Renoir's Dancer

by Catherine Hewitt

  Maria delighted in such hysterical revelry. As a child, the only people she had been tempted to befriend were the unusual characters she came across while playing truant; the sole activities that had held her attention were the strange or the daring. Now, everyone around her had their share of eccentricities and the bizarre was a universal pastime. The wild but withdrawn and awkward little girl blossomed into an outgoing social butterfly with dozens of friends and a taste for fun. Maria was in her element. One night, she surpassed even the most brazen of Montmartre’s extroverts by sliding down the banisters at the Moulin de la Galette wearing nothing but a mask.36

  In the liberal, bohemian village that Montmartre had become, a pretty teen seldom kept her chastity for long. To the rumours that Maria was sleeping with her employer Puvis were added countless others. By the time she was sixteen there were enough stories of promiscuous behaviour for Montmartre’s gossips to have branded Maria with a prodigious reputation; there was the Breton waiter at Père Lathuile’s, the postman Léconte, the sailor Guichet and a growing list of artists.37 Maria proudly refused to confirm or deny the stories. She had grown impervious to criticism. Besides, she was having fun. And in 1880s Montmartre, social boundaries and relationships were rarely clear or stable. A late-night party might only end when a girl fell into bed with somebody, and it happened so frequently that memory could seldom recall the episode clearly. When removing clothes before an observer had become a natural part of the daily routine, making love was merely an extension if a good time was being had. Physical intimacy was no index of spiritual closeness.

  But on one of her ventures out into Montmartre’s vibrant social scene, Maria met a man with whom she could share both.

  Miguel Utrillo y Morlius was a dashing, dark-haired Spaniard with intense brown eyes and an infectious zest for life. He was tall and slender with a neat moustache, and he cut a fine figure in his velvet jacket and broad-brimmed hat. Three years older than Maria, Miguel came from a well-to-do family from Barcelona who first brought their son to Avignon in 1880.38 Besides his good looks, energy and intelligence, Miguel had the enviable knack of excelling at any creative pursuit to which he turned his hand. He could paint, draw, sing and dance spectacularly. But so numerous were his talents that Miguel found it impossible to settle on one of them. He had returned to Barcelona briefly to sit his science-based baccalaureate, but he also received some artistic training alongside his studies. That he demonstrated skill in both areas only made choosing one of them more difficult. Eventually, Miguel came back to Paris in 1880 and took up the offer of a place to study at the Institut Agronomique, where he began to train as an engineer. However, with his creative streak unsatisfied, he was gaining as much satisfaction from the lively social life attached to Montmartre’s art scene as he was from his studies, and was often seen out enjoying himself with his great friends, fellow Catalan painters Santiago Rusiñol and Ramon Casas.

  Le Chat Noir was a natural habitat for Miguel, and when he and Maria met, they immediately warmed to each other. Though she was surrounded by artists, Maria was elusive about her own drawing, often destroying sketches she was unsatisfied with; that she shared her hidden passion with Miguel stands testimony to their closeness. Miguel (who Maria insisted on calling Michel, using the French version of his name) was amazed at her skill. Praise from a man as talented as him made Maria radiant with pride. From the early 1880s, they seemed inseparable, taking their meals together and, like a pair of naughty children, partaking in all manner of outrageous practical jokes, often with Rusiñol and Casas (who had also both succumbed to Paris’s charms) joining in. Miguel was known for having ridden into the Moulin de la Galette on the back of a donkey and having staged a mock bullfight in the lobby of the Boule Noire dance hall.39 One evening, he trundled a cart full of pungent fish into the Elysée-Montmartre, with Maria close by struggling to suppress her giggles.40 It was naturally assumed that Miguel and Maria were lovers, not just cheeky playmates. Maria’s memories of their relationship left many in little doubt. ‘At a time when barely anyone paid me any attention, he encouraged me, strengthened me and supported me,’ she said. ‘You should have seen him chatting with the famous artists […] He was studying at the Institut Agronomique […] And on top of that, he painted and drew.’41 She expanded: ‘With Michel [Miguel] I spent the best years of my youth […] We lived an artistic and bohemian life.’42

