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Considered one of the most important museums in its category, the São Paulo Museum of Art (Masp) received 1.1 million visitors last year.
It is no exaggeration to imagine that most of them classified the minutes spent appreciating the work Rose and Blue, an oil on canvas made by the French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) in 1881, as the highlight of their visit.
It is a portrait of two sisters, daughters of a rich French banker. The oldest, wearing blue; the other, pink.
The tragic story of one of them, who would be a victim of Nazi persecution decades later, is told in the book The Renoir Girls ("Renoir's Girls", in free translation), released this year and written by British journalist and writer Catherine Ostler — still unpublished in Portuguese.
The book, in addition to launching a new layer of meanings on this important painting by Renoir, renews interest in the illustrious piece in the São Paulo museum's collection.
"I believe it contributes to keeping the image of the work and its narratives in circulation in the media", says art historian Fernando Oliva, curator at Masp and doctor from the University of São Paulo (USP).
The painting depicts the two youngest daughters of the French-Jewish banker Louis Raphael Cahen d'Anvers (1837-1922) and his wife, the Italian-Jewish Louise de Morpurgo (1845-1926).
Wearing blue, Elisabeth is the blonde girl who was 6 years old at the time. Next to him, in pink, is 5-year-old Alice.
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The cruel end that took one of the children portrayed is not new — although it appears more clearly in Ostler's work. In the second volume of the São Paulo Museum of Art Catalog, art historian Eugênia Gorini Esmeraldo writes about the story of the girls.
"Alice [the youngest] lived to be 89 years old and died in Nice [in France] in 1965. And Elisabeth had a tragic fate", he states.
"During the exhibition of Masp's works at the Fondation Pierre Gianadda, in Martigny, Switzerland, in 1987, her nephew Jean de Monbrison wrote to the museum reporting her sad end: she had converted to Catholicism at a young age, but was nevertheless sent to [the Nazi concentration camp of] Auschwitz due to her Jewish origin, and died on the way to the concentration camp, in March 1944, at the age of 69."
Credit, Edison Veiga
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Ostler's book provides a detailed overview of that French environment at the end of the 19th century that fostered relationships between artists like Renoir and patrons like the banker Cahen d'Anvers.
The British journalist's work departs from the painting to tell what Renoir's painting does not reveal: the conflicts, tragedies and tensions that awaited those children.
Ostler portrays the daily life of a wealthy family, without forgetting that even with a lot of wealth, anti-Semitism placed the Cahen d'Anvers in a specific category within that French elite fond of balls, horse races, operas and art salons.
In this context, Renoir ended up being tasked with portraying the family. For the undertaking, he was nominated by Charles Ephrussi (1849-1905), an influential art critic and collector of that time, also from a family of Jewish bankers.
Ephrussi loved the Impressionists like Renoir and ran the periodical Gazette des Beaux-Arts. Furthermore, she was the lover of Louise, the mother of the Cahen d'Anvers girls.
For the artist Henrique Rien, professor at the Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing (ESPM) Panamericana, when he made this painting, Renoir "was living in a poetic moment of conflict".
"He was at the height of impressionism but he felt a little disconnected from the ideas, from the technique. Somehow he was looking for a firmer line, a more structured drawing", he contextualizes. This "perfect balance", in Rien's view, is what makes the painting more fascinating.
The girls
When he was called to paint Alice and Elisabeth, in 1881, Renoir had already painted the older sister, Irene — a work that belongs to the collection of a museum in Zurich, Switzerland.
Ostler addresses the fates of the three. Born in 1872, Irene married a rich and noble man of Jewish origin in 1892, from whom she separated five years later, after becoming involved with the head of the family stables. She married him, with whom she would have two children — and would later divorce.
Nissim, Irene's eldest son, was a pilot in the French Air Force during the First World War and died in combat in 1917.
Béatrice, her daughter, was killed by Nazis in Auschwitz during World War II, a period in which she, Irene, would spend time in hiding in Paris, using her Italian passport to go unharmed by local authorities. Irene would die in 1963, aged 91.
The youngest Alice, born in 1876, who appears in pink in the famous painting, married a British Army officer in 1895.
During World War II, she would have been skilled not only in remaining underground but also in protecting part of her family from Nazi persecution.
