Chapter 7 1865 - France
CLAUDE MONET
Claude Monet stretched on his cot, barely remembering when he had collapsed, probably sometime after midnight.
How much wine did we drink? Probably more than a tableful of young artists deserved.
Poor Bazille insisted on paying for it all.
Frédéric would need to ship off a letter to his benevolent family just to help pay rent for the month.
Perhaps now, after having his first painting accepted at the Salon, Monet could start paying his fair share.
His father’s words echoed in his ears: “Son, you are too restless and unfocused.” Now, maybe his family would believe him when he told them he would be rich and famous someday and take care of all of them.
“At last my family must take me seriously,” Monet said to the ceiling and turned on his side.
Claude would especially cherish the possibility of paying back his aunt, who had bought him out of the army last year.
Her generosity arose from the fact that he had nearly died from the typhoid he’d caught after drinking foul water in the Algiers French Colony.
When he got called up in the army lottery, his father had told him he had been born under an unlucky star.
For most of his life, he had tried to free himself from the curse.
With his commitment to the army out of the way, his father’s only requirements were for Claude to work hard, as in any business venture, and spurn the silly and unattainable; by which he meant no girls.
“Ha! Had he forgotten what it felt like to be twenty-five?” Monet said to the wall.
He just wished his mother had lived to see his success. He rubbed the sleep and the booze from his eyes.
The front door slung open, and the familiar voice of édouard Manet thundered through the apartment as his heavy feet propelled him to the kitchenette. “Okay, you scallywags! Rise and shine, me hearties! It’s time to go see our success.”
Of all the young artists, only Monet and Manet had paintings accepted at the Spring Salon at Paris’s beautiful Palais de I’Industrie. But it was true—a success for one or two was a success for all.
“Come on, you bums. Which one of you will make this old man a cup of coffee?” Manet said, rattling pots and pans.
Monet sat up on the side of his cot and put his hands to his face. “Chut, you fool. You are waking the dead.”
“C’est pas vrai, that’s not true. Shake a leg! This is our big day, Claude. This is the beginning,” Manet yelled from the living room. “Get up and wash. You smell like a cow.”
Monet sniffed each armpit. He was right.
A wet drop from the ceiling hit his shoulder and sent a chill up his spine.
He looked up at the sagging ceiling of his bedroom and realized it must be raining.
Eventually, he’d need to fix the roof before it collapsed, but he and Bazille had rented only the top room of the back house of a home on the Rue de Furstenberg on the Left Bank of the Seine.
The apartment with its peeling wallpaper, a rusty stove pipe that snaked to the ceiling, and windows stained with coal dust had only two small bedrooms, but at any one time, two or three other friends slept on the floor among the easels.
Even in the decrepit condition, they loved the space; it made for a perfect meeting place for the group of young artists who smoked and drank their way through all-night discussions of art and women. They lived the Bohemian lifestyle.
Monet scratched his lower back as he stood and walked into the living room and common area.
Manet stood at the stove making coffee. Auguste Renoir sat cross-legged on his pallet on the floor, while Bazille lay sound asleep on the couch, sprawled on his belly.
Once again he gave up his room for a guest. Monet smiled.
He’s always the benevolent one. Then he shook his head.
Whoever the guest is, he’s probably snuggling with a young lady.
“Frédéric, put some clothes on. You are indecent!” Monet kicked at the bare rear sticking out from beneath the blanket.
Bazille growled and kicked his feet, trying to strike back. With a groan of discomfort, he adjusted his position, slowly sitting up and pulling the blanket over his chest. He threw his head at the back of the couch. “A?e,” he groaned, “how big was the omnibus that ran me over?”
Manet threw a large wooden spoon at Bazille’s head, missing him by a fraction. The spoon plopped into a corner where a squealing mouse scampered out of harm’s way.
“Oh, my head,” Bazille moaned.
“This is your fault, for buying us all that wine last night,” Manet scolded Bazille. “My father had this annoying saying that you can’t fly like an eagle in the morning after playing with the owls at night. Besides, you, all of you, must look at La Liberté.”
