Who Was Romaine Brooks?
An independent woman and a free artist
I love painting. And the more colorful it is, the more I like it. That’s why fauvism is my favorite artistic movement ever. Ever. The explosion of colors, simplification of forms, bright, powerful, vibrant colors. All I love. All that makes me feel incredible things. And then, I discovered Romaine Brooks, an artist whose work is mainly dominated by shades of greys, blues, and blacks. And I loved it. And I wanted to tell you about her.
Romaine Brooks was an American painter, born in Rome, Italy, in 1874 but she spent most of her life in Paris. She is considered today a “déclassée” artist, because of the unconventional life (for the time) she decided to lead, and the inability to classify her art in the boxes that Art History loves so much.
Romaine Brooks did not have a very happy childhood. Her parents separated shortly after her birth and her mother, an eccentric and rather unstable woman, abandoned her completely because she was obsessed with the mental illness of her young son, Romaine’s older brother. In 1895, at the age of 21, Romaine Brooks moved to Paris, against her mother’s wishes. However, her mother paid her an allowance so that Romaine would not be homeless. She then left Paris to go to Rome to attend nude drawing classes, where she was the only woman. There she met a group of…
