Portraits of Great Composers
Paintings by Delacroix, Schramm, Repin and Valadon
© Meg Nola
Aug 24, 2009
Post-Impressionist Paul Gauguin once noted how painting "is the most beautiful of all the arts…[l]ike music it acts on the soul through the intermediary of the senses." And just as music and art have a shared relationship of color and tone, shape and rhythm, the art of portraying composers requires a definite skill to convey the music within the soul of the subject.
Chopin and Delacroix
Frederic Chopin was born in Warsaw in 1810. Chopin was half-French and half-Polish and showed marked talent for the piano as a boy, and he eventually moved to Paris following a period of political unrest in Poland. Beyond his great musical ability and brilliant piano compositions, Chopin had his share of intense romances. He was also troubled by his susceptibility to tuberculosis, a disease which claimed the lives of his sister and father and which would claim Chopin as well in 1849.
French artist Eugène Delacroix was a friend of Chopin’s and painted his portrait in 1838. Delacroix’s romantic style went well with Chopin’s hollow-cheeked, ethereal appearance, and the resulting portrait is a famed representation of the composer in his prime. In reality, the single view of Chopin was originally part of a dual portrait that included Chopin and French novelist George Sand.
The liberated Sand was fond of wearing men’s trousers and smoking openly — habits quite frowned upon at the time. Though her affair with Chopin began as a physical romance, as Chopin’s disease progressed Sand found herself in more of a caretaker than lover role. The joint portrait of Sand and Chopin featured them seated side by side, but the painting was ultimately cut in two. The separate halves, however, remained intact, and so Delacroix’s Chopin now hangs alone at the Musée du Louvre.
Clara Schumann and Johann Heinrich Schramm
Born in Leipzig in 1819, Clara Wieck was a child prodigy who charmed Europe with her talent. She was praised by Goethe and the then up-and-coming Chopin, while another aspiring composer and pianist, Robert Schumann, was also captivated by the girl’s talent and later married Clara in 1840.
Although the Schumanns had much in common, especially their passion for music, Robert struggled with psychological problems. He endured frequent bouts of depression and made attempts at suicide, and he eventually had himself committed to a mental institution. Robert’s instability forced Clara to shoulder most of the burden of raising their seven children, but she did continue to perform as a pianist and composed her own pieces as much as she possibly could.
Artist Johann Heinrich Schramm’s portrait of Clara Schumann shows a young Clara Wieck in the year of her marriage. Her face is solemn yet confident, and she seems to be on the verge of offering many things to the world of music. The portrait is therefore ironic, in view of how Clara’s marriage changed her creative path and made her put the needs of her husband before her own.
Rimsky-Korsakov and Ilya Repin
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) was one of many notable Russians painted by artist Ilya Repin before the 1917 Revolution. Rimsky-Korsakov belonged to the group of composers called The Five and taught and influenced such future talents as Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev. Rimsky-Korakov’s own style combined Russian folkloric influences along with other more expansive Western arrangements.
In contrast to Valentin Serov’s fairly serious painting of Rimsky-Korsakov at work, Repin’s 1893 portrait offers a more relaxed view of the composer. In Repin’s painting, Rimsky-Korsakov sits on a couch, his elbow resting upon a green-tasseled pillow. He seems comfortably lost in thought, perhaps even contemplating a strain of music while posing and gazing off into the distance.
Erik Satie and Suzanne Valadon
The reclusive and quirky musical genius Erik Satie was born in 1866. Satie’s compositions were decidedly unique, with distinctive rhythms and curious names like Gymnopedies, Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear, and Dreamy Fish. Satie had an affair with artist and model Suzanne Valadon in 1893, the two having met in the bohemian Montmartre section of Paris.
Satie was wild about the free-spirited Suzanne, but their relationship unfortunately meant more to him than it did to Valadon. Satie would continue to regard Suzanne as his true love, even after she had moved on to various other involvements. Valadon did, however, paint a striking portrait of Erik which he treasured and kept with him in his studio until he died. The artist Paul Signac also painted Satie’s portrait, but Valadon’s work has a vivid and personal quality that reflects their intimate connection — one of many affairs for her, but most likely Satie‘s only meaningful romance.
Sources
- Chopin’s Funeral -- Benita Eisler (Alfred A. Knopf, 2003)
- Springtime in Paris: Erik Satie
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