Using artworks by Berthe Morisot, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and others, The Art of Parisian Chic explores how women and artists in Impressionist Paris (1855-1885) crafted their public images to exploit and resist stereotypes.
French societal expectations and beauty ideals shaped how women were seen and how they chose to present themselves in public – whether on the street, in a photograph, or in a portrait on the walls of the annual Paris Salon. On Paris’s broad new boulevards and in its public parks and theaters, women dressed to impress anonymous strangers as well as their friends. They even circulated aspirational photographs of themselves. Looking at a rich array of visual sources – from portraits to modern-life paintings, and from photographs to fashion plates – Justine De Young reveals how women were seen, how they aspired to be seen, and how they navigated public life in Second Empire and Belle Époque Paris.
This book considers how feminine “types” made famous in books, caricatures, and paintings created a visual lexicon and stylistic guide for women. These types of fashionable women – cocotte (mistress), jeune veuve (young widow), amazone (independent equestrienne), demoiselle de magasin (shopgirl), and Parisienne (chic Parisian woman) – were used by men and women alike to judge the class, character, morality, and worth of strangers. With a rich set of illustrations from the Impressionist canon and beyond, The Art of Parisian Chic shows how fashion gave women the power to use – and subvert – those stereotypes to construct and reinvent their identities.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter 1: La Cocotte – The Mistress/Kept Woman
Defining the Cocotte
Cocottes vs. Filles
Monet’s Camille as a Cocotte
Camille & Chic
Camille & the Crinoline
Classes of Cocottes
Difference from Cocodettes
Attraction of the Cocotte Image to Women
Marchal’s Pénélope & Phryné at the Salon of 1868
Cocottes in Postwar Paris
Renoir’s Loge at the First Impressionist Exhibition of 1874
Marchal’s The Prey at the 1875 Salon
Manet’s Nana (1877) and Other Cocottes at the Salon
Jeanne Duval, Resisting Expectations
Portraits of Grandes Cocottes and Cocodettes
Valtesse de La Bigne at the 1879 Salon
Comtesse Alice de Lancey, the American Divorcée
The Mysterious Marquise Anforti
Conclusion
Chapter 2: La Jeune Veuve – The Young Widow
Origins of the Young Widow Type
Mid-Nineteenth-Century Mourning Fashion and Etiquette
The Mourning Industry
Constructing the Ideal Widow
Young and Beautiful
Fashionable with a Hint of Sex Appeal
Sentimental… or Vain
Consolable
Marriageable, but Demanding
Idle at Home, but Ubiquitous in the City
Mourning as Costume
The Countess de Castiglione
The Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) & the Reality of French Widowhood
Impressionist Women in Mourning
Monet’s The Bench (1873)
Conclusion
Chapter 3: L’Amazone – The Independent Equestrienne
Defining the Amazone
Aristocratic Tradition: Empress Eugènie as an Amazone
The Riding Habit
Cocottes as amazones: Cora Pearl
Democratization of Riding in the Second Empire and Third Republic
Equestrian Photography & the Allure of the Amazone Image
Amazones at the Paris Salon
Carolus-Duran’s Au bord de la mer (At the Seaside) at the 1873 Salon
The Amazone, the Parisienne, and Contemporary Body Ideals
Renoir’s Bridle Path in the Bois de Boulogne at the 1873 Salon des refusés
Exploiting the Amazone & Celebrity: Giovanni Boldini and Alice Regnault
The Amazone and Lesbians
The Modern Amazone and Manet (Conclusion)
Chapter 4: La Demoiselle de magasin – The Savvy Shopgirl
Origins & Types of Shopgirls
How the Department Store Shopgirl was Different
Characteristics of Shopgirls
Polite, Winning, & Pleasant
Beautiful, Elegant, & Chic
Observant Flâneuses
Demoiselles de magasin Outside their Shops: Manet and Renoir’s Cafe Scenes
Manet’s In the Conservatory (1879) & Jeanne Guillemet
Seurat’s Grande Jatte and Contemporary Debates about the Shopgirl (Conclusion)
Chapter 5: La Parisienne – The Symbol of Paris
Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
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