Pour St Moritz by George Barbier (Photo credit: Google Images)
I have been trying to understand the conflict in the Middle East, but had to pause because reports I read seemed to contradict one another.
It therefore occurred to me to send you an amusing post.
The Monvel are a dynasty. Bernard is the son of Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (18 October 1850 – 16 March 1913), but he had cousins who where also illustrators and designers. George Barbier (1882–1932) was a first cousin who made illustrations for fashion magazines. He may be the better-known Boutet de Monvel. Pierre Brissaud (23 December 1885–1964) was also a first cousin.
However, the most sophisticated and wealthiest was Bernard Boutet de Monvel (9 August 1881 – 28 October 1949) who travelled back and forth between Paris and New York to decorate homes. He was enormously talented and elegant. Bernard was killed in the plane crash that also took the life of Ginette Neveu (11 August 1919 – 28 October 1949) and her brother, her accompanist. Ginette Neveu was one of the best violinists ever. World boxing champion Marcel Cerdan, Édith Piaf‘s partner at the time, was another victim of the crash.
Bernard Boutet de Monvel (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A Golden Age of Illustration
France didn’t have a Golden Age of illustration, at least not for children’s literature. However, it had a golden age of fashion illustrators whose pochoirs (stencils) appeared on the cover of French magazines and other magazines, such as Vogue. Particularly famous was George Barbier who is associated mainly with La Gazette du bon ton. George Barbierand Pierre Brissaud were Bernard’s first cousins. All were illustrators, but none had the sophistication of Bernard Boutet de Monvel. Bernard was a work of art as a person and slightly précieux. His portrait of The Maharaja of Indore seems a reflection of Bernard Boutet de Monvel, the artist.
The Maharaja of Indore by Bernard Boutet de Monvel, c. 1934 (Photo credit: Google Images)
Fashion and the Ballets Russes
In other words, France had its Golden Age of illustrators, but only Louis-Maurice, Bernard’s father, was mainly an illustrator of children’s literature, not his son nor his nephews, George Barbier and Pierre Brissaud. They illustrated fashion magazines and worked for the BalletsRusses, as did Pablo Picasso.
My posts on the Boutet de Monvel dynasty generated an interest in pochoirs. Reproductions are now available from various companies.
Cover by George Barbier (Photo credit: Wikimedia.org, all)
Pierrot and Harlequin by George Barbier
Art Deco
Jean-Gaspard Deburau
Charles Deburau (Jean-Gaspard’s son)
Jean-Louis Barrault
Pantomine and Mine
Les Enfants du Paradis
A few weeks ago, I posted an article on “Leo Rauth’s fin de siècle Pierrot.” Leo Rauth died too young and under tragic circumstances. However, although Rauth‘s artwork predates George Barbier‘s (1882–1932), who is considered an Art Deco artist, both artists depicted commedia dell’arte stock characters: Pedrolino, or Pierrot formerly known as Gilles, and Harlequin (Arlecchino and Arlequin) and did so in “galant” fashion following in the footsteps of Jean-Antoine Watteau (10 October 1684 – 18 July 1721).
Pierrot is a major figure in France. He appears in the art of Antoine Watteau, a student of Claude Gillot (both eighteenth-century artists, middle and late). Pierrot then grows into Jean-Gaspard Deburau‘s Battiste, a role Charles Deburau, Jean-Gaspard’s son, inherited. Pierrot had entered the world of pantomime and mime.
George Barbier: illustrator
japonisme
Printmaking
“pochoirs” (stenciling)
engravings
However, Leo Rauth differs from George Barbier. First, Barbier is considered an Art Deco artist. Second, he was a fashion illustrator at a time when haute couture was developing rapidly and the publishing industry sensed an opportunity it quickly seized. Moreover, japonisme, woodblock printing, would prove the technique of artists who needed copies of their work: posters, illustrations. Printmaking was not new to the western world. François Chauveau engraved the Carte de Tendre.
As you know, the fine arts diversified in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century due, to a large extent, to japonisme. Japanese prints flooded Europe, France and England particularly. They were plentiful and therefore an inexpensive yet beautiful artwork. Illustrators needed such a tool.
Barbier, used pochoirs (stenciling)[I]that enabled him to make replicas of his designs, but many artists chose various forms of engraving. They made etchings (on copper usually), woodcuts (wood), linocuts (linoleum) or some other material.
Engraving is referred to as an intaglio technique. For instance, etchers trace their drawing into a “ground” applied to metal, they use acid to bite into the drawing. They then insert ink that flows into the engraved (etched) parts of the metal and, when pressed onto paper, only the engraved or etched parts of the pieces of metal, the image, will show on the paper. Artists and designers can also make reproductions of their work using lithography, silkscreens (stenciling) and pochoirs (also stenciling).
Chansons de France pour les petits enfants Maurice B. de Monvel
The Boutet de Monvel Dynasty
Maurice Boutet de Monvel
his son: Bernard Boutet de Monvel
his nephews: George Barbier and Pierre Brissaud
Barbier was also a first cousin to, Bernard Boutet de Monvel, Maurice’s son as well as a first cousin to Maurice’s other nephew, Pierre Brissaud. All three were occasional designers and/or illustrators, or exclusively illustrators and designers.
Barbier also designed theatre and ballet costumes. In fact, he helped Erté, Romain de Tirtoff (23 November 1892 – 21 April 1990) design sets and costumes for the Folies Bergère. In French “R” is pronounced er and “T,” té = Erté. In fact, Barbier led a group nicknamed “The Knights of the Bracelet,” by Vogue.