According to Ostler, in 1954 when Pink and Blue was exhibited at the Tate museum in London — on loan from the Masp collection — she liked to go to the museum and stand next to the painting, telling visitors that she was one of the little girls portrayed there.
Alice died at age 89.
Elisabeth, in blue, had a very tumultuous history. Born in 1974, she was married twice — she divorced both — and, even though she converted to Catholicism, she ended up being sent to Auschwitz because of her Jewish ancestry. He died en route, in 1944, when he was 69 years old.
Three sisters from a rich family, three different trajectories. This premise was valuable raw material for Ostler. The book explores how emotional choices, religion, social position and political circumstances produce such different results.
The painting, therefore, can be read contemporaneously as a paradox between the permanence of art and the fragility of lives.
Parents were not happy with the result
But the screen story itself is not as obvious as it might seem. The decision for the two sisters to appear together was a family decision. Renoir, as Ostler states, would prefer there to be two portraits — so that he would earn more.
After the work was completed, it took almost a year to receive the agreed amount: 1,500 francs. So much so that, in a letter to a friend at the time, he even complained about the business.
"It was a powerful work of art. And the biggest proof is that the parents didn't like it, they thought it was unfinished", recalls Rien. "They stalled to pay. There's a whole soap opera."
This is one of the very present points in the book. Although culturally sophisticated and effusive, France at that time was full of hostility against this elite — generally linked to the financial market — dominated by Jews.
There was no shortage of conspiracy theories that sought to explain why they dominated the economy.
The prosperity of the Cahen d'Anvers, legitimate and represented by the parties they organized and the works of art they owned, did not exactly mean full acceptance by the upper French social strata.
According to the text in the Masp catalogue, the banker father of the girls was "the wealthiest of all" in the Jewish community that lived in France and was among Renoir's clientele.
"There would have been several posing sessions for the girls", notes Esmeraldo.
As an adult, Alice would comment that the experience of posing for the painting had been tedious. For her, as a child, it was only worth it for the pleasure of wearing an elegant lace outfit.
In a letter to a friend shortly after completing the work, Renoir stated that he was "so tired" that he couldn't even say "whether the painting was good or bad".
Both portraits of the three daughters of the Cahen d'Anvers couple were exhibited at the 1881 Paris Salon, the official French fine arts exhibition.
"Even so, the portrait of the girls apparently was not to the liking of the family who, in addition to taking almost a year to pay the artist the relatively modest sum of 1,500 francs, relegated the work to the area of the house inhabited by the servants", writes Esmeraldo.
"Most likely he [the father] did not understand the impressionist style and perhaps expected a more traditional representation", comments art historian Marcia Iabutti.
The text of the Masp catalog states that the work was found, at the beginning of the 20th century, apparently forgotten on the 6th floor of a Parisian house.
Artistic maturity
In a published commentary on the 1881 Salon, a critic observed that Renoir was more "wise" in his portrayal of the two girls and that, although he had "altered his style" for the benefit of his clients, he "clearly assumed a formal Baroque structure, calculated to please their more conventional taste."
The text analyzed the painting as that of two girls "profiled a little nervously in front of a heavy burgundy curtain, opened to reveal an opulent interior — perhaps a fireplace with its accoutrements and a clock."
It described the models as "impeccably coiffed and dressed", holding each other's hands "for added security".
"Wearing identical party dresses, with matching ribbons, sashes and stockings, and her hair brushed into perfect bangs, five-year-old Alice, on the left, looks as if she's about to burst into tears, while her older sister, six-year-old Elisabeth, looks a little more comfortable as she poses," the reviewer continued.
In his view, Renoir "made no concessions" to the two girls, nor did he "sentimentalize" them. He praised the composition, with one in "slight contraposition" in relation to the other and the "handling of the painting, always virtuosic and safe".
According to the critic of the time, "Renoir's touch" was "smooth and lustrous in painting the hair, sashes and stockings" and "inlaid, like a jewel, in the gathers and folds of the satin dresses".
At Masp
Pink and Blue became one of the greatest works in Brazil after the magnate Assis Chateaubriand and the collector Pietro Maria Bardi, the founders of Masp, bought the painting at an auction held in New York in 1952.
Curator Oliva highlights that this is the period known as "the great acquisitions" of the museum, when the majority of the collection of "today's famous European masters" was formed.
