Camille and Claude Monet

Claude Manet made some beautiful and serene paintings, mainly due to his obsession for light and colors, but the same couldn't be said about his personality. Claude Manet didn't have many friends. He was known to be rude. Nonetheless, he was close to some other notable artists of the time. Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe, completed in 1868, was a response to Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe, made 5 years earlier. In it, you see the artists Frédéric Bazé, Gustave Courbet and two women, the one on the ground being the main focus of this painting. Claude Manet, being obsessed with the way light reflected on water, decided to buy a boat and convert it into a studio. This way, he would get unique point of views in which he could fully exploit the visual effects of light reflections. Edouard Manet made a portrait of Manet in his studio boat in 1874. I find this painting quite adorable. You see Manet in his little boat, wearing his little hat, peacefully painting next to, once again, the same woman you see in Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe. This woman is Camille Doncier. She met Manet in 1865 when she was 18 and he was 25. Two years later, they'd have their first son, Jean. In 1870, they got married. Their relationship was quite difficult. Manet was always extremely poor, not wanting to be anything other than an artist. He very often starved and couldn't afford painting supplies. His family, however, was wealthy but the reason they wouldn't bring financial support to Claude was because they strongly disapproved of his relationship with Camille. Because of this, Camille and Claude had to repeatedly separate. When things got too desperate, Manet would temporarily leave Camille to receive his family's financial aid. In 1867, because of the birth of Jean, Manet is reunited with Camille and they finally get married in 1870 but the financial hardships weren't over. Between the birth of his son and his wedding, because of his poverty, Manet attempted suicide by throwing himself in the Seine. It couldn't have been easy to be Claude Manet's wife but I have no doubt that he genuinely loved Camille Doncier. She was his muse. He painted her more than he would paint anybody else. Here in Women in the Garden, Manet paints his soon-to-be wife in the garden not once but three times. In Camille-Manet on a Garden Bench made in 1873, the subject, Camille, sits on a bench in the shadow. It's a sunny day and there's beautiful light and colors in the background but Camille sits on the bench looking gloomy. She's wearing black, her father had just passed away. If you look closely, you can see her holding a letter which could be announcing the death of her father. The man in the back could be interpreted as death itself or a neighbor offering Camille his condolences. But not every aspect of Claude and Camille Manet's life were sad. In Camille in Japanese Costume made in 1876, you see Camille candidly smiling. She's not only wearing a Japanese costume but also a blonde wig to clearly indicate to the viewer that she's not Japanese. From what I saw, seeing Camille happy is a pretty rare sight and although this context might be questionable today, it's a heartwarming portrait as I imagine both Claude and Camille had fun making it. I also want to focus on this portrait of Camille and her son Jean because this one isn't sad nor is it necessarily happy. It's inspiring. It looks like it could have been taken from a movie. Camille's silhouette with her parasol looks down at the viewer, magnifying her presence and placing her in front of a clean blue background. Her white dress has a slight blue tint in contrast with the yellow tint of the light hitting the grass, setting this scene probably during a sunset. Finally, what completes this painting is Jean, his hands in his pockets, looking at his father in the distance. It's such a beautiful portrait and the angle at which Manet paints his family shows just how much he holds them in high regard. Finally, at the end of the 19th century, Camille struggles with her declining health. In 1878, she gives birth to her second son, Michel, which would only aggravate the situation. In 1879, she died at the age of 32. Manet was greatly impacted by his wife's death. He made this strong and extremely sad portrait, Camille Manet on her deathbed. This portrait is evocative on so many levels. First, it's such an expressive painting, expressing of course sadness, grief, and perhaps even anger. It's very different from his earlier paintings as Manet would use brushstrokes to emphasize light and color, but here, the brushstrokes almost seem to be used as a mode of expression. I believe that this painting prefigures expressionism. Second, the colors echo death. These are muted colors, mostly gray or dark with some touches of blue and pink. Manet would say, And here's how his obsession of color could be his torment. I one day found myself looking at my beloved wife's dead face and just systematically noting the colors according to an automatic reflex. Finally, Camille is painted as if she was fading. Only her face remains, only her face allows us to understand what this painting is. But like the rest of the composition, it seems to be fading away. Camille is dead, and the painting seems to evoke her death by representing her slowly disappearing. But her face isn't quite gone yet, and it might always be there. It might never fade away. Like anybody who dies, they remain in their loved one's memory, they remain in their loved one's photographs, and in their paintings. Camille and Claude Manet's life and their love was punctuated by constant tragedy, but they stayed together and, above all, Claude kept painting her, combining both his obsession for painting and his love for Camille. I hope you enjoyed this Valentine's Day special. Thank you for watching, thank you for liking and subscribing if you have already, and I'd like to thank Udesign I Write, Kohler, and every other patron for supporting me on Patreon. If you also want to support the channel and get this 6x9 postcard print, check out patreon.com forward slash thecanvas.