Hi! I-I'm still here
Good news - I'm back
Bad news - this video is in Polish, so uh
do the subtitles thingy before you start complaining.
Hi!
This is my book bY tHe WaYy
And today we'll discuss one particular chapter from the book-
This is not a tattoo by the way, my sister wrote it with a pen
Today we'll talk about a scandal that shook 19th century social circles
in Paris society
What's it all about? It's about the famous "Madame X" portrait
by John... John Si-Singer Sarrrgent
which caused a huge scandal
And to be honest, when I was reading about it, I couldn't quite figure out what was the big deal
because the dress itself looks pretty much the same as all the evening gowns
from the 1880s, there are no changes in silhouette
or the way the skin is exposed, but
as it turned out, it was about a lot more than that. And we're about to find out what.
In 1884, or maybe a bit earlier
I don't actually remember
Sargent managed to convince a parisian muse
of the artistic and aristocratic world,
Amelie.... Gautreau
*SO FRENCH*
He convinced her
to let him paint her.
He managed to convince her to work together
He came over to her countryside cottage
"Cottage", more like a huge palace
He came over to her house
and he spent a couple of months painting her portrait.
And while the portrait is obviously quite a classical style,
elegant piece,
the work itself was quite painful, he hated it
He was writing all his friends like
"Guys, I can't do this crap,
she's lousy af, can't sit still
Bored all the time,
can't paint her for more than 30 goddamn minutes because she just gets up
saying she needs to do stuff, all in all
THIS LADY IS A MESS"
So their work together didn't go great,
she, on the other hand, was upset he's taking so long,
"why do painters have to paint, bleeh", you know, usual stuff
So it wasn't a great collaboration
but the effect of it was actually great.
The result was Amelie's portrait
in a black, rather simple evening gown
with golden decorative straps
Generally speaking, Amelie was famous for her beauty,
mainly her- oOoH, eheheh, texts
She was famous for her pale complexion
which she accentuated by powdering her skin using lavender-tone powder
The lavender shade brought out the paleness
and accentuated her best asset.
So she got quite famous for her lavender-tone powder
which you can actually notice on the painting,
I mean the skin tone is quite cold, especially
on the face itself, it's quite... LILAC
So the painting was finished, and Sargent was like
"The chic is famous, it turned out ok,
Imma show this at the Paris Salon".
If you were at all recognizable in the Paris art world,
you had to exhibit your stuff at the Salon.
It was an art exhibition of the best of French art
and the only place where you could actually boost your art career,
and where the biggest names appeared.
So they were both quite excited about that, Amelie went
"Duh, people will finally find out I'm actually cool"
But just before the exhibition went open, Sargent was having second thoughts.
Is it a good idea after all? Maybe something's wrong?
It's hard to tell what made him reconsider
but he must have felt there was something risky about the painting,
something risky about the outfit or the model's appearance.
A "risky" element in the painting
that might have give him some doubts
was one shoulder strap.
One of the shoulder straps was falling
down on the shoulder, instead of being in it's regular place.
It was falling, and perhaps in a little too flirty way for the era.
So it's possible that that made Sargent have second thoughts
about whether or not he's gone too far.
Ok, let's face it, 1884, the Paris Salon -
it was total crap. Even the artists from that era
noted that there was nothing to see
and it was a really bad year
Crappy paintings, all looking the same
What's even worse is the fact that there was a sh*tload of paintings there
so visitors had to see literally dozens of rooms
of crappy paintings before they made it to the Sargent's painting.
They heard about it,
Sargent was quite well-known, so they were waiting to see it,
they were excited to see how it turned out,
so a lot of people went "Ok, this was bad,
let's see the Sargent now".
So they were already a bit RGHHHH
and the atmosphere was a bit rotten
When they finally made it to the painting
I think it was really easy for them to find something they didn't like
And everyone at the time obviously wanted to prove how PrOpEr they are
and how much they follow the rules and how they're well-behaved
So in that situation, something that was a bit unusual
had to be immediately pointed out and one had to go
"I don't identify with this, not in my name"
"The girl is fine, but that strap tho"
And what's interesting, people weren't upset about the outfit per se
but it was noted that the skin is kinda unhealthy, zombie looking
And I think one comment was more than enough
One comment in a crowd, to make people go mad
one by one
Because if someone noticed something's off
and that it's "immoral", nobody wanted to be the one saying they're ok with it
because that would question their own morality
That is why a massive hate on the painting began
People were upset about the unnatural skin tone,
people were upset about the model's awkward position,
turning away from the viewer,
and of course they were upset about the shoulder strap.
Sh*t went down quite quickly
and a lot of people disliked the painting
before even entering the room.
The news spreaded fast and people entering the show already felt like criticizing the portrait
That happens a lot nowadays too,
for example we have movies with bad reviews,
and we make up our mind that they're bad
and we won't like them, even though we haven't seen them yet
So that happened with the portrait and it was pretty bad
and both Amelie and Sargent
that were present at the exhibition, walking around people and listening,
they were absolutely terrified, they didn't expect that at all
If Sargent had his doubts, he was probably expecting a one or two bad reviews
not the whole exhibition going bat-sh*t crazy
about the painting being "controversial"
They weren't expecting that at all, immediately after,
let's say, hours later
the press went insane
and the story very quickly got published,
together with caricatures, jokes, satire articles
The whole city was obsessed with the scandal
Amelie did not expect that sort of reaction, she thought
the portrait would give her even more access to the high society, it would help her position
And suddenly everyone was laughing at her
and questioning her morality
So obviously, she wasn't super happy
Neither was her mom
Her mother wrote to the painter
that if he declines to take the painting down, her sons
would challenge him to duel
because what the hell, he ruined her family's good name,
that he has to take it down, he destroyed her daughter's career
But Sargent was like
"I can't though
Cause once something's up at the Salon, you can't take it down
That's how sh*t works"
So he didn't, and it was up until the end of the exhibition.
The whole scandal ended in Sargent painting over
the controversial strap.
He painted it back on the arm, not flirty in any way
Amelie dealt with it somehow
and actually, maybe it was good for her,
because all of the attention she got
actually made her famous in the society
Everyone wanted to see her, and see her famous deadly-like skin
So on the whole scandal
she built a successful career
as an actress, she also hosted her own events.
She eventually became this exciting person everyone wanted to meet.
Meanwhile Sargent got pissed and left Paris,
he was so done with it
But thanks to that, his UK and US career flourished
because the whole scandal obviously made him quite famous too
resulting in a bunch of new portrait commisions.
Such was the story of Sargent's "Madame X" portrait
and Amelie Gautreau, and a dress
with a beaded (?) strap
that fell down.
More stuff in here!
There's plenty more stories, more elements of clothing
being talked about
so a lot of interesting stuff is happening.
Thanks for listening
[here's a stupid inside joke about a once-popular Polish tv reporter]