La boulonnaise

This painting depicts a fisherwoman from the French region of Boulonnais, in the domain of Pas-de-Calais. These matelotes or verrotières were fisherwomen and shell-fisherwomen who also helped offload fish from boats. They often posed pridefully with their hands on their hips, which is how María Blanchard painted this woman.

There are precedents of such an ethnographic representation in her career. In her early period, she produced gypsy motifs to subsequently tackle them in works such as La Bretonne (Government of Cantabria in Santander) and La Española (Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris). Her masters, Fernando Álvarez de Sotomayor, Manuel Benedito, Hermen Anglada-Camarasa and Kees van Dongen, had all dealt with these subjects in different ways, as had her friend Diego Rivera. The Russian circle in Paris, into which her friend Angelina Beloff introduced her, also appreciated ethnographic inspiration. The specific motif of the boulonnaises had been tackled in a naturalistic manner by several painters. Among them, Henry Léon Jacquet presented Procession des Matelotes du Courgain (Boulonnais) at the 1907 Salon des Artistes Français. In addition, Francis Tattegrain painted a fish seller from Berck several times, and Marius Chambon, who discovered the coast in 1904, also specialised in these motifs.

This work demonstrates Blanchard’s grasp of figure-based painting after her cubist period, which had ended in 1918. Her mastery of the tenets of that movement is evident here, particularly in the way she painted the hands as well as in the solidity of the compositional structure and the rigorous study of the rhythms of the shapes. Her preference – which was characteristic in this period – for an almost monumental representation of the female explains why the figure occupies almost the entire canvas. The apex of the figure in a circular headdress – known as a soleil, a starchly trimmed piece of white lace – grants her a peculiar look, as if it were a halo that exalts the woman. On other occasions she used headdresses, hats, cushions or windows to aureole the heads of her figures and confer upon them a special character. However, in no other work is this allusion more explicit than in this painting. The whiteness of her headdress and the thick material with which it is painted enhances her presence. The flowers on the shawl echo the shape of the lace, the effect of which is a multiplication of the essentially feminine suggestion linked to its emphatic circularity.

Expressing determination and independence, her face is framed by long earrings – called ‘kites’ or ‘dorlots’ – that are shaped like clusters and that were worn with these festive costumes in Boulogne. The artist slightly modified the attire, deleting the Calais white lace cuff that they occasionally wore as well as the long gold chain that would hang from their necks, thus modernising it. Both the ochre apron and the pink shawl with white flowers over the black silk dress show Blanchard’s taste for chromatic elements during those years. An intense expressiveness results from the use of a deep blue for the background of the composition and the lighter-toned silhouetting of the figure’s outline, which, together with the headdress, creates a kind of aura. The result is an image of great iconic force that conveys a powerful energy, as do some of the matriarchs painted by the artist at that time. During this period, in fact, she seemed to use her paintings to project images somewhat in contrast to her own physical appearance, which was weak and deformed.

In 1927, in his monograph on the artist published in Brussels, the critic Waldemar George observed that these works were the fruit of a meditated art, echoing the great Spanish realists, ‘of contrasting tones’, ‘energetic and sharp drawing’ and ‘a taste for types, more expressive than beautiful’. The preference for expressive and structural values, far from the apparently feminine categories of ‘sensitivity’ or ‘grace’ that could be applied to other artists, confer María Blanchard (the most innovative and relevant Spanish painter) a very marked personality.

The picture was part of an important solo exhibition of 21 of her works that took place between 14 and 25 April 1923 in the Galerie du Centaure in Brussels, which leads us to date this painting to before that exhibition. The exhibition was sponsored by the art dealers Ceux de demain, composed of Jean Delgouffre, Frank Flausch and Jean Grimar, with whom the artist had an excellent relationship. The catalogue’s preface was written by André Lhote, a painter and friend of hers. During the exhibition, the canvas was shown under the title La boulonnaise; afterwards, it was hardly ever exhibited again.

Barón, Javier, 'Maria [Gutiérrez] Blanchard. La boloñesa.' En: Memoria de actividades 2021 Museo Nacional del Prado., Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte,, 2021, p.25-27