[휘슬러와 쿠르베의 사랑을 받은 여인] 조애나 히퍼넌[Joanna "Jo" Hiffernan]

Joanna Hiffernan

[Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]

 

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl (1862), National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.. Hiffernan is the subject of this portrait.^[1]

 

 '조'라고 불린 아일랜드 태생의 조안나 히퍼넌(Joanna Hiffernan)으로 열아홉 살 때 모습이다. 집안이 너무 가난하여 1860년 휘슬러의 정부 겸 모델이 되었다. 휘슬러의 정식 부인이 아니었는데도 스스로 애버트 부인이라고 불렀으며 그녀의 아버지도 휘슬러를 사위처럼 대했다. 붉은 머리칼이 특히 아름답고 몸매에 기품도 있으나 남자를 끄는 매력이 넘치고 어딘지 모르게 창녀 같은 분위기가 느껴졌다고 한다.

 

휘슬러는 그녀를 청순하고 순결한 분위기로 그렸다. 그림 속 여인 발밑에는 사나운 동물의 얼굴이 달린 모피를 그려 넣었는데, 그녀에게 내재한 정열과 동물적 야성을 나타내는 듯하다.

주인공이 화면 왼쪽에 치우쳐 있으나 오른쪽을 바라보며 오른쪽으로 손을 뻗고 있어 정적인 상태에서 동적인 분위기를 느낄 수 있다. 신비로운 흰 치마 속에 그녀의 감추어진 육체적 아름다움뿐만 아니라 내면적 아름다움을 극대화하였다. 그녀를 향한 휘슬러의 애정이 그림에 짙게 깔려 있다.

 

그 시절에는 그림에서 여자는 대개 구조물을 넣어 부풀린 치마를 입었는데 여기서는 당시로 보면 거의 몸매가 그대로 드러나는 옷을 입은 셈이기 때문에 대중들은 천박하다고 보았다. 거울을 보는 조안나는 아주 아름답다. 당시에는 거울이 외면뿐 아니라 내면도 드러낸다고 믿던 때였는데, 그녀는 거울을 바라보는 모습이 특히 아름다웠다고 한다. 이 그림에는 당시 유럽의 일본 붐이 나타난다. 조안나는 일본 부채를 들고 있고, 벽난로 위에는 일본 화병이 놓여 있을 뿐 아니라 벚꽃이 장식되어 있다.

 

Joanna "Jo" Hiffernan (ca. 1843 – after 1903) was an Irish artists' model and muse who was romantically linked with American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler and French painter Gustave Courbet. In addition to being an artists' model, Hiffernan herself also drew and painted.

 

Early life

Hiffernan was a Roman Catholic. Her father, Patrick Hiffernan, is described by Whistler's friends,

Joseph Pennell and his wife Elizabeth, as being like "Captain Costigan," the drunken Irishman in

Thackeray's novel Pendennis. The Pennells also described him as "a teacher of polite chirography (calligraphy)" who used to speak of Whistler as "me son-in-law."^[3] Her mother, Katherine Hiffernan, died in 1862, aged 44. Joanna Hiffernan had a sister called Bridget Agnes Hiffernan, later Singleton. The artist Walter Greaves, who began tuition with Whistler in 1863, and who knew Hiffernan

well,^[4] claimed that she had a son called Harry but no trace of him can be found in official records.

Artist's model

Gustave Courbet, La belle Irlandaise (Portrait of Jo) 1865–1866, Metropolitan Museum of Art, a painting of Joanna Hiffernan.

La belle Irlandaise (Portrait of Jo) by Courbet, painting of Joanna Hiffernan,

 

1845년부터 있었던 아일랜드 대기근 직전에 태어나 가난 때문에 영국으로 이주한 것으로 보이는 조안나 히퍼넌은 당시 이십대 초반의 한창 나이였다. 그때 사십대 후반에 들어선 쿠르베는 조안나의 젊음과 아름다움을 아주 사적인 초상화인 <조, 아름다운 아일랜드 여인 Jo, the Beautiful Irishwoman>에 담았다. 전통적인 분류에 따르면 장르화의 몸단장 주제에 속할 형식의 이 초상화 속에 쿠르베는 그 어떤 이야기나 교훈도 담지 않았다. 그는 대상의 아름다움에만 집중했다. 여자 자신이 빠져 있는 탐스럽고 윤기 있는 머리카락과 팽팽하고 투명한 피부에 화가도 도취되어 있다. 특히 그 머리카락의 붉은 색은 보색인 녹색 배경 위에서 더 선명하게 두드러진다.

쿠르베는 이 그림을 여러 번 그렸고 지금 남아 있는 것만 4점이나 된다. 그 중 한 점은 직접 소장하고 있었다. 1877년에 그가 휘슬러에게 보낸 편지에서 화가는 조안나와 그녀가 부르던 아일랜드 노래가 있었던 트루빌의 저녁을 아름답게 추억했다. 편지에서 그는 “나는 아직 조의 초상화를 갖고 있어. 절대 팔지 않을 거야”라고 썼다. [미술평론가 김진희님의 글에서 발췌]

 the probable model for L'Origine du monde

Artist	Gustave Courbet
Year	1866
Type	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	46 cm × 55 cm (18 in × 22 in)
Location	Musée d'Orsay, Paris

The putative upper section of L'Origine du monde

 

L'Origine du monde in the Musée d'Orsay

 

Whistler first met Hiffernan in 1860 while she was at a studio in Rathbone Place, and she went on to have a 6-year relationship with him, during which period she modelled for some of his most famous paintings. Physically striking, Hiffernan's personality was even more impressive. Whistler's biographers and friends, the Pennells, wrote of her,

"She was not only beautiful. She was intelligent, she was sympathetic. She gave Whistler the constant companionship he could not do without."