  The bond between Maria and Miguel was unique, but with both of them being impulsive and passionate, their relationship was peppered with explosive rows. Moreover, the climate in Montmartre was such that even when a young couple were lovers, monogamy was the exception, not the rule. Maria drifted. There were too many fascinating characters in Montmartre for a girl to spend all her time in the company of one man. And then conversations at the bar could always lead to lifelong friendships or interesting work. Maria’s meeting with Italian painter Federico Zandomeneghi brought both such rewards.

  The son of a Venetian sculptor, Zandomeneghi had associated with members of the Macchia movement in Florence, a group who, like the Impressionists, had adopted the innovative practice of painting entire canvases outside and who used patches of colour to capture the effects of light.43 In 1874, ‘Zando’ became convinced that a move to Paris would bring him the professional recognition he hungered for and from the late 1870s he was a regular at the Café de la Nouvelle Athènes. With a long face, large nose and dark features which betrayed his Mediterranean origins, Zando’s quizzical expression gave him an interesting appearance which made a person yearn for closer acquaintance. He was fiercely proud of his Italian origins, and was not long in Paris before he was drawn to Degas, who also boasted Italian heritage. Degas took the young Venetian under his wing, and persuaded his grudging protégé to exhibit in four of the Impressionist exhibitions between 1879 and 1886. Zando worked with zeal, focusing on figure subjects for which he experimented with unconventional angles and framing.44 But by the early 1880s, with success not forthcoming, he had had to resort to illustrating fashion magazines to supplement his income. Zando was increasingly bitter and he laid the blame firmly at the feet of the French.

  Maria and Zando formed a close and long-lasting friendship, and when busy routines rendered face-to-face meetings impossible, they took to writing to each other, particularly when a notable date like New Year fell. Zandomeneghi’s name soon joined the list of Maria’s presumed lovers. Indeed, for a girl with an appreciation of painting, Zandomeneghi was a most respectable beau. But in the middle of 1882, when Maria was sixteen, she was offered a modelling assignment with an artist who far overshadowed Zandomeneghi. It was then that Maria was recommended to Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

  By 1882, Renoir was widely agreed to be one of the most sought after, fashionable portrait artists in Paris. Though he had been painting most of his life (beginning decorating porcelain at the age of thirteen, before enrolling at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1862 and soon after being accepted to study under the prestigious painter Charles Gleyre), it was not until the end of the 1860s that Renoir started to gain public recognition.45 His portrait of his lover Lise Tréhot attracted attention at the Salon of 1868, but his real triumph came when he entered a portrait of the wife of his patron Georges Charpentier at the Salon of 1879. An influential hostess of a highly regarded literary salon, Mme Charpentier enjoyed all the right connections to ensure that her portrait was prominently displayed. Renoir’s reputation soared, and his financial situation was ‘transformed, virtually overnight’.46

  Quite apart from his talent, earning potential and renown, Renoir had a magnetic appearance despite his 40 years. He had changed little since the time Maria claimed to have encountered him as a child. He was slim, with light brown hair, even features and an aquiline nose. But most of all, it was his eyes that stopped ladies in their tracks. ‘His eyes were light brown, bordering on amber,’ remembered his son, ‘and they were sharp and penetrating. He would often point out a bird of prey on the horizon, flying over the valley, or a lady
-bird climbing up a single blade in a tuft of grass […] They had the look of tenderness mixed with irony, of merriment and sensuousness. They always seemed to be laughing, perceiving the odd side of things. But it was a gentle and loving laughter.’47 Women adored him. And with that intense gaze, magnetism and almost Mediterranean allure, Renoir possessed all the qualities for which Maria had already demonstrated her weakness.

