The Abandoned Doll by Suzanne Valadon (Interpretation and Analysis)

The Abandoned Doll

Source: National Museum of Women in the Arts

Impressionist painter Suzanne Valadon had a long and complex journey to becoming an artist. She began her career in the art world as a model as a circus performer; through this job, Valadon met many of the leading artists of the day and began modeling for them after a trapeze accident forced her to leave that job. She modeled for artists such as Théophile Steinlen and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, observing their artistic techniques all the while.

After giving up her work as a model, Valadon set herself up as an artist in her own right and began painting full-time. The Abandoned Doll is one of her most memorable paintings. The painting depicts a nude girl sitting on a bed; she is being toweled dry by an older woman as she gazes into a small hand mirror. The pink bow in her hair suggests youth, although her maturing body and a discarded doll lying on the ground signals that the girl’s childhood is over and she is preparing to enter her teenage years and early adulthood. It is a painting that is laser-focused on identity and self-realization, exploring the journey of one young girl from one stage of life to another. Valadon used her own niece and her mother as models for the painting, although the piece is not intended to reflect on them personally, but rather to convey a wider, more general message.

It is a reflective piece, a thoughtful yet emotional consideration of the line between childhood and adulthood, girlhood and womanhood. It represents the liminal space of transition, always a fraught and interesting territory in art.

There is also an interesting explanation of the female body here. Valadon has a reputation among art historians for representing female bodies in a more realistic, less idealized way than her male counterparts. Her art is based firmly in the reality of such bodies, and the strengths and stories they convey. As a former artist’s model herself, Valadon would have had a clear idea of the meaning and connotation conveyed by the subject of the nude in art, and she clearly had her own artistic interpretation of this subject. As the National Museum of Women in the Arts notes, “Valadon’s style was highly personal, and her nudes typically are unidealized, active women, challenging the convention of the sexualized, passive female body.” The Abandoned Doll exemplifies this attitude. The girl in this painting twists away from the viewer to gaze at herself in a hand mirror. The distortion of her body and the presence of the mirror give the impression of internal reflection, suggesting that this moment of transition is more about growth and personal development, rather than the sexual connotations that nudes in art often evoke.

Like so many artists of her time, Valadon was concerned with psychological and emotional reality as opposed to more literal themes. The painting inherently humanizes Valadon’s subjects through nuance and understanding that is sometimes lacking in portrayals of women from a male perspective. The Abandoned Doll is thus a revolutionary image, a subtle, yet moving and powerful piece of art.

Disclaimer: I’m not an art historian or an expert on this topic. The above is my opinion, based on my interpretation of my foreknowledge of art and history. If I’ve done any additional research, I’ll note it above.