 

Whistler's family did not approve of Hiffernan. Unmarried artists' models, and especially those who posed

nude, were considered at that time to be little better

than prostitutes. However, Hiffernan seems only to have modeled for friends, so perhaps the objections to her made by Whistler's family

were based more on social class than on Hifferman's personal character.^[7] When Whistler's mother visited from America in 1864, alternative accommodation had to be found for Hiffernan, who also seems to have been the cause of Whistler's quarrel with Alphonse Legros in 1863.

 

She was in France with Whistler during the summer of 1861, and while in Paris during the winter of 1861–62 she sat for Symphony in White, No. I: The White Girl at a studio in Boulevard des Batignolles and in 1864–65 she posed for Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl.

Artist	James McNeill Whistler
Year	1864–65
Type	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	76 cm × 51 cm (30 in × 20 in)
Location	Tate Gallery, London

 

It is possible that this is when she met Whistler's friend and fellow artist, Gustave Courbet, for whom she later modeled. There is some thought – recently confirmed by experts who found another part of the picture showing the woman's head – that she was the model for Courbet's L'Origine du monde, which depicts a nude woman's vulva.

Gustave Courbet, Le Sommeil (Sleep), 1866, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris

쿠르베의 〈잠〉은 두 여자가 나체로 서로 엉켜 잠든 모습을 그린 것이다. 한 여인은 붉은 머리이고, 다른 여인은 금발이지만 몸매와 얼굴이 거의 같은 것으로 보아 조안나를 모델로 두 여자를 그린 것으로 여겨진다. 이 그림은 휘슬러가 여행을 간 사이에 그려진 것이다.

휘슬러가 이 사건 이후로 쿠르베와 조안나 사이를 의심하였을 것은 뻔하다. 그 일로 조안나와의 관계에 심각한 금이 갔는지, 1869년 휘슬러는 조안나와 헤어지고 루이자 화니 핸슨이라는 새 여인을 맞았다.

 

Hiffernan attended séances with Whistler at Dante Gabriel Rossetti's house in Chelsea in 1863, and spent the summer and autumn of 1865 in Trouville with Whistler. In 1866, Whistler gave Hiffernan power of attorney  over his affairs while he was in Valparaiso for seven months, making provision

for household expenses and giving her the authority to act as an agent in the sale of his works.

During Whistler's absence, Hiffernan travelled to Paris and posed for Courbet in The Sleepers, or

Le Sommeil which depicts two naked women in bed asleep. It is likely that she had an affair with

Courbet at this time. After the end of his relationship with Hiffernan, Whistler left a will in her

favour.

Later years

1881 Census sheet showing Hiffernan living at 2 Thistle Grove Lane

 

After she and Whistler parted, Hiffernan helped to raise Whistler's son, Charles James Whistler Hanson (1870–1935),^[9] the result of an affair with a parlour maid, Louisa Fanny Hanson.^[2] He lived with Hiffernan at 5 Thistle Grove as late as 1880 when Whistler was away in Venice with Maud Franklin, his then mistress.^[2] The 1881 English census recorded Hiffernan, her sister Bridget and Charles Hanson as visitors of Charles Singleton (whom Bridget would later marry) at 2 Thistle Grove.^[

 

Little is known of Hiffernan after 1880. A woman reported to Juliette Courbet (1831–1915), the sister of Gustave Courbet, in a letter of 18 December 1882, that "the beautiful Irish girl" was in Nice, where she sold antiques and some pictures by Courbet. It is believed that Hiffernan married a man named Abbot some time after 1881, possibly on the Continent.

 

The art collector Charles Lang Freer met Hiffernan when he was a pallbearer at Whistler's funeral

in 1903 when she came forward in heavy mourning to pay her last respects.^[11] His fellow art patron Louisine Havemeyer (1855–1929) later recorded the incident as she heard it from Freer:

"As she raised her veil and I saw ... the thick wavy hair, although it was streaked with grey, I knew at once it was Johanna, the Johanna of Etretat, 'la belle Irlandaise' that Courbet had painted with her wonderful hair and a mirror in her hand.... She stood for a long time beside the coffin—nearly an hour I should think.... I could not help being touched by the feeling she showed toward her old friend. "Did Maud [Franklin] come?" [Havemeyer] asked. "Yes" answered Mr. Freer, "the same afternoon. She had come all the way from Paris and was very much affected as I uncovered Whistler's face for her to see him." ... [One could see, Freer mused] "that the real drama of [Whistler's] life was bound up in the love of [these] devoted women."

 

[촐처: 정보 - 책 206~228쪽/그림은 조애나를 모델로 한 휘슬러와 쿠르베의 작품들]