An Artist in her Own Right by Ann Marti Friedman

Author:Ann Marti Friedman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Accent Press
Published: 2018-12-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Paris, 1817-1819

After his defeat by combined English and Prussian forces at Waterloo, Bonaparte was safely sequestered on St Helena. All artistic reminders of his presence were banished to the storerooms of the Louvre. Artists were commissioned to create new works to take their place. Gros reluctantly took up his brush in praise of the Bourbons. In the Salon of 1817 he exhibited a large painting of Louis XVIII’s departure from the Tuileries to which he had been a witness.

Marie Benoist resumed her studio afternoons, but the old joie de vivre, the attitude that “the opinion of men does not matter here” was gone. It was all too apparent that Monsieur Benoist’s dictates did matter. Still, Marie liked to encourage other artists. I continued to attend faithfully. As I got less and less support from my marriage, the studio and its friendships became my emotional lifeline. However, I felt more comfortable about expressing my Salon ambitions when working alone with Josée. We each had paintings accepted in 1817. I had turned from still life to landscape; Josée continued to exhibit the landscape subjects inspired by classical history and mythology on which she was steadily building her reputation.

Théodore Géricault did not send anything to the Salon that year. He had been in Rome and was preparing a monumental painting of the horse race at the Roman carnival. He came to dinner one evening shortly after his return. Before, he had been a youth with talent. Now he was a man of maturity and assurance, with a tall, lithe body and an arresting face – full sensuous lips, strong chin, dark eyebrows, and short, curling brown hair. He brought such energy to whatever he did, whether it was covering acres of canvas or conversing with a friend. He was only two years younger than I. Next to him Antoine looked subdued, prim, and old-maidish. I could not help comparing the two. Théodore did not mean to surpass the older man but he could not help pushing ahead of him artistically to pursue his vision.

Not since Charles had I felt so alert and alive to a man – and Charles had been a mere boy in comparison.

After Antoine’s outburst over Charles’s portrait, I did not want to give him any cause, real or imagined, to be jealous. Even if our marriage had not been a success, I had never been unfaithful to him and had no intention of betraying him in the flesh. However, I could not help acknowledging my attraction to Géricault and playing out alternatives in my imagination.

Of course, having made up my mind not to act upon my attraction, I began to run into the man everywhere: at the art supply shop, in the galleries of the Louvre and the arcades of the Palais-Royal; at the Champ de Mars and the Champs-Elysées; in restaurants and cafés; even at my own dinner table. For someone reputed to be hard at work on an immense masterpiece, he certainly spent a great deal of time away from his studio.

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