Her Art

Thematic Tag: Art Practice

This thematic tag collects diary paragraphs where Marie discusses her own artistic work -- painting, drawing, sculpture, studio practice, exhibitions, artistic ambition, and the technical and emotional process of making art. It is the diary's strongest professional theme, reflecting art's centrality to Marie's identity from 1877 until her death.

Overview

Art was not a pastime for Marie Bashkirtseff -- it was her vocation, her bid for immortality, and ultimately her race against death. Between 1877 and 1884 she produced approximately 230 works (paintings, drawings, pastels, and sculptures), exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1880, and left behind a body of work that places her among the significant Naturalist painters of late 19th-century France. Her masterpiece, Un meeting (1884), hangs at the Musee d'Orsay. Many of her works were destroyed by Nazi forces during World War II; approximately 60 survive. A dedicated room at the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Nice preserves a portion of her legacy.

Marie's diary is among the most detailed surviving accounts of a woman artist's formation in 19th-century Paris. She documented every stage of her development with unflinching honesty: the euphoria of praise, the humiliation of competition results, the anguish of self-doubt, and the exhilaration of creative vision. Her art criticism -- of her own work, her peers', and that of the masters -- reveals a sophisticated and independent aesthetic sensibility.

The Art World in the 1870s-80s

The Paris Salon

The Paris Salon was the official annual art exhibition of the Academie des Beaux-Arts, and for most of the 19th century it was the single most important event in the Western art world. Careers were made or destroyed there. The Salon typically opened on May 1 (vernissage -- literally "varnishing day," when artists applied a final coat), ran for approximately six weeks at the Palais de l'Industrie on the Champs-Elysees, and attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors.

A jury of awarded artists evaluated submissions, deciding what was accepted (recu), rejected (refuse), and how works were hung. Placement was everything: the cimaise (picture rail at eye level) was the most coveted position; works banished to the galerie du pourtour (perimeter gallery) or hung high above eye level were effectively invisible. Awards ranged from mentions honorables (honorable mentions) to third, second, and first-class medals, with the ultimate prize being the Prix de Rome, a scholarship to study at the French Academy in Rome. In 1881, the government withdrew official sponsorship and the Societe des Artistes Francais took over management.

Academic Art vs. Impressionism

The 1870s-80s were defined by a profound schism between Academic art and Impressionism. The Academic tradition -- championed by artists like William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Alexandre Cabanel, and Leon Bonnat -- prized technical mastery, classical subjects, and highly finished surfaces. The Impressionists -- Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot -- rejected the Salon system and exhibited independently from 1874, painting modern life with visible brushstrokes and natural light.

Between these poles stood Naturalism, the movement most associated with Jules Bastien-Lepage. Naturalism combined the technical rigor of academic training with the Impressionists' interest in outdoor painting (plein air) and everyday subjects. Emile Zola characterized Bastien-Lepage's work as "impressionism corrected, sweetened and adapted to the taste of the crowd." Marie's mature work falls squarely in this Naturalist tradition, though she sought to extend it from rural to urban subjects.

Key Movements and Artists

Women Artists: The Barriers

Women who aspired to be professional artists in 1870s-80s France faced formidable institutional barriers. The Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the state-run academy that conferred the most prestigious training and credentials, did not admit women until 1897 -- thirteen years after Marie's death. Women were therefore excluded from the most direct path to the Prix de Rome, the Salon jury, and academic careers.

The nude model question was central. Academic training required years of drawing from the nude human figure, but social convention held that young women should not be exposed to nude (especially male) models. Private academies like the Academie Julian circumvented this by offering separate women's ateliers where nude models posed, though women paid higher fees (approximately 500 francs per year versus 300 for men) for the privilege of gender-segregated instruction.

Even after training, women artists faced systematic prejudice. Critics routinely dismissed women's work as "feminine" -- a pejorative term meaning sentimental, technically weak, or amateurish. Marie noted this internalized standard herself when praising Breslau: her work had "nothing feminine, banal, or misshapen" (November 22, 1878) -- the highest compliment she could offer. Marie also wrote for Hubertine Auclert's feminist newspaper La Citoyenne in 1881 under the pseudonym "Pauline Orrel," explicitly advocating for women's access to fine arts schools: "What we need is the possibility to work like men." See also: #Politics entry on Marie and feminism.

