metropolitan Museum of Art, eds. (1994). Origins of impressionism: conjunction with the exhibition held at the Galerie Nationales du Grand Palais, April 19 - August 8, 1994, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, September 27, 1994 - January 8, 1995. New York, NY: Abrams. pp. 337–338. ISBN 978-0-87099-717-4.
  4. ^ Pitman, Dianne W. (1998). Bazille: purity, pose, and painting in the 1860s. University Park, Penn: Pennsylvania State University. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-271-01700-6.
  5. ^ Bindman, David; Gates, Henry Louis (2012). The image of the Black in western art (New ed.). Cambridge (Mass.): Belknap press of Harvard university press. ISBN 978-0-674-05260-4.
  6. ^ Pitman, Dianne W. (1998). Bazille: purity, pose, and painting in the 1860s. University Park, Penn: Pennsylvania State University. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-271-01700-6.
  7. ^ Smee, Sebastian (March 7, 2024). "Her direct gaze was a jolt to France's reactionary art world". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 17, 2024.
  8. ^ Bindman, David; Gates, Henry Louis (2012). The image of the Black in western art (New ed.). Cambridge (Mass.): Belknap press of Harvard university press. ISBN 978-0-674-05260-4.
  9. ^ a b Murrell, Denise (2018). "Chapter 1. Olympia in Context: Manet, the Impressionists, and Black Paris". Posing modernity: the black model from Manet and Matisse to today. New Haven New York: Yale University press The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art gallery, Columbia university in the city of New York. ISBN 978-0-300-22906-6.
  10. ^ Bailey, Colin B. (2019-12-19). "In Plain Sight". The New York Review of Books. Vol. 66, no. 20. ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved 2024-11-21.
  11. ^ Pitman, Dianne W. (1998). Bazille: purity, pose, and painting in the 1860s. University Park, Penn: Pennsylvania State University. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-271-01700-6.
  12. ^ Pitman, Dianne W. (1998). Bazille: purity, pose and painting in the 1860s. University Park (Pa.): Pennsylvania state university press. p. 181. ISBN 978-0-271-01700-6.
  13. ^ "L'Atelier de Bazille - Frédéric Bazille | Musée d'Orsay". www.musee-orsay.fr. Retrieved 2024-11-21.
  14. ^ Murrell, Denise (2018). "Chapter 1. Olympia in Context: Manet, the Impressionists, and Black Paris". Posing modernity: the black model from Manet and Matisse to today. New Haven New York: Yale University press The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art gallery, Columbia university in the city of New York. ISBN 978-0-300-22906-6.
  15. ^ Pitman, Dianne W. (1998). Bazille: purity, pose, and painting in the 1860s. University Park, Penn: Pennsylvania State University. p. 180. ISBN 978-0-271-01700-6.
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