"The canvas was formally incorporated into the collection as a 'donation from the People of São Paulo', because according to Chateaubriand's model, funds and donations were raised from businessmen, industrialists and members of the São Paulo elite to cover the costs of works of art imported from Europe", highlights the curator.
The catalog text emphasizes the attribution of the donation of the Pink and Blue to the collection to the "people of São Paulo", "as stated in the museum's documentation".
"In fact, time has proven that this work is emblematic of the Masp collection and, perhaps, the most popular and appreciated by visitors", says Esmeraldo.
"The girls almost materialize in front of the observer, the one in blue with her vain air and the one in pink with a certain boredom, almost on the verge of tears", contextualizes Esmeraldo.
Artistic and historical importance
The title Pink and Blue refers to the colors of the girls' dresses, but was only adopted in 1900, when the painting was exhibited at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris.
For Oliva, the work marks an important moment in Renoir's career, who sought to give more solidity to the figures without abandoning the vibrancy of colors characteristic of Impressionism.
This combination appears both in the treatment of bodies and in the way the artist represents fabrics, hair and light.
"The title of the work summarizes Renoir's predilection for soft tones of pink and blue, which stand out against the more closed background and the warm tones of the curtains and carpet. The light and delicate colors build a feeling of lightness, candor and sweetness associated with the children's universe", he highlights.
Even the shadows contribute to this effect: instead of resorting only to black and brown, Renoir explores reflections of other colors present in the scene, in line with the impressionist theory shared with colleagues such as Monet.
Designer and doctor in visual arts Fernanda Carolina Armando Duarte, professor at Anhembi Morumbi University, also highlights the treatment of fabrics.
For her, the painting demonstrates the maturity of Renoir's artistic language, which uses brief, vibrant brushstrokes to represent muslin and satin. The whites of the dresses are crossed by subtle reflections of pink and blue, "creating a critically acclaimed iridescent luminosity", she analyzes.
The artist Sandoval Tibúrcio, author of the book Magnitude, draws attention to the way in which Renoir combines two traditions.
The girls' skin and features resemble academic portrait painting, while the dresses, sashes and hair receive freer brushstrokes, which explore light, movement and volume.
Art historian Iabutti highlights another aspect of this technique: the effect produced by the combination of small brushstrokes of different colors. Up close, she explains, it is possible to distinguish the variety of tones in the dresses; a few steps away, the white lace and satin sashes seem to gain unity. This is how Renoir constructs the luminosity of the scene.
Historian and sociologist Marcos Horácio, professor of art history at Universidade São Judas, also highlights the way in which the painter gives life to the girls, although they are represented in a formal pose, common in the tradition of portraits.
For him, the work illustrates a "childish flavor" with the "teardrop that the paint conveys". “There is a feeling of discomfort for them at the moment, like a child,” he comments.
The story of the girls portrayed adds another dimension to the work, although it does not alter its artistic qualities. The experts interviewed by the report converge on this point: knowing Elisabeth's fate does not change the painting itself, but it can transform the way the public interprets it.
"Biographies don't change the brushstrokes", summarizes Rien. "But our experience in front of the work changes. Because art is not something frozen in time, it gains layers and meanings."
Tibúrcio agrees that knowing Elisabeth's fate causes consternation and adds a historical and human dimension to the painting, without diminishing its artistic grandeur.
Iabutti, in turn, considers that the story functions as additional information for the public, but it is not what determines its artistic importance.
"After all, the relevance of this painting is not in who was represented but in the way it was made and its style."
Duarte makes a similar distinction between painting and the interpretations that accumulate over time.
From a formalist perspective, says the professor, the artistic qualities of the canvas were already consolidated in 1881. However, the theory of image demonstrates that the reading of a work does not remain frozen at the moment of its completion.
"The artistic image is crossed by an anachronistic opening that makes it alive and capable of reconfigurations over time", he states.
Thus, Elisabeth's biography, in the professor's understanding, "inserts a dark aura and an overwhelming dramatic tension onto the luminous surface of the image".
This new reading, according to Duarte, transforms the apparently idyllic celebration of childhood in the Belle Époque into a reflection on the fragility of human existence and the ability of art to preserve memory in the face of the passage of time.
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