Notable women artists of the period include Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Rosa Bonheur, Louise Catherine Breslau, Cecilia Beaux, Anna Bilinska-Bohdanowicz, and Virginie Demont-Breton. In 1882, Mme Leon Bertaux founded the Union des Femmes Peintres et Sculpteurs, which organized annual exhibitions of women's art and lobbied for women's admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.

The Academie Julian

The Academie Julian was founded in 1868 by the painter Rodolphe Julian (1839-1907) as a private art school at the Passage des Panoramas in Paris. It became the most important alternative to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, particularly for two groups excluded from the state school: women and foreign students who could not pass the French-language entrance examination. By 1885 the women's section had 400 students; by 1889, 600, drawn from over 50 nationalities.

How it worked: Students worked from live models (including nude male models in the women's classes), drew from plaster casts, and submitted work for regular critiques by visiting instructors. The key teachers at the women's atelier during Marie's years were Tony Robert-Fleury (1837-1911) and Jules Lefebvre (1834-1912), both prominent Academic painters and Salon jurors. Amelie Beaury-Saurel, later Julian's wife, supervised the women's studio at the rue Vivienne. The concours (weekly competitions) ranked students' work and were the primary measure of progress. Students' work was eligible for the Prix de Rome and Salon exhibition. See #Academie_Julian for the full entry.

Marie called Julian himself "le pere Julian" -- he was a supportive, commercially astute figure who recognized her talent and warned her that her rapid progress was creating jealousy: "Quand on arrive a donner des inquietudes a celles qui avaient l'habitude d'etre premieres... on est expose a mille petites choses quelquefois desagreables" (January 2, 1878).

Marie's Artistic Development

Pre-Julian Period (1873-1877): The Apprentice

Marie's earliest art education was informal. In Nice (1873), she took drawing lessons from Francois Bensa (1811-1895), a local painter. On June 10, 1873, she records: "J'ai commence l'etude serieuse du dessin." On May 30, 1873, she argued with Bensa about studying properly: "I told him I wanted to study seriously, that I want to begin at the beginning, that what I am doing now teaches me nothing." In Rome (1876-1877), she took painting lessons from Wilhelm Kotarbinski (1848-1921), a Polish painter. During this pre-professional period, art was one accomplishment among many -- alongside music (she had seriously pursued a singing career before tuberculosis damaged her voice), languages, and social ambitions.

The Academie Julian Years (1877-1882): Intensive Training

Marie enrolled at the Academie Julian in October 1877, shortly before turning 19. This was the decisive turning point. From her first weeks she threw herself into the work with an intensity that startled her teachers and classmates. By December 1877, Robert-Fleury was spending thirty minutes examining her drawings, asking if she had ever painted, and declaring she could begin painting whenever she wished. Marie, characteristically, preferred to perfect her drawing first: "I told him I would rather perfect my drawing, which he heartily approved" (December 29, 1877).

The daily routine was grueling: Marie rose early to be at the atelier by nine, worked from the live model through the day, and returned home exhausted. The concours results became an obsession. After one disappointing placement, she blamed Cassagnac for the distraction: "If I haven't advanced it is Cassagnac's fault. I shall make him pay for it!" (January 29, 1878). She recognized the atelier as her refuge from worldly temptation: "Heureusement il y a l'atelier. Avec l'atelier je n'ai peur de rien" -- "Fortunately there is the atelier. With the atelier I fear nothing" (January 23, 1878).

The Mature Period (1882-1884): The Independent Artist

Major Works

For all of Marie's works that have their own glossary entry — with images, dates and where each is now, or that it was lost — see the gallery in Marie Bashkirtseff's works. The descriptions below are the thematic overview.

L'Academie Julian (In the Studio, 1881)

Oil on canvas. Commissioned by Rodolphe Julian himself, this painting depicts the women's atelier at the Academie Julian -- students working from a child model in a light-filled studio. Marie placed herself as the central seated figure. The painting offers a rare documentary record of women's art education in the period and is considered one of Marie's finest works. It was exhibited at the Salon of 1881.

