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Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes, c. 1880, after a negative by Étienne Carjat

Today is the birthday of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (Lyon, Rhône 14 December 1824 – 24 October 1898 Paris); painter. Perhaps best known for his mural painting, he came to be known as ‘the painter for France.’  He became the co-founder and president of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, and his work influenced many other artists, notably Robert Genin.  Puvis de Chavannes was a prominent painter in the early Third Republic.  Émile Zola described his work as “an art made of reason, passion, and will”.

In Montmartre, he had an affair with one of his models, Suzanne Valadon, who would become one of the leading artists of the day as well as the mother, teacher, and mentor of Maurice Utrillo.

jeunes filles au bord de la mer

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  Hope, 1872, Walters Art Museum

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  Musée de Picardie. cliché H.Maertens (1863)

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  The Shepherd’s Song (1891)

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  The White Rocks (1869–1872)

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  The Dream (1883)
  (Walters Art Museum)

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  Ludus Pro Patria (1883)
  (Walters Art Museum)

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  The Poor Fisherman

Paul Éluard

And today is the birthday of Paul Éluard (born Eugène Émile Paul Grindel; Saint-Denis 14 December 1895 – 18 November 1952 Charenton-le-Pont); poet and one of the founders of the surrealist movement.

At the age of 16, he contracted tuberculosis and remained hospitalized until April 1914 in the Clavadel sanatorium near Davos.  There he met a young Russian girl of his age, Helena Diakonova, whom he nicknamed Gala.  He confided in her of his dream of becoming a poet, of his admiration for “poets dead of hunger, sizzling dreams” and of his parents’ disapproval.  She wrote to him that “you will become a great poet”.  They became inseparable.  She believed in him and gave him the confidence and encouragement and provided him with the sense of security he needed to write.  She listened and was involved in the creation of his verses.  She became his muse.

In April 1914, Paul Éluard and Gala were both declared healthy again and sent home, to Paris and Moscow respectively.  The separation was brutal.  Europe was on the brink of war. Paul was mobilised.  He passed his physical and was assigned to the auxiliary services because of his poor health.  He spent most of 1915 under treatment in a military hospital not far from home.  Paul’s mother came to visit him and he talked for hours about his beloved, opening his heart to her and slowly rallying her to his cause.  Her initial hostility towards Gala slowly faded away, and she started calling her “the little Russian”.  However, Paul’s father, who had also been mobilised, remained adamant that she could not come to Paris.

In Moscow, Gala listened to no one.  Her love for Paul gave her an unshakable faith that they would be reunited again.  She wrote to Paul’s mother to befriend her and finally convinced her stepfather to let her go to Paris to study French at the Sorbonne.

In June 1917, Paul was sent to Hargnicourt to work in one of the military evacuation hospital, 10 kilometres from the front line.  The ‘poet’ was given a chair, a desk and a pen to painfully write to the families of the dead and the wounded.  He wrote more than 150 letters a day.  At night he dug graves to bury the dead.  For the first time since Clavadel, shaken by the horrors of the war, Paul started writing verses again.  Gala wrote to him “I promise you our life will be glorious and magnificent”.

On 14 December 1917, Paul Éluard turned 21 and wrote to his mother “I can assure you, that your approval will be infinitely precious to me. However, for all our sakes, nothing will change my mind”.  He married Gala on 20 February 1918.  Two days after getting married, Paul left for the front line.  His health suffered. On 20 March 1917 he was sent to a military hospital with incipient pleurisy.

In 1919, Éluard wrote to Gala: “War is coming to an end. We will now fight for happiness after having fought for Life”.  Waiting to be sent home, he published “Duty and Anxiety” and “Little Poems for Peace”.

In November 1921, Éluard and Gala visited Max Ernst at his home in Cologne.  Paul and Gala moved to a house just outside Paris and were joined by Ernst, who entered France illegally, using Éluard’s passport.  Paul, Max and Gala entered into a ménage à trois in 1922.  Paul was torn between his love for Gala and his friendship for Max.  He refused to challenge Gala, and spent his nights in clubs: the Zelli, the Cyrano, the Parrot, and Mitchell.  Gala’s well-being was still what mattered to him above all and he tried to forget his anxiety by drinking.

Éluard, depressed, wrote “Dying of not Dying”.  On 24 March 1924, Éluard disappeared.  No one knew where he was. The night before he had had a worrisome meeting with Louis Aragon during which he confessed that he wanted to put an end to a present that tortured him.  For his friends, Paul was gone forever.  But Paul wrote to Gala and four months later she bought a ticket to go and find him and bring him back, locating him in Saigon.

In 1928 he had another bout of tuberculosis and went back to the Clavadel sanatorium with Gala.  It was their last winter together.  Gala met Salvador Dalí soon after and remained with him for the rest of her life.

In 1934, Éluard married Nusch (Maria Benz), a music-hall artist, whom he had met through his friends Man Ray and Pablo Picasso.