Monday 22nd December - The Reading Girl

 Last few days of Blogvent, and I realised that it has all been quite tame so let's rectify that with today's painting...

The Reading Girl (1886-7) Theodore Roussel

This is one of my favourite paintings and it involves a book! Hurrah, any excuse for nudity! Where shall we start? Okay, let's start with the dull bit, the artist...

Theodore Roussel (1847-1926) was a French painter, born in Brittany, who taught himself to paint after his military service came to an end in 1872. He moved to London in 1878 and became good friends with James McNeill Whistler. He really arrived on the art scene in 1887 with the exhibition of The Reading Girl at the New English Art Club. The newspaper reports of it are glorious because no-one wants to be too profuse in their appreciation so they seem to dig around for some snark. Here are some examples:

"...a perfectly nude model, lithe and lean, buried (but the British Matron will regret to find not hidden) in the newspaper. There has been no attempt to idealise the figure; it is simply a portrait of a rather underfed woman, who is content (at a shilling an hour) to be naked and not ashamed." (The Era 9/4/87)

"carelessly executed, though bold enough in treatment." (Truth 7/4/87)

"though an excellent study, strikes one as an error of taste - she is not nude, but simply naked." (Pall Mall Budget, 14/4/87)

There are more, but you get the drift - I especially love the 'not nude, naked' comment because you know exactly the value judgement that is being put here. A girl who is paid a shilling an hour is not a nude because she is real girl and none of us want to see that, apparently. The beautiful model in all her pink perfection is not ideal, just naked and I think that is a comment that could come straight out of the newspapers today.  The problem with Roussel's girl is that he has faithfully given us a beautiful soft portrait of a real person and the (forgive me) male patrons are disgusted. I like how The Era load the horror onto British Matrons (who apparently haven't seen a woman naked before) but I think the horror stems from the fact that this girl is reading. She isn't performing for her male viewers, she is not bothered about them in the slightest. 

Which bit of her isn't perfect?! Is it the fact that she doesn't apparently give a flying fig whether anyone is looking? This strikes me as the sort of horror voiced in newspapers when a female celebrity is seen out of the house in anything less than full glam. Nothing changes, we just have a more sophisticated vocabulary around it all now and no doubt some appalling human being would be applying the term 'low-value' to any lass who poses for a shilling an hour. We just say out loud the bit that used to be implied, which is no doubt progress of some sort. How revolting.

The Reading Girl was presented to the Tate in 1927, a year after Roussel died in Hastings. William Orpen was instrumental in saving it for the nation by drawing attention to it in an exhibition of Roussel's work, declaring it the best nude ever painted, which is a bold claim. I was gratified to see that after its first exhibition, any time The Reading Girl was exhibited, it was met with delight and admiration. After she was bought by the Tate, prints appeared in the newspapers and reports that crowds had rushed to the Tate to see her displayed. So, who was she?

Waiting for the Procession (1890) John William Godward

Ah, this bit I am very aware of because not only did the model appear in Pre-Raphaelite Girl Gang but also she was a Portsmouth girl, like my daughter. Miss Harriet Selina Pettigrew, better known as Hetty, was one of three sisters who, after the death of their father, were launched on the London art scene as models, taking the place by storm. The family was quite large, and so I can imagine Mrs Pettigrew found herself with lots of children to feed and three exceptionally beautiful daughters, so what could she do?  It is also suggested that the older brother Charles took art lessons and so there might have been a way in for the girls to start modelling there.  The three girls appear in various paintings you'd know, including this one (which earned them the place in my Girl Gang)...

An Idyll of 1745 (1884) John Everett Millais

Hetty also posed for Edward Linley Sambourne (with her sister Lily) and for Whistler (where she possibly met Roussel) as well as for Godward, and I can concur that Hetty does not seem to be particularly bothered about the nude work. Her relationship with Roussel was a bit different than her other employers.  It seems that Hetty had artistic aspirations and acted as Roussel's studio assistant and possible pupil for many years. Roussel was already married with children but the relationship with Hetty was more than just professional, resulting in the birth of Hetty's daughter Iris in 1899. When Roussel's wife died in 1909, he remarried to Ethel Melville, the widow of the artist Arthur Melville, and Hetty never spoke to him again.

Harriet Pettigrew (1890) Edward Linley Sambourne

Hetty worked as a sculptor and there are some positive reviews of her work in the 1890s, such as in the Lady's Pictorial in 1895, the reviewer of the Glasgow Fine Art exhibition remarked on her delicately carved panels. I'm glad she did well in her life, despite the ups and downs, and find a comment in her sister Rose's book about their lives very interesting. She said they never posed for less than half a guinea a day, which is 11 shillings, so unless she is sitting for 11 hours (which I doubt) she was on more than 'a shilling an hour' and with the amount of nonsense she had to put up with, she thoroughly earned it.

See you tomorrow.