Le Parapluie (The Umbrella, 1883)

Oil on canvas. A plein-air study reflecting Marie's growing engagement with naturalist street scenes before the larger ambitions of Le Meeting.

Autoportrait a la palette (Self-Portrait with Palette, c. 1880-1883)

Oil on canvas; the date is disputed (Wikidata 1880, the museum label 1882-1883 -- see Autoportrait à la palette). One of several self-portraits Marie produced, this one showing her at work, palette in hand -- asserting her identity as a professional artist.

Portrait de Dina (pastel, 1882)

Pastel portrait of her cousin Dina, the constant companion of her diary years, now in the Musée d'Orsay (RF 39091). Made in the spring of 1882 ("le pastel fait il y a près de deux ans", 103.0603), it was shown at the Salon of 1883 as Portrait de Mlle de B. (no. 106) and won her the mention honorable -- see Portrait de la comtesse Dina de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Un meeting (The Meeting / A Meeting, 1884)

Oil on canvas, 193 x 177 cm (POP/Joconde, inv. RF 442). Musee d'Orsay, Paris. Marie's masterpiece. The painting depicts a group of working-class Parisian children -- street urchins (gamins) -- gathered on a sidewalk, treated with the monumental seriousness traditionally reserved for history painting. The work is deeply Naturalist in approach, with faces and hands rendered with the precise realism of Bastien-Lepage, but the urban subject was Marie's own territory. She had declared her artistic manifesto months earlier: "Je ne voudrais pas toucher a la campagne, Bastien-Lepage y regne en souverain mais pour la rue il n'y a pas encore eu de... Bastien" -- "I would not touch the countryside, Bastien-Lepage reigns over it as a sovereign; but the streets have not yet had their... Bastien" (August 7, 1882).

Exhibited at the Salon of 1884 (no. 116), Un meeting won no award -- the 1883 mention for the Dina pastel remained her only Salon distinction -- but it entered the French national collections within months of her death; whether the purchase belongs to the 1884 Salon or to the 1885 memorial exhibition is not settled (see Un meeting). The painting was a critical success, praised for its powerful realism and scrupulous technique. Marie died five months after its exhibition.

Les Saintes Femmes (The Holy Women, project, 1880-1884)

Marie's most ambitious unrealised project -- a life-size history painting of the Marys at the empty tomb. It occupied her from May 1880 until the spring of 1884 but was never painted; the 1885 catalogue lists only a project and sketches (nos. 60 ff.). It was not her last picture: that was La Rue. See Les Saintes Femmes. It represented her most ambitious departure from Bastien-Lepage's influence: "Dans les Saintes femmes je n'imite personne et je crois a un grand effet car je veux mettre une grande sincerite dans l'execution materielle et puis toute l'emotion que j'eprouve a ce sujet" -- "In the Holy Women I imitate no one, and I believe in a great effect because I want to put great sincerity in the material execution and all the emotion I feel on this subject" (July 13, 1883). Tony Robert-Fleury lent her an authentic Bethlehem robe for the costumes.

Le Printemps (Spring, c. 1884) and Douleur de Nausicaa (1884, bronze sculpture)

Marie's work extended beyond painting into sculpture. Carriès, a sculptor who visited her studio, exclaimed: "You were born to make sculpture!" Her clay sketches (esquisses en terre) impressed professional sculptors, and both Robert-Fleury and Saint-Marceaux judged her sculpture promising enough for Salon recognition.

Other Works

Marie's oeuvre included numerous portraits (her Salon debut in 1880 was Jeune femme lisant « La Question du divorce »), academic studies, Spanish subjects painted during her visits to the Prado (where she copied Velazquez's Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan), and figure studies. A comprehensive list can be found at AWARE Women Artists and WikiArt.

Teachers and Mentors

Tony Robert-Fleury (1837-1911)

The principal instructor at the Academie Julian's women's atelier and the teacher whose opinion Marie valued above all others. Son of the celebrated painter Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury. Known for historical paintings (Le Massacre des Polonais, Le Dr Pinel a la Salpetriere). Marie described him as "very severe about work" but softening his severity with "unctuous pleasantries and paternal smiles." His early encouragement was decisive: after examining her work for thirty minutes, he declared she could begin painting (December 29, 1877). He remained Marie's advocate within the Salon system, fighting for her mention in 1883 and advising her on major compositions. "Tony" appears in nearly every diary entry from 1877 onward. See #Robert_Fleury.

