One of the barely known artists who devoted almost all his artworks to representing the high-class life of the Parisians, including the idle moments that reflect the emptiness of the wealthy women’s lifestyle of the period, is Auguste Toulmouche. In the present times, he is mostly known for two reasons- for being related to Claude Monet as he married his cousin and for a line by Émile Zola referring to the “délicieuses poupées de Toulmouche.” But to be honest, what Auguste achieved through his observations, attention to detail, and excellence in portraying grace of the women’s life, is almost neglected in all course of the present artistic periods. However, I see his talent in his choice of subjects and his elegance that contributed to the prodigious success, making Auguste one of the most fashionable artists and an esteemed genre painter at the same time. Working slowly, he gave extreme care to all of his paintings in a blissful finish through delicacy of execution with predominant qualities. Had he overworked himself, which was the demand of the period, that might have made him more successful, but his production might never have had a terrific sense of emotional sensibility. The specific accent that he reproduced in his artworks again and again with a charming frivolousness remains in the center of the artworks such as Vanity and The Reluctant Bride, probably his best-known works. In this article, I am leading to you one of his most frivolous and realistic images of the artist, The Reluctant Bride, which shows true feminine nature and some ‘drop-dead expressions’ of the bride, which are unusual!
Born in Nantes on September 21, 1829, Auguste Toulmouche was the son of the medalist-painter Joseph, who might have thought to be a history painter, but it was in destiny that his true vocation attracted to the worldly life scenes and the Parisian elegances which responded better into his so primesautier spirit, playful mood, and temperament to compose some of the exceptional paintings. He produced some of the most charming works whose engravings attracted admirers – The First Grief, The First Visit, The Forbidden Fruit, A Marriage of Reason, the Kiss, and more. Perhaps nobody knew how Toulmouche enhanced the graces of the face and charming attitudes by all the coquetry of the female toilet. Painted in 1866, The Reluctant Bride is an oil on canvas work, measuring 59.7 x 48.4 cm. There is no backstory of the artwork, as there are no documents that can reveal the circumstances under which the artwork was painted, but it is one of the artist’s early works, along with the famous The Love Letter 1863. Besides, to understand the artwork completely, I have to tell you about the French society of the time that might have inspired the artist to paint this composition.
Starting with the views of several authors, Proudhon expressed that a woman’s place is primarily in the home, and this was not unusual in the nineteenth century or France. Throughout the ages, Moralists have argued that gender must be a central consideration in determining the role of women in society. The seventeenth-century French writer Pierre Le Moyne, although prepared to concede women’s equality with men and their equal aptitude for learning, repudiated the call for the extension of women’s public education on the ground that ‘I respect too much the boundaries that separate us.’ Hence, though there was a French revolution and a woman uprising in the 1850s, the conservative society of France had not yet vanished entirely. However, there was a contrasting literature by female authors like Lamber, who argued the women’s right to work and become productive forces in society.
Another riposte to Proudhon and Michelet’s ideas was from Jenny d’Héricourt, who formed a two-volume work entitled La femme affranchise, published in 1860. She initially attacked De la Justice, only entering the fray herself when the older woman declined to do so. Other feminist writers like George Sand and Daniel Stern refused to accept any derogatory remarks of their male contemporaries on sex. Hence, women might have played their part in the 1789 revolution, but they wanted political and civil rights, which happened in the 1848 revolution. However, the potential for such a movement was only apparent in the 1860s when other women participated in adding their voices to these protests. Hence, there was a rise in feminism, but it only showed its optimum effect in late nineteenth-century French society.
Talking about marriages, according to Michelet, the natural destiny of a woman was to get married to a man about ten years older than herself so that her moral ideas could be molded by the one she loved. As in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the manifold constraints of the community prevented the individual from experiencing self-fulfillment, and so marriage was just based on property considerations rather than having emotional content. Sex was purely instrumental in comparison to the affective relation characteristic of the present day. But from the late eighteenth century, couples tend to marry for love rather than for money and to have sex for pleasure instead of just purpose to procreate. So, the character of bourgeois marriage was an undesirable union between two individuals of different social ranks. However, it was strongly advocated among moralists that people should not marry for love, but instead for family and happiness. Montaigne, for example, advised not to marry for personal happiness but for one’s family or line. This view was long represented in aristocratic families where arranged marriages were given a preference as parents had a better understanding of their children’s real interests. This interest did not leave the French society for a long period. As Mme George Renard complained in 1898, ‘girls still had too little say in the choice of their marriage partners, and therefore ought to have the right to take the initiative in proposing- an idea which seems not to have commended itself to the bourgeoisie of the belle epoque.’ Hence, the right to choose their partner was not in the French aristocratic society till the nineteenth century.
Moving to the subject matter of the The Reluctant Bride painting, there are four women specifically in a domestic setting. Starting from the interiors, you see there are golden candlestands, colorful ceramics, a golden-finish chair with nature-theme fabric, and a wall rug with exquisite fine material, probably an interior that most people can’t set up even in the present times. The mirrors are golden-rimmed, which was quite common in the French interiors at that time.
The sitting lady is the reluctant bride, who presumably comes from an affluent family, as evidenced by her affluent silk bridal dress, which was quite common in the Victorian reign. Toulmouche usually painted French women in an honorable and lavish dress, which had a magnificent play of color and texture. In this painting, all the women are wearing luxuriant dresses. To the left of the bride, the woman wears a silk grey dress with a fur-trimmed brown Dolman and a hand glove, whereas to the right, the woman kisses over the head of the bride as she wears a burnt-orange velvet fur-trimmed dress. Despite the sumptuous environment with an excellent rendering of fashion through dresses, the first aspect that the viewer notice is the bride’s direct gaze at the viewer. This gaze is sharp and direct as if the bride doesn’t want to be involved in the marriage, but she is expected to be responsible here and take this course of action. There is grief yet anger and rage inside her as she is unwilling to bind into an emotionally-repellant marriage. As she sits in a cross-legged restful posture against the chair, her expressions convey a different story. Maybe it’s because the artist wanted to create a juxtaposition of the outer life of the aristocratic woman with her inner life and desires. As she holds the hand of the two friends or family, her clasp or grip is loose as if she is tired of showing resistance to her dilemma or unable to respond to any sentimentality of the gestures. On the right, she is kissed by a woman in praise to give her blessing and good luck for the marriage, whereas the woman sitting knows her dilemma. And while all this revolves around the matter of the same time, the young girl at the back, who is naive still considers marriage to be her future dream, which is why she is trying tiara over her head.
The hairstyles, ornaments, and dresses of all of them showed the life of Parisians at that time, with the key to note that appearance and dresses were almost the central part of the Parisian society to see the nobility of the women. Toulmouche had carefully painted every single detail with close inspection, including the feminine emotions that were long hidden in a veil behind. Though aristocratic women were bound by the lavish lifestyle, they were parasites maintained by the men in their lives. Though these conventions changed in present-day life to some extent, the emotions and sensibility of female rage lie in these exact expressions, which Toulmouche conveyed through this masterpiece. In fact, no artist has ever captured feminine energy so precisely and enchantingly with such psychological stirring that it still lives in us today.
Resources.
- Featured Image: The Reluctant Bride by Auguste Toulmouche; Auguste Toulmouche, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
- Housewife or Harlot: The Place of Women in French Society, 1870-1940 by James F. McMillan.
- France and Women 1789-1914: Gender, Society, and Politics by James F. McMillan.
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