Manet stepped to the table in the middle of the room, pulled the Paris newspaper out of his coat pocket, and slapped it down. “Read it and weep, boys. You too might become as famous as me and Claude.”
Monet snatched the paper, unfolded it, and scanned the front page. The Spring Salon took center stage in the lead story, marked by a dazzling headline. “The Emperor will attend today!” Monet exclaimed.
When the others dismissed his excitement at the opportunity to get a glimpse of Napoleon III, Monet refocused on the newspaper.
He wanted to see if the article mentioned him out of the many artists displaying their work, but hesitated at the bottom of the front page when he saw a photograph of the Japanese delegation he heard had been in Paris for the last six months.
The Palais de I’Industrie had given the delegates a special space to display Japanese art and other items of interest they had brought with them.
“La vache, holy cow, did you see this?” Monet shouted.
“The Japanese will be at the show as well!”
Standing up to look over his shoulder at the photographs in the newspaper, Renoir shrugged. “I don’t see what you like so much about the Japanese art.”
“My friend,” Monet turned to explain, “you just have not seen enough of it. It is so simple, but the lines and the light they use are truly what we are all trying to accomplish. They are just that much further ahead of us all. At sixteen, I bought my first Japanese print in a curiosity shop in Le Havre.”
Renoir pointed past him to the rest of the story. “It says the Japanese will perform a tea ceremony at two in the afternoon today. I wonder what that’s all about.”
Monet brought the photograph of the delegation close to his eyes, to get a better look at the only woman standing beside fierce-looking men wearing black kimono and holding swords. The caption below the photograph identified her as a samurai princess.
Manet snatched the newspaper from his hands. “Come on, come on. You must read about the great Manet and the three measly words on his friend Claude Monet.”
He opened the paper, turned to an inner page, spread it on the table, and rapped his knuckles to show them where they should focus. Even Bazille, with the blanket wrapped around his waist, joined them.
“Read it and weep, my friends,” Manet repeated.
They read the paragraph about Manet’s painting, Olympia. Then they turned to their friend, noticing for the first time he was dressed in his best suit and top hat. Seeing that they’d finally noticed, Manet stood up tall and flashed a mischievous smile. “So, what say you?” he prompted.
“Those bastards!” Monet exclaimed.
The other artists erupted in laughter.
Renoir bent to read. “The curators thankfully hung Manet’s Olympia high enough to make it more or less invisible. Making matters worse, this obscene painting hung over his other submission, Jesus Insulted by the Soldiers, making it clear all of Paris should be insulted.”
“Ouf.” Bazille said.
Renoir continued to read. “The model, Victorine Meurent, whose name implies the legitimate descent from the mountain of gods, seems, to most spectators, not a comfortably acceptable nude, but a naked, provocative tart.”
That made all the young men howl with delight.
After all, they had seen the painting when Manet brought it to the apartment to get their opinion before submitting it to the Salon.
Nudes were always submitted to the Salon, but Manet’s painting had a seduction that no one could understand, until one of them pointed out that the beautiful model looked directly at you.
“It is the look that has steamed everyone,” Bazille said.
“I painted her as I saw her,” Manet said. “My only regret is that I did not capture the smile that I left her with.” He grinned.
“Were her breasts that perfect?” Renoir asked.
“Oh, my friend, neither paint nor words can express the perfection.”
“I hope you kicked the black cat off the end of the bed and excused the maid,” Monet laughed, but added seriously, “I’m sorry the critics are being so hard on you.”
Being almost ten years older than the others and already having had splendid success selling his work, Manet waved them off. “?a va, mes amis, so it goes, my friends. It will no doubt become a masterpiece.”
Monet pushed everyone else’s hands off the newspaper to search for his name. Manet’s sting wasn’t far off, although the review contained more than three words.
It read: “The young, caricature artist, Claude Monet, is awarded his first submission to the Salon, The Road in Chailly.”