Jules Lefebvre (1834-1912)

The second regular instructor at the Julian women's atelier. A prominent Academic painter known for idealized female nudes, winner of the Prix de Rome (1861). Less frequently mentioned than Robert-Fleury, but his critiques also shaped Marie's development. See Jules Lefebvre.

Jules Bastien-Lepage (1848-1884)

Not a formal teacher but Marie's supreme artistic model and an intensely complicated personal relationship. Bastien-Lepage was the leading figure of Naturalism, trained under Cabanel at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. His Haymaking (1877) and Joan of Arc (1879) were landmarks of French painting. Marie called him "Coco" privately and ran a salon joke about him: "he is young, he is handsome, he has talent" (April 3, 1883).

But the relationship was fraught. Marie adored his art -- "Bastien is the most delicate, the most subtle, the most enclosed painter. Everything he has done is of an exquisite sentimentality, a penetrating poetry" (April 27, 1883) -- yet agonized over imitating him: "Je suis Bastien-Lepage et c'est deplorable. On reste toujours en arriere. On n'est jamais grand tant qu'on n'a pas decouvert une voie nouvelle" -- "I follow Bastien-Lepage and it is deplorable. One always stays behind. One is never great until one has discovered a new path" (July 13, 1883). She sensed his antipathy and it tormented her: "I feel in relation to him like a base being before someone who has penetrated his baseness" (July 13, 1883).

Both Marie and Bastien-Lepage were gravely ill through 1883-84. Both died in 1884 -- Bastien-Lepage on December 10, six weeks after Marie (October 31). His brother Emile ("l'architecte," "le faux Bastien") was a frequent visitor to Marie's salon and served as intermediary between the two artists. See Jules Bastien-Lepage.

Competition and Rivalry

The Concours System

The concours (competitions) at the Academie Julian were the weekly measure of student progress. Work was ranked by the visiting professors, and placement determined one's standing in the atelier hierarchy. Marie tracked her results obsessively and any decline was cause for anguish: "Le concours sera juge demain... J'ai si peur d'etre mal placee" -- "The competition will be judged tomorrow... I am so afraid of being poorly placed" (January 29, 1878). After a disappointing result she raged: "Si je n'ai pas monte c'est la faute de Cassagnac" -- "If I have not advanced it is Cassagnac's fault" (January 29, 1878). She recognized that sleeping only three hours a night during the competition week -- consumed by the Cassagnac social whirl -- was the real cause.

Louise Catherine Breslau (1856-1927)

Marie's chief rival at the Academie Julian and one of the few women she considered a genuine artistic equal. Breslau was German-born, Swiss-raised, and four years older than Marie. She consistently placed first in the concours where Marie placed second. The rivalry was intensely personal: Marie acknowledged Breslau's talent with grudging admiration -- "her work has nothing feminine, banal, or misshapen" (November 22, 1878) -- while resenting her success. Territorial disputes over seating in the atelier escalated to near-quarrels: "I nearly quarreled with Breslau who with very ugly indelicacy had taken my place on a wretched pretext" (January 8, 1878).

Yet the rivalry was also a bond. At New Year's Eve 1877, when the students told fortunes, the predictions revealed the atelier hierarchy clearly: "Breslau will have crowns, and I the Prix de Rome" -- only the two best students were predicted success. Breslau went on to become the first foreign woman artist to receive France's Legion of Honor, and a lifelong artist of considerable reputation. Marie nicknamed the group of Swiss students at Julian's "les Suissesses" -- Breslau, Sophie Schaeppi, Zeller, and Forchhammer. See #Louise_Breslau.

Marie's Artistic Philosophy

Marie's diary reveals a sophisticated and evolving aesthetic sensibility. Several key convictions emerge:

Naturalism as creed: Marie's conversion to street-scene Naturalism was articulated in the famous August 1882 passage: "Ceux qui se moquent de ce qu'ils appellent le naturalisme ne savent pas ce que c'est et sont des imbeciles. Il s'agit de saisir la nature sur le fait, de savoir choisir, et de la saisir. Le choix fait l'artiste." -- "Those who mock what they call naturalism do not know what it is and are imbeciles. It is about seizing nature in the act, knowing how to choose, and seizing it. The choice makes the artist." This was not slavish imitation but a principled aesthetic position: the artist's eye selects from reality; the selection itself constitutes art.

