Diary of Marie Bashkirtseff
CZENUKFR

Sunday, 17 September 1882

I posed at that Orleanist Tony's — all in black, sad, and complaining of not sleeping. With all his family mourning crepe... As for the portrait... He is not stupid enough not to see that it is "charming in its arrangement" — correct, elegant, and consequently!... For with me one might have done better; Julian and I exchanged but a word on the subject... He said the portrait was very pretty and charmingly arranged, and I answered:
"True — it is charmingly arranged!"
And we had understood each other. It must vex Tony — but he cannot confess it after fifteen sittings. In any case he is going to change the background; the red drapery disappears to make way for my desk with everything around it; I shall be at home — that is something at any rate — but... I shall nonetheless remain in evening dress with a fan in my hand. In short, one sees the arms, the neck, and the hands, which are a perfect likeness and executed above his usual level.
We dined together, Tchoumakoff and Soutzo in addition.
After table gossip at dinner, we went up to my rooms and quarrelled about art — for I should tell you that I have the audacity to represent [Crossed out: modern work], while my respected master has the vanity to declare himself of the old school... I flatter him by treating him as "modern" — and he believes it... Does the modern consist in painting a contemporary subject instead of Mary Queen of Scots? That is the opinion of the simpleminded and the ignorant — but I have already explained myself on this point. The fact is, he persists in saying I shall not be able to do the painting directly from nature. It is absurd. For the terrain, the sky, the rocks, the horizon — he says I shall not find them to copy exactly... Not quite perhaps — but I shall see what is there, and if it is absolutely necessary to arrange something... I shall arrange the position of objects, but those objects I shall copy so as to have true earth, a true sky... I shall perhaps not be exposed in this way to producing stones in the shape of large books and mauve in colour, as in the last painting of my academic professor — who does not paint what is but who arranges and calculates according to schoolroom rules... Oh, it is sad. The whole difficulty lies in finding a spot where I can plant my canvas and leave it there while working, naturally...
In any event, we shall see.