Research Article
Suzanne Valadon’s The Blue Room Model as a Depiction of a Modern Venus: Visual Analysis and Case-Comparison with the Effigy of the Venus of Brassempouy
Robmarie Lopez*
Issue:
Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2025
Pages:
35-41
Received:
7 March 2025
Accepted:
21 March 2025
Published:
10 April 2025
Abstract: Suzanne Valadon’s The Blue Room (1923) is instantly transfixing. A woman lounges on a bed in a camisole and striped slacks. Her gaze does not acknowledge the audience, but fixates elsewhere, perhaps authentically lost in thought, perhaps in performative absorption. Valadon was one of the few women artists who emerged during the Fauve period of modern French painting. Her depictions of the female nude were groundbreaking for their so-called female perspective. While the woman in The Blue Room is a non-nude, her pose is evocative of Titian’s Venus and Cupid with the Organ Player and, by association, with Manet’s Olympia. In contrast to these representations, who portray women in some type of performative role, Valadon’s “Blue Room Venus” seems to be decontextualized from her role as social being. Symbolic details such as a stack of books in the corner and kanji-like swirls abstractly floating in the background seem suggestive of an inner life—a being unconcerned with performing femininity while still acknowledging her womanhood through Valadon’s gaze. In this paper, it is argued that Valadon’s model challenges Renaissance ideals of femininity, typically allegorized through the mythical Venus, embracing primitive values of authenticity. Thus, artistic context and cloisonnist style suggest that the “Venus” in Valadon’s The Blue Room is more prehistoric than mythical. To assess this view, a visual analysis of Valadon’s work was completed within a compare-contrast model based on the Venus of Brassempouy, a prehistoric effigy discovered near Aquitaine, France, during the Fin de Siècle. An analysis of the Brassempouy effigy as presented by Dixson and Dixson (2011) supports the idea of Valadon’s “Blue Room Venus” as similar in body type to the Brassempouy effigy, perhaps alluding to similar themes.
Abstract: Suzanne Valadon’s The Blue Room (1923) is instantly transfixing. A woman lounges on a bed in a camisole and striped slacks. Her gaze does not acknowledge the audience, but fixates elsewhere, perhaps authentically lost in thought, perhaps in performative absorption. Valadon was one of the few women artists who emerged during the Fauve period of mode...
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