In the Couvent des Oiseaux, Matisse had gradually been attracting student followers in increasing numbers; by now, the place had acquired the reputation of an organized school. When, in early December 1907, after fifteen years, he moved his family out of their apartment at 10, quai Saint Michel, they settled into the ground floor of a second disused convent, the Sacré-Coeur, at the corner of the boulevard des Invalides and the rue de Babylone. His students now came here for instruction. Amélie’s sitting room looked out across the garden to the Hôtel Biron, where Rodin had his studio. Matisse’s ‘school’ was upstairs on the first floor, where he worked, when not teaching, separated from his students by a screen. The school had been Sarah Stein’s idea, inspired by her experience of being taught by the artist herself. Matisse’s star pupil, she kept careful notes, which constitute a record both of his general views and his advice to individual students as he tried to get them to think holistically about the process of composition: ‘Fit your parts into one another and build up your figure as a carpenter does a house. Everything must be constructed – built up of parts that make a unit: a tree like a human body, a human body like a cathedral . . . Close your eyes and hold the vision, and then do the work with your own sensibility.’ He showed them ways of connecting with their own work in progress: ‘To feel a central line in the direction of the general movement of the body and build about that is a great aid.’ In sculpture, ‘The model must not be made to agree with a preconceived theory or effect. It must impress you, awaken in you an emotion, which in turn you seek to express.’ He taught that a drawing is essentially a sculpture, though with suggestively rather than definitively described forms. He introduced them to paintings by Georges Rouault (who had also studied with Moreau in the 1890s and whose work had since been linked with that of the Fauves), van Gogh’s drawings and his treasured possession, Cézanne’s Bathers, which he put silently before them without comment.
Matisse was clearly the master, Picasso still the rebel. At 27, rue de Fleurus, Alice B. Toklas looked on as Leo took the latter into his study. Picasso emerged furious, complaining, ‘He does not leave me alone. It was he who said my drawings were more important than Raphael’s. Why can he not leave me alone then with what I am doing now?’ Leo, equally riled, slammed the door to the apartment and retreated into his studio. This, observed Alice, was the beginning of the rift between Leo and Gertrude over both Picasso’s painting and her writing. Both were moving in directions of which Leo disapproved. Anyway, Gertrude had had enough of his endless instruction. When Leo appeared and began explaining further, she interrupted him by dropping her books on the floor on purpose.
Impressively organized and strategically financed though it was, Fernande’s independence was about to prove short-lived. One day, Gertrude asked Alice B. Toklas, ‘Is Fernande wearing her earrings?’ Alice said she didn’t know. ‘Well, notice,’ said Gertrude. Alice reported back that yes, Fernande was wearing her earrings. ‘Oh well,’ said Gertrude, ‘there is nothing to be done yet.’ She was looking for signs that Fernande had pawned her earrings, a pair of gold hoops Picasso had given her which she wore all the time. The disappearance of the earrings would mean she was in trouble financially and unlikely to survive on her own for much longer. A week later, Alice announced that Fernande was not wearing her earrings. ‘Oh well, it’s alright then,’ said Gertrude, ‘she has no money left and it [the break-up] is all over . . . And it was.’ Picasso and Fernande were together again.
Shortly before Christmas, they were invited to dinner at the Steins’. The reunion, and perhaps the approaching holidays, seemed to be a cause for celebration. Alice gave Fernande a Chinese gown from San Francisco and Picasso gave Alice a lovely drawing. (Leo and Gertrude’s gift to themselves was Cézanne’s Cinque Pommes (1877–8), which they purchased from the Bernheim-Jeunes on 17 December). Fernande, Alice reasoned, had ‘held Pablo by her beauty’ – at least, for the time being. Fernande gave up her flat and moved back to the Bateau-Lavoir and Alice was pressed fully into commission to provide her with distractions, taking her shopping or to dog and cat shows, anything that would provide them with opportunities for conversation in French. Picasso, Alice somehow deduced, was grateful to her for ‘taking Fernande off his hands’.
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One further notable event marked the turn of the year. At around this time ‘a new and alarming development occurred’. When back in San Francisco, Harriet had fallen under the influence of a formidable woman, wife of a High Church curate, who had been trying to bring her to God. One afternoon, she confessed her reluctance to do so to Gertrude, who – with heavy irony – replied that if she didn’t go to God Harriet might as well put an end to herself, since her life would no longer be worth living. (Clearly, by this time, her patience with Harriet was wearing thin. It would fall to Alice, some months later, to arrange for Harriet’s removal from their lives for good.) That night, Alice was woken by Harriet, calling her to come at once. She found her sitting up in bed, announcing, ‘I have seen God.’ Alice was to go straight over to Gertrude and ask her to come at once. When she arrived, Gertrude simply gave one of her ‘large’ laughs, seeing that Harriet had evidently decided that God – even for an atheist – was better than suicide. The matter was discussed with Sarah Stein, a Christian Scientist, who said she would not tolerate Gertrude’s involvement in Harriet’s Christian salvation, whereupon Gertrude replied that she had no wish to be involved. Sarah took it on herself for a while, until forced to admit that Harriet was distracting her from her studies with Matisse, to which she was deeply committed (despite the resentment of the other students, who disapproved of what they saw as Matisse’s favouritism on the grounds that Sarah and her husband were among his major purchasers). To Alice, Gertrude had revealed her own position in the Matisse versus Picasso dispute; she had taken to referring to Matisse as ‘le cher maître, in derision of course’. As for Matisse himself, since the appearance of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, his view of Picasso was that he was ‘unsympathetic as a man and less than negligible as a painter’. He told Gertrude that she went to the Bateau-Lavoir only because it appealed to her sense of drama, which simply made her laugh again. The care of Harriet’s spiritual development now passed to a Swedish sculptor, who confessed he had never before known anyone quite like Harriet.
For Gertrude and Alice the winter brought happiness. At first, Gertrude ‘diagnosed’ Alice as ‘an old maid mermaid’: ‘the old maid was bad enough but the mermaid was quite unbearable’. However, in ways she was subsequently unable (or too discreet) to recall, the old maid mermaid tag ‘wore thin and finally blew away entirely’. Throughout that winter, Alice continued to live at the Hôtel de l’Univers with Harriet, joining Gertrude most days and evenings for walks or visits to the rue de Fleurus: ‘By the time the buttercups were in bloom, the old maid mermaid had gone into oblivion and I had been gathering wild violets.’ Their relationship had evidently moved into a new gear.