The Plane Crash: 28 October 1949
Bernard was also an interior designer, a portraitist, and the last of the Paris dandies, a work of art in himself. He died as he lived, conspicuously. Bernard B. de Monvel was killed in the Air France Lockheed Constellation crash of 28 October 1949, in the Azores. Among the forty-eight victims were world-champion boxer Marcel Cerdan (aged 33), Edith Piaf‘s lover, and virtuoso violinist Ginette Neveu (aged 30). Benard B. de Monvel was 68.
Conclusion
As I was going through my neglected email, I found an advertisement for this pochoir.
“Original pochoir by Bagge Huguet from La Gazette du Bon Ton, a leading Art Deco revue in Paris in the 1920s, showcasing the latest fashion and design. The Art Deco period was a highpoint in French art. Leading artists included Georges Lepape, Georges [sic] Barbier, Edouard Garcia Benito, Erté, and others.”
But let us look at Barbier’s reading of Fêtes galantes. Les Années folles, or the Golden Twenties, were a reborn fête galante,à la Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby (1925) that dictated a degree of resemblance between Rauth and Barbier. However, people danced the Charleston, not the sensual tango a product of the 1890s.
Pierre Louÿs(Dec. 10, 1870, Ghent, Belgium – June 4, 1925, Paris, France), was a “French novelist and poet whose merit and limitation were to express pagan sensuality with stylistic perfection.”[i]
In 1894, Louÿs, who was born Pierre Louis, published Les Chansons de Bilitis(1894), prose poems about Sapphic love. According to Wikipedia, The Songs of Bilitis were written by a woman of Ancient Greece called Bilitis, a courtesan and contemporary of Sappho. As for Sappho, who could be Bilitis, she was an ancient Greek poet, a woman, born on the Island of Lesbos between 630 and 612. She was very gifted as a poet and was, therefore, included among the Nine Lyric Poets. Pierre Louÿs translated the mostly lost Sapphic, i. e. lesbian poems of Bilitis or, possibly, Sappho. So it would appear he invented many of them, showing talent, “stylistic perfection,” and providing himself and his readers with an opportunity to indulge in both exoticism and eroticism.
Exoticism and eroticism are very effective marketing tools, which may have motivated Louÿs to “fill in the blanks.” As we know, many of the “Bilitis” or Sappho’s poems, were Louÿs own poems. He was therefore able to deceive many readers, which is quite an accomplishment on Louÿs part, but somewhat humiliating for those readers who thought they were reading what my students would call “the real thing.” Given the artful eroticism that pervades “Les Chansons de Bilitis,” let us be a little forgiving with respect to those who were deceived. According to Britannica, Louÿs’s finest achievement isLa Femme et le pantin (1898; Woman and Puppet), which is set in Spain. More exoticism!
Sapho: the seventeenth-century France
In seventeenth-century France, the famous salonnière (from Salon) and late précieuseMadeleine de Scudéry (15 November 1607 – 2 June 1701) nicknamed herself Sapho. Madeleine de Scudéry isthe author of Le Grand CyrusorArtamène, arguably the longest novel ever written. She is also the main cartographer of the Map of Tendre, a map of love included in Le Grand Cyrus. Madeleine de Scudéry was Georges de Scudéry‘s younger sister. So the memory of Sappho linguered in the mind of erudite salonnières. Not to mention that the Greek Sappho wrote love poems. But did they know that Shappic love was lesbian love?
The Daughters of Bilitist
The Daughters of Bilitist[iii] is a gay rights movement, active since the middle of the twentieth century. We have little information on Bilitist, who wrote in the manner of Sappho, but we know Sappho was born in Lesbos and, although she is purported to have given birth to a daughter, Leïs, Sappho’s mother’ name, even Ancient Greeks doubted Sappho’s heterosexuality. She may of course have been a lesbian, but this mattered little to the citizens of Ancient Greece. She may also have had an affair with Thracian courtesan Rhodopis, which is fascinating as Rhodopis would be Cinderella. This, however, I must investigate. I must also investigate the reason why Sappho was exiled to Sicily? It would have been a short exile as she lived in Lesbos for most of her life. She probably died around 570 BC.
Sappho as a Poet
Sappho was an extremely talented poet, one of the Nine Lyric Poets, not a trivial achievement. However, most of her poetry has been lost. What is left is mostly fragments. Moreover, Sappho wrote in Aeolian Greek, a lesser–known Ancient Greek dialect of which there were several. She therefore had fewer readers.
George Barbier
George Barbier illustrated Pierre Louÿs’ Chansons de Bilitis and did so discretely and tastefully. I have therefore included a video or his illustrations, hence the above information.
My mother grew up during the Great Depression. Her family was not affected by the disaster. In fact, they could help the less fortunate and did help.
I have fond memories of my mother. She was raising four children and was therefore kept very busy. Four children had survived and fourteen had died. We were a Quebec family.
Every day she sat at her Art Deco dressing table and put cream on her face. She also dressed very well. Always.
I remember that she and Mariette, her Belgian friend, often got together to make lovely dresses for the three surviving girls. We loved Mariette. She and her husband were our best friends.
In fact, we were always together. Mariette had been the wardrobe mistress for the Brussels Opera company. Henri was a jeweller and a clockmaker.
Mother and I spoke together a great deal. She told me about the 30’s, the 40’s, as well as the 50’s. She was a singer, a mezzo-soprano, the perfect Carmen, and had had her own radio program. She would play records and make little comments.
She liked classical music, my father’s passion, but she was especially fond of a lighter kind of music. Lighter, but beautiful.
So let me close the day by playing one of the songs she loved, a love song. She so loved my father.
Mother, you have been dead for 9 years and I still miss you. I even need you. Obviously, I’ll never make it to adulthood.
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