Originality as imperative: Despite her deep admiration for Bastien-Lepage, Marie was tortured by the fear of being a mere imitator: "One is never great until one has discovered a new path, one's own nature, the means of rendering particular impressions" (July 13, 1883). She explicitly sought to stake out urban naturalism as her own territory, as Bastien-Lepage had claimed rural subjects.

Sincerity over convention: "I want to put great sincerity in the material execution and all the emotion I feel." She despised painters who "dress Madonnas in Louis XV or in 1883" -- anachronistic sentimentality masquerading as religious feeling (July 13, 1883). Art required both technical command and emotional truth.

Art criticism from the inside: Marie's Salon reviews in the diary are remarkably perceptive. At the 1883 Salon: "Carolus est ramoli, Dagnan n'a pas expose, Sargent est mediocre. Gervex ordinaire. Henner est ravissant" -- "Carolus has gone soft, Dagnan hasn't exhibited, Sargent is mediocre. Gervex ordinary. Henner is ravishing" (May 1, 1883). She analyzed Bastien-Lepage's backgrounds as lacking air ("each leaf is rendered... it positively lacks air"), praised Henner's luminous nudes, and dismissed John Singer Sargent as "a false Velasquez/Carolus."

Passion multiplies strength: Marie believed that desire and intensity could compensate for gaps in training: "Passion multiplies strength -- with desire, I can master Chopin in days" (paraphrased from April 27, 1883). She applied this conviction to her painting, arguing that "copying without a parti pris d'artiste, without an inner idea, copying is stupid. One must copy with the soul as well as the eyes."

The Salon Career

The 1883 mention was both triumph and frustration. Tony Robert-Fleury had fought for it, revealing backroom politics: "Tony reveals the jury's machinations and says I am in an exceptional situation and on top of that a foreigner, and that the mention provoked protests" (June 17, 1883). Marie raged at its inadequacy -- "cette miserable mention!" -- but Robert-Fleury counseled patience: "You are now someone and this will help get you a medal" (June 17, 1883). The award ceremony itself was bittersweet: "With a medal I would have been loudly applauded, being very pretty and in deep mourning" (June 22, 1883).

Marie's learning from exhibition was characteristically self-aware: "En revoyant mon tableau accroche la, j'ai appris plus qu'en six mois d'atelier. Le Salon est un grand enseignement" -- "In seeing my painting hung there again, I learned more than in six months of studio work. The Salon is a great education" (May 1, 1883).

Art and Illness

Marie's artistic career was a race against tuberculosis. By 1882 she was experiencing progressive hearing loss, and by 1883 lung symptoms were advancing. She cauterized her own chest in desperation: "I burned myself above the right breast, where the lung is diseased... at least I will not die of consumption" (July 22, 1883). The illness drove both urgency and despair. She calculated obsessively how much time she had: five months since finishing the Salon painting, and "qu'ai-je fait en cinq mois? Rien encore" -- "what have I done in five months? Nothing yet" (August 5, 1883).

Her awareness of mortality sharpened her artistic ambition: "Oh! avoir du talent!! Effacer cette miserable mention!" -- "Oh! to have talent!! To efface this miserable mention!" (July 15, 1883). She planned an impossible schedule of projects -- the gamins, the Saintes femmes, an Enfant de choeur, trips to Jerusalem and the south of France for plein-air studies -- as though will alone could outrun death.

Both Marie and her artistic idol Bastien-Lepage died in the same year, 1884 -- she on October 31, he on December 10. She was 25; he was 36. The parallel destruction of two young Naturalist painters by illness was noted by contemporaries. A posthumous retrospective of Marie's work was organized in 1885 by the Union of Women Painters and Sculptors.

Marie's Artistic Vocabulary

Studio Terms

Work Stages

Competition and Exhibition

Artistic Terms

Marie's Personal Nicknames

Tagging Criteria

Common French Cues

Related Entries

Sources