France+Croisee,+La

Date: 1914
 * [[image:http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=http://americanart.si.edu/images/1970/1970.69_2a.jpg&max=460 width="233" height="316"]] || Title: **La France Croisee**

Artist: **Romaine Brooks** Born: Rome, Italy 1874 Died: Nice, France 1970

Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 45 3/4 x 33 1/2 in. (116.2 x 85.0 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of the artist

Accession: 1970.69 || "Have they hoisted the acrid sponge on the tip of the lance; Against her beauteous mouth elated with the sacrament: The cross without Christ, who suffers above her breast; Is nought but the double wound born in silence." Gabriele dAnnunzio, reprinted in Chadwick, //Amazons in the Drawing Room: The Art of Romaine Brooks//, 2000
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This poem by Gabriele d'Annunzio accompanied //La France Croisée// when Romaine Brooks first exhibited the painting in the window of a Paris gallery. Brooks painted a windswept female figure as a crusader and the personification of France. She based the woman's strong features on those of the actress Ida Rubinstein, with whom she was in love at the time. The figure's chiseled features and stern gaze set against the backdrop of a burning city evoke a sense of defiance and strength. The city represents Ypres in western Belgium, the site of a major battle during the first year of World War I. The emblem on Rubinstein's shoulder evokes the bloodshed of war, but the brilliant red may also signal the painter's passion for the actress. Reproductions of this painting, together with the poem, were later sold to raise money for the Red Cross, and Brooks received the Cross of the Legion of Honor for her service to France.
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Brooks was a gifted artist, who challenged the typical views of female roles in society. She was a lesbian. Brooks had a very unhappy childhood that was haunted by the instability of her brother and the eccentricities of her mother. Independently wealthy, her large fortune allowed her personal and professional freedom. She was part of the Anglo-American gay community on the Isle of Capri, Italy where she was a noted hostess. She had a three year relationship with Ida Rubenstein and a lifelong relationship with Natalie Barney, the daughter of Alice Pike Barney. Although many of her peers were creating abstract art, she held to a representational style that explores female identity. She was particularly intrigued with the role that appearances (clothes and manners) played in sexual identity.
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Women Artists
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Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page
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