Séraphine

Last evening I watched the movie, Séraphine. The movie is about Séraphine Louis, known as "Séraphine de Senlis"(1864–1942), a French artist who was mostly supporting herself by cleaning, and who was also passionate about painting. She felt she had a divine inspiration. She was self-taught and painted in "modern primitive" style.

In the movie, Wilhelm Unde moves into a house that Séraphine had been cleaning - through an arrangement with the landlady. The landlady scorns Séraphine's paintings, but Unde loves them and buys many of them. He also gives Séraphine money, and at various points in the movie is shown to be supporting her so that she can paint instead of clean.
L'arbre De Vie (The Tree of Life)_________________

In the movie - the situation is presented such that Unde appreciated her, but was not able to get her a show because of the economy - and so the community never did know of her or appreciate her. It was all him. In the movie, all the money she got (besides cleaning) seemed to come from him.

It sounds like the real story is that he did discover her, was able to find venues for her work, and get her into shows, and that she developed a degree of prominence and financial success with her art through the shows.

The rewriting of the story to make Unde her sole benefactor and supporter does Séraphine (and I think all women) a disservice. It reminds me of the Aristotle prescription for theatre where women are not to shown as being clever or brave or independent. It doesn't fit the narrative that men such as Aristotle wanted to have for women in society. So Séraphine is shown as being totally dependent on Unde and then becomes mentally ill, is hospitalized and he is the only one to look after her (besides the hospital staff) then as well.

Unfortunately, this is not all that unusual. The movie about Camille Claudel was similar in that Camille was fine as long as Rodin was around, but then fell apart, went insane and died. Camille Claudel was more successful in real life than the movie indicated.

I blame it on Aristotle and everyone who blindly follows his ideas (whether they know they are doing that or not - the status quo). It would be a step in the right direction, and a boost for women's equality, if movies about women (esp. biographies) would show the women as being as successful as they were/are.

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Seraphine's paintings may be found at the Musée Maillol in Paris, the Musée d'art de Senlis, the Musée d'art naïf in Nice, and the Musée d'Art moderne Lille Métropole in Villeneuve-d'Ascq. Last year there had been an exhibition "Séraphine Louis dite Séraphine de Senlis" at the Musée Maillol in Paris.