  Still, although his career (particularly as a portrait artist) was flourishing, by the 1880s, Renoir was unsettled. He was universally branded as a member of that revolutionary group, the Impressionists. But he had become concerned about exhibiting with them as an independent artist, particularly once Degas introduced a clause in 1878, which stipulated that participants could not simultaneously exhibit at the Salon.48 Renoir found himself unable to espouse the notion that the Salon did not matter; he knew he needed it. He had consequently refused to exhibit in the Impressionist exhibitions since 1879. Moreover, he believed that he had not yet reached the pinnacle of all he was capable of, that there was still more he could achieve. At the same time, he was conscious he had reached an impasse in his work as an Impressionist. It was not so much the style he had perfected which bothered him; rather, he longed to transform his treatment of the figure. The question was: how?

  Much of the company he was keeping now was of the upper-class variety, that tranche for whom lengthy trips to foreign lands were almost a rite of passage.49 And so with the savings to spare and a creative solution to find, following the example of his associates, early in 1881, Renoir set off on an epic journey.

  He travelled first to Algeria, then back to France for a few months, and then off to Italy.50 He took in Venice and Rome, and marvelled at the Raphaels; he went to Naples, and gazed in amazement at the frescoes. He returned to France briefly early in 1882, fell ill, but refused to let this hamper another trip to Algeria, where he spent just a few months more before returning to Paris. By the summer of 1882, he was back in the capital, physically ailing, financially depleted, but creatively revitalised – and excited: he had a new idea.

  Renoir had in mind a pair of paintings and a third canvas which would be shown separately. All would continue the sequence of urban recreation he had already started and would depict a couple dancing. But these canvases would be distinctly different from much of his previous work, and would draw on his new discoveries, particularly those made in Italy.

  But first he needed models. His good friend Paul Lhote would be perfect for the male figure. He had modelled for Renoir before, so knew the routine, even if his flirtatious behaviour needed to be kept in check around the ladies.51 But the female dancer must be selected more carefully; it was she, after all, on whom attention would inevitably fall. Maria’s acquaintances would later recall that it was Puvis de Chavannes who recommended Maria when Renoir made his need known.52

  Maria later explained that their actual face-to-face meeting was orchestrated by another of Renoir’s models, a buxom blonde named Nini Gérard.53 When Renoir beheld Maria, he could see just the young woman he had been looking for.

  ‘I loved women even before I learned to walk,’ Renoir confided, and as the son of a tailor, he had very clear ideas regarding what did and did not become them.54 He despised the fashion for tight-fitting corsets, which restricted movement and distorted the body’s shape.55 He preferred his women natural and voluptuous, their hair flowing free, their figures ripe and healthy. Maria embodied his ideal.

  For the painting which became known as Dance in the City, Renoir wanted Maria dressed in a sweeping satin ballgown with a train and long, elegant gloves. Painters sometimes borrowed dresses for their models, but while Maria was shapely, she was especially petite, and the clothes had to fit to perfection.56 There was nothing for it: like a real-life Cinderella, Maria was whisked off to couturiers to transform her from a linen maid’s daughter into a high society lady.57 Sourcing the costume was a ponderous task, but eventually Renoir found the gloves which would slip over her delicate fingers. The sittings commenced.

  Maria had to make her way to one of Renoir’s studios, usually the workspace located in the narrow Rue d’Orchampt, for the sittings would take place indoors.58 As the painter explained to his patroness, Mme Charpentier, his travels had brought him to the conclusion that: ‘by studying outdoor effects, I have ended up by only seeing broad harmonies without preoccupying myself with the small details which extinguish sunlight instead of lighting it up.’59 He wanted to rectify this oversight.

  So there in the studio, her hair held up loosely by a single pink blossom, the white lace ruffles of her virginal ballgown kissing the creamy skin of her naked shoulders, Maria stood for hours with a powerful male arm holding her possessively close, its owner’s breath warming her cheek at intervals. And as she stood, an experienced hand traced her every curve, lingering over each limb in turn, as Renoir did what he did best.

