ROAD MAP OF A MID-LIFE CRISIS (5)

RMOAMLC

LIVES OF THE ARTISTS No. 1

Listen to the news, read a paper or speak to friends and you would believe that any time you go on-line your personal information is available to anyone who cares to see it; millions of people just sitting in front of their screen waiting on your every key stroke. Fear not, I have the answer to your internet security concerns. Publish all your personal data in a blog and then be assured that nobody will be remotely interested in it. If you are reading this congratulate yourself on being part of a select band. I appreciate that blogging is very noughties and that I ought to be Tweeting but when I started I had hoped that my audience wouldn’t all fit in my car.

Not that small can’t be beautiful; I am very grateful to my American readership and would like to thank you both for your loyalty. It has occurred to me that perhaps you are sitting in some CIA reading room like Robert Redford in Three Days of the Condor. If you are, let me assure you that I have no plans to subvert the world order but please don’t let that deter you from continuing to read this blog. I need all the followers I can get and there are more laughs in this than in an Islamist chat room.

Appreciating what it is to be ignored I have decided to pay homage to other artists who were unappreciated in their own time in a series of profiles entitled “Lives of the Artists”.

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Claude Beaudaire

“Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder,” is perhaps the best known of

Beaudaire’s many bon mots. The man whose passion for life was exceeded only by his capacity for vast quantities of industrial strength alcohol is little known now but in his time his light shone as brightly as any of the famed artists of the Paris demi-monde. A voracious and undiscerning lover of women he was a habitué of the Moulin Rouge and friend of the artistic elite. Paul Cezanne said of him “He sees the world through the eyes of a child and paints it with the hands of an arthritic blacksmith.” Toulouse Latrec is said to have commented, “I look up to Monsieur Beaudaire”.

Born in 1854 in the tiny hamlet of Oublie in the Loire Valley, Beaudaire was the youngest of five children. His father an accountant died in a freak accident while  sorting the tax affairs of a local land agent. This incident is seen by many biographers as a defining event in the life of the young Beaudaire. The art historian, Clough, in his work “Bad Impressions”, claims that the painting “Les Livres Sur Mon Pere” was an attempt by the adult Beaudaire to come to terms with the childhood trauma. 

The death of his father left Beaudaire in a female dominated household. His four older sisters and doting mother are said to have dressed the young Claude like a doll. Whatever the emotional consequences of this upbringing, it is plain that as a man Beaudaire was never happier than when in the intimate company of women. In his most famous series of works Beaudaire gives us an uncompromising representation of the female form in a variety of poses. “Tournebroche” (literally translated as “Spit Roast”), as this series of works is generally referred to in artistic circles, was painted between 1880 and 1882 while Beaudaire was at the height of his powers. Many commentators have been struck by the bold application of oil on canvass to create images that are both visceral and visually arresting.

Undoubtedly his unashamedly sexual representation of women meant that Beaudaire’s work never enjoyed a wide audience. While he enjoyed a good deal of fame if not notoriety within the permissive confines of Paris’ artistic community the wider world was subject to a far stricter moral code and his paintings struggled to find an audience.

Beaudaire’s ability to polarise contemporary opinion can be seen in a cutting from the London Daily News from September 17^th 1888. It is reported that a small exhibition of impressionist paintings was held in the Stubbings Gallery in Whitechapel. Beaudaire was among the artists whose work was selected for display. After only a single day the exhibition was picketed by a cross section of local womens, temperance and church groups all professing outrage at the images portrayed in Beaudaire’s work. After some public disorder the gallery suffered fire which was extinguished before it could do serious harm but nevertheless it resulted in the closure of e exhibition.

This event appears to have been a turning point in Beaudaire’s life. Thereafter he struggled to exhibit or sell his work and his life began a downward spiral. He found himself living in a brothel in one of Paris’ poorer quarters. He used the establishment’s employees as models and his paintings reflect the seedier and less glamorous side of life. “Elle non perspirant bien pour une grande femme,” is a striking example of his work in this period. It is interesting to note that much of Beadaire’s work from this time was exchanged for the necessaries of life and his paintings from this time have surfaced in some rather bizarre circumstances.

In 1892 Beaudaire’s health began to deteriorate. This was almost certainly as a result of excessive drinking. He moved to a hospital just outside Paris catering for the long term sick and run by the Sisters of Constant Virtue. Very few paintings from this period of his life remain. Whether Beaudaire was simply unable to work at the same rate as before or whether his work was destroyed after his death cannot be said. The few pictures that we do have suggest Beaudaire, whilst physically unwell washappy in his surroundings. His use of colour at this time is reminiscent of his earlier work and his choice of subject is certainly more spiritual than his previous work. “La Novice,” depicting a young woman in a shift nightdress is thought to be a picture of a novice nun involved in Beaudaire’s care. Whilst chaste in comparison to other work there remains a hint of surpressed carnality that reassures us that Beaudaire’s appetites had not entirely deserted him. Beaudaire died in 1897 and was buried in the small burial ground attached to the hospital in which he spent his final years. There was little interest in his work after his death but in the late 1960’s he enjoyed a brief renaissance his work being favoured particularly by those who espoused free love. His rehabilitation was short lived. Feminist commentators objected to his depiction of women and his work was one more consigned to oblivion. Beaudaire’s work is not on show in any major museum but some examples can be seen in the Town Hall in Oublie, his place of birth.