On August 29th, I posted a blog entitled “Victorine’s Point of View,” based on the historical fiction novel Paris Red by Maureen Gibbons.
After researching, I learned Victorine Meurant was a model for Manet and other 19th-century artists. I also discovered another book entitled Victorine by Drema Drudge. I bought the book, and now, two months later, I am writing another blog about Victorine. This historical fiction is also told in the first person.
Her story fascinated me because she was not of elite society but had a gift of ‘feeling’ art when she looked at it. She understood it even with an untrained eye. She was opinionated and often spoke frankly to the artist she modeled for and saw things in their paintings when they did not see it for themselves.
Manet, Monet, Degas, and Alfred Stevens were mentioned in Drudge’s book Victorine; it was intriguing to hear from Victorine’s own words what she thought and how she described their work.
When the Prussian army bombed Paris, the book did not focus on the politics of war but on the effects of war on the common population who lived on the streets of Paris and suffered from disease, starvation, and homelessness.
Later, the impact of the war produced another art movement in France, Impressionism.
Victorine's one dream was to attend art school and become an artist. When she attended classes, she already had a reputation as the woman who modeled for Manet nude for his paintings Olympia or Luncheon on the Grass, for example. She had to overcome her “lower” societal status to attend school, and people frowned upon her scandalous “career,” which had already marked points against her.
After finishing her art training, Victorine submitted a self-portrait to the Salon and was granted exhibition status even when Manet was not.
Victorine says on opening night at the salon, “I’m in Room M, the place I’ve been looking to get into since, it seems, I was born. I have created myself. I will be seen.” (Pg 334)
As one reads this book, we always know what Victorine thinks and feels; she is straightforward and outspoken. I enjoyed how Drudge uses her creativity to imagine how Victorine would respond to the art and world around her, especially Victorine’s precise descriptions of a particular artist and their work.