  Renoir’s weakness for women was well-known. He had a lover, the rotund and well-scrubbed countrywoman, Aline Charigot. However, he was putting off officialising their union, and remained cagey about the affair, presenting himself as a bachelor in public. To his mind, he was not married. And, as he said himself, ‘before marriage, you do whatever you please.’60

  The circumstances were propitious for even the mildest physical attraction to blossom into a passionate affair. Maria was candid about the relationship. She was heard to insist that he had fallen in love with her.61 Though young of spirit, Renoir was already rheumatic and Maria conceded that there were men more handsome to be found. But when she was there with him in the studio, none of that mattered; the great painter found her attractive. That was enough.

  And when Renoir laid down his brushes at the end of a long, hot session in the studio, there was more to sustain a relationship between painter and model than crude sexual chemistry. Like Maria, Renoir came from a lower-class family and had started life in the Limousin, where infants were raised on a wholesome diet of simple produce, traditional customs and fantastical stories.62 As a child, he too had experienced hardship. The couple also shared a single-minded approach to drawing and painting, which often flew in the face of social expectation and dismissed popular notions of propriety. When Renoir stayed with the painter Jacques-Emile Blanche and his mother, Mme Blanche was appalled by his unrefined manners and insistence on painting in all weathers: ‘if it were a matter of more than five or six days, I might have been led to violence,’ she exclaimed, ‘because he is not a man to be stopped by the mud in our neighbourhood, there is no reason for us to let our nice new rooms get soiled, with their fabric upholstery and mats underfoot’.63 Then Renoir and Maria’s mutual love of François Villon provided ample source of conversation.64

  For the period Renoir was perfecting his canvases, the world Maria inhabited transformed into a blissful sunlit idyll blossoming with romantic interludes and sweet-perfumed flowers. There were rapid sketches and protracted studies, swift strokes in charcoal and gentle, tantalising blending of oils. Renoir worked quickly, puffing on a cigarette, sometimes singing. As she watched him, Maria noticed that he was eager to progress to colour as soon as possible.65 With his three canvases, Renoir wanted to explore the multiple hues of pleasure’s glorious rainbow.

  From the ballroom of Dance in the City, Maria was transported to a sunny afternoon by the waterside with dappled light penetrating through the trees for the work which would become known as Dance at Bougival.66 Bougival was a pretty riverside village 18km west of Paris which had become a lively hub of middle- and working-class entertainment at the weekends. Renoir clothed Maria in a pale pink, ruffled dress edged with red, an example of the very latest summer fashion.67 It was fitted at the waist, and fanned out at the base, cleverly accentuating the idea of movement as she was spun round and round, discarded matches and a bouquet of violets abandoned by her feet to underscore the mood of carefree spontaneity. Renoir tried dozens of hats on Maria’s head before settling on one: a vibrant red bonnet or chapeau Niniche, whose ribbons he
painted flying out behind her as she moved, while her gaze bashfully refused to meet that of her insistent partner.68 For the finishing touch, Renoir teasingly placed a wedding ring on her finger.

  But when the third painting, Dance in the Country, was revealed, something peculiar became apparent.

  ‘Do you recognise me? I am a dancer who smiles as she abandons herself in the arms of her partner,’ Maria declared years later, purportedly in relation to this picture.69 And yet it was clear that the woman in Dance in the Country had a figure which was plumper, a face which was fuller – an appearance closer to that of Aline.

  One story ran that Aline, jealous of her commitment-shy lover’s closeness to his model, became furious when she saw Dance in the Country showing Maria and smudged out her younger competitor’s face.70 People whispered that her anger had come to a climax on a subsequent visit to the studio when she caught Renoir and Maria locked in a passionate embrace, and that she seized a broom and attempted to beat Maria to the door.71 It was said that Renoir had sheepishly repainted the smeared canvas using the victorious Aline as the model. The tale would explain Maria’s determination to stake her claim and her insistence that the painting resulting from the studies for which she had posed was her. At least one of Renoir’s preparatory drawings shows a face which clearly has Maria’s features.