Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 1 May 1881

Alexis comes early; he has a ticket for two, so that with mine we can go four: Monsieur, Madame, myself and Alexis. I am not very pleased with my outfit — a very dark grey wool costume, black hat. Elegant but rather commonplace. We find my work straightaway: it is in the first room to the left of the salon d'honneur, on the second row. I am delighted with the position and very surprised that the canvas looks as well as it does. It is not good — but I expected a positive horror, and it is pleasant.
Only, by mistake my name was omitted from the catalogue (I have lodged a complaint and it will be rectified). One cannot look properly on this first day, when everyone is eager to see everything at once. Alexis and I slip away slightly from the family to look right and left; we finally lose them altogether and I take his arm for a while. Besides, I emancipate myself — I go, I come, I am not afraid. Crowds of acquaintances; great compliments [words blacked out: which did not] seem far-fetched. Naturally: these people are no judges; they see a sizeable canvas with many figures in it, of a respectable general appearance. As for me — a week ago I gave a thousand francs to the poor in order to be accepted... and well placed. No one knows of it; I went into some large office and fled very quickly without listening to the thanks — the administrator must have thought I had stolen the money I was giving away. Heaven gives me my money's worth.
Abbema, who is strolling with Bojidar, sends me word that she likes my canvas — that it is virile, lively, etc. A few minutes later we meet and I am introduced to Sarah Bernhardt's famous friend. You know what people say? She does not look much like a man... but let us leave that. She is a very good sort, and I value her compliments all the more because Bojidar tells me she has just quarrelled with Soldini, to whom she said he is declining in quality and she does not like his submissions this year.
Then we encounter the two Gérys — and as it seems to me that his health has been inquired after too solicitously, I am cool with him while nonetheless showing him some canvases. But suddenly I find the Zillhardts and Julian, who compliments me on the canvas and thinks it is not well enough hung. "If it were on the line it would be a popular success and the artists would find nothing to criticise." We stroll with him.
Met almost the whole studio. We lunched there — a stay of six hours in all amid the Arts. I shall say nothing to you of the paintings — you will read about them in the worthy journal La Citoyenne. I only wish to say here that I think very highly of Breslau's canvas — great qualities, but poor draughtsmanship and absurd impasto. Fingers like bird's claws, noses full of gashes and angles and hardnesses! And then extravagant crusty paint-buildup; in short it smells of Impressionism, and it is Bastien-Lepage she imitates.
Where have you ever seen such daubs and such relief in nature? But no matter — there is good in it, and people do look at those three heads, which are placed between the portrait of Wolff and Bastien-Lepage's beggar.
And Carolus! We recognised each other and spoke — that is, it was Maman who got herself recognised. He had no recollection of me at all, since five minutes earlier he had been giving me those looks, you know — à la Carolus! He is very vain and fond of women; there is something unctuous in his manner, something of the high priest, a great man in his own estimation — he speaks to you gently with that air of charlatanism which reminds me of Cassagnac. It enchants me. And Blanc! Blanc can barely believe the canvas is mine.
I ran into Schaeppi and told her, to stun her, that I am superior to Bonnat. Those creatures will be commenting on it among themselves. Well then — let them.

Notes

The salon d'honneur: the main exhibition room at the Palais de l'Industrie, used for the most prestigious works. A placement in the adjacent rooms on the second row (as opposed to the coveted "line" or cimaise) was nonetheless respectable. ↩
Marie secretly donated a thousand francs to charitable relief as a kind of vow, hoping heaven would reward her with Salon acceptance and a good placement. This is characteristic of her pragmatic religiosity. ↩
Louise Abbema (1853–1927): French painter and illustrator, known especially for her portraits of Sarah Bernhardt, with whom she had a long intimate friendship. Her comment that Marie's work is "virile" (viril) was standard academic praise for strong, confident painting. ↩
La Citoyenne: the feminist newspaper founded by Hubertine Auclert in 1881. Marie had invested in it earlier in the diary and was committed to publishing her Salon review there. ↩
Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848–1884): French painter of peasant genre scenes in a naturalist style influenced by Impressionism. He was enormously fashionable in 1881 and widely imitated among younger painters. ↩
Albert Wolff (1835–1891): powerful art critic for Le Figaro and a major force in the Salon; having a work placed near his portrait was a mark of prominence. Bastien-Lepage's Le Mendiant was one of his celebrated works. ↩
Carolus-Duran (1837–1917): fashionable French portrait painter, celebrated for his fluent technique and his attractive subjects. He was also a renowned teacher, and John Singer Sargent was his most famous pupil. ↩
Léon Bonnat (1833–1922): one of the most celebrated French academic portrait painters of the era, enormously successful and much honoured. For Marie to claim superiority to Bonnat was provocative absurdity designed to shock — and probably succeeded. ↩