Suzanne Valadon: Changing the Nude
by Jesse Anderson
La Chambre Bleu, painted by Suzanne Valadon in 1923, is a painting infused with the sense of the self-liberated woman. Valadon paints a woman lounging upon plush, patterned drapery, a cigarette hanging from her lips, a couple of books closed by her feet. She does not engage with the viewer, expect perhaps to display a mild disregard for their presence. And, she is not naked. In what is perhaps considered her seminal piece, Suzanne Valadon, formerly Marie-Clémentine Valadon, subverts the genre of the nude with an easy, bold nonchalance. Valadon was a woman unapologetically driven to achieve success and fulfilment both in her personal life and in her career.
In the early twentieth century, the Parisian artworld was undergoing subtle social changes which would allow the success of self-taught Valadon; however, it was her unapologetic ambition which would grant her this success. Valadon’s is an inspirational story of drive and quiet rebellion, one understated in Art History. Born to a single mother in 1865, Marie-Clèmentine was raised in Montremarte, Paris. Supposedly, Valadon began drawing at the age of nine, and her art remained in the field of drawing and etching until around 1892 when she began painting. In her teen years, Valadon cycled through a number of jobs – from seamstress to waitress – to no avail. At last, in 1880, she found her feet as a model. This was a lucrative yet risky job: respectable young women were discouraged from such inappropriate work for the detrimental effect it would have on their reputation and marriage prospects. Valadon, a working-class woman, had fewer impediments in her career as a model in comparison to her upper-class counterparts. This access to the masculine art-world from the position of a model provided Valadon priceless experience. Between 1880 and 1893 she modelled for artists such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Henri de Tolouse-Lautrec. In fact, it was Lautrec who gave Valadon the nickname Suzanne, after the canonical story of Susanna and the elders. In the story of Susannah and the elders, Susannah is harassed by two men as she bathes, and painterly depictions of this event (such as by Rubens) are foundational to the genre of the female nude. By embodying this name and signing it on her own genre-breaking paintings of the female nude, Valadon gives autonomy to the female nude which has been manipulated by old masters.
In 1883, Valadon had her first child, aged eighteen and unmarried. This event, which would be monumental for young women even today, hardly stopped Valadon in her path to critical acclaim. In 1895, Valadon married stockbroker Paul Mousis, who offered financial stability to the not-yet-famous artist. Edgar Degas, a close friend of Valadon’s, encouraged the match, telling Valadon that it let her focus fully on her talents as an artist. While the match offered Valadon stability, upon meeting twenty-three-year-old André Utter in 1909, it became clear that stability alone was not enough for Valadon. She began her affair with Utter in 1909, subsequently divorcing Mousis and embarking on a Bohemian lifestyle which she would support with her art.
Pressure for Valadon to make a living from painting had increased exponentially when Valadon married Andre Utter in 1914. She now had to provide for herself, her son, her mother, and her husband, so Valadon had to promote herself more boldly. She began regularly exhibiting at the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants and in the 1920’s she reached the peak of her fame. Her nude paintings denied the assumption that the viewer is always male: her paintings did not bid to provoke pleasure in the viewer, but boasted instead of Valadon’s dexterity. She aligned herself unapologetically with Renoir and Degas, building a legacy which would long out-live her. Valadon witnessed four major retrospective exhibitions of herself during her lifetime before passing away aged 72. Essentially, Valadon did exactly what she wanted to achieve success both artistically and personally, in a culture which did not especially accommodate the success of women.
Suzanne Valadon, nu couché, 1928, Oil on canvas, 58.5×78.7 cm (The Met, New York)
Valadon’s consideration of the female form made a compelling break from her contemporaries. While both Degas and Lautrec experimented with paintings which disengaged with the male gaze, their work was restricted to a purely male perspective: they were only ever the observer. Valadon, on the other hand, painted from a double perspective: she was both a painter and observer, and had experience with being a model and thus observed. This tension generated a sense of understanding which manifests itself in her work, which presents the feminine world without the veil of mystification present in the work of men. Valadon painted real women engaged in real life tasks: they are not presented as impossibly sumptuous objects for the pleasure of the viewer. Her paintings exhibit an experimentation with shape, composition, colour, and form in a manner which both champions the autonomy of her models and displaces them from the pedestal which the artworld had provided the female nude.
Valadon’s subversion of the archetype of the female nude is manifested in Nu Couché (Reclining Nude), 1928. Painted at the height of her success, Valadon’s model is curled on a sofa, her and legs crossed over her body, denying the viewer any pleasure from her nudity. She gazes directly into the audience, very aware of her being observed, and covers herself in response. In representing the model’s response to her being observed, Valadon gives the woman autonomy: she is no longer a passive object, but an active participant. It is difficult not to imagine that Valadon’s own experience as a nude model impacted how she depicted women in her own paintings.
Suzanne Valadon, Nu au canape rouge, 1920, Oil on canvas, 80 × 230 cm (Musée du Petit Palais, Genève)
Nu au Canapé Rouge (Nude on a Red Sofa), 1920, exudes Valadon’s confidence as an artist. Her model lounges on a plush red sofa, which is covered in deeply patterned drapery, and she looks out beyond the picture frame. Where Valadon’s Reclining Nude covers herself from the viewer, Nude on a Red Sofa hides nothing. Yet, there is not the sense of sexual availability which haunts the reclining nudes of the likes of Renoir. Valadon’s model is made real and tangible through her use of colour and line, which give texture to the skin of her model. Where Degas and Renoir paint women with impossibly smooth, plump skin, Valadon’s models are painted with blues and pinks which give them a sense of realness. Valadon’s models are real women with years of life experience, with careers and personalities, all this Valadon grants in her painting.
Despite its rebellious nature, Nude on a Red Sofa is still indicative of the fact that Valadon painted for a living, she could not afford to be so revolutionary that her paintings did not sell, and making money was one of her main motivations for painting. This painting demonstrates the tension Valadon faced in being a female artist depicting women from within the conventions of the male dominated art-world in Paris.
Suzanne Valadon, Le Chambre Bleu, 1923, Oil on canvas, 90cm x 116 cm (Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris)
Let us conclude by returning to Valadon’s magnum opus: La Chambre Bleu. The colourful, carefree painting helped carve space for new representations of women in art. From the composition, to the eclectic patterns, Valadon’s piece is a self-assured and rebellious act of subversion. And what is most novel about Valadon’s reclining woman in La Chambre Bleu? Clothes.
Bibliography
Betterton, Rosemary. “How Do Women Look? The Female Nude in the Work of Suzanne Valadon.” Feminist Review, no. 19 (1985): 3–24.
Ireson, Nancy, ed. 2021. Suzanne Valadon: Model, Painter, Rebel. London, England: Paul Holberton Publishing.
Mathews, Patricia. “Returning the Gaze: Diverse Representations of the Nude in the Art of Suzanne Valadon.” The Art Bulletin 73, no. 3 (1991): 415–30.