Tamara Duran

Gamble Madsen

ARTH 4, Sect. 0033

May 6, 2015

Confronting the Spectator with New Images of Women

In the 19th and early 20th centuries the perception of women in artwork began to

change. Before, women in artwork were looked at as symbols of fertility, marriage, love,

forms of inspiration, etc. As time passed, though, the way women were looked at in art

was more lustful and provocative, but still showed some homage to art of women in the

past. Examples of this would include Large Odalisque by Jean-Aususte-Dominique

Ingres and the Le djeuner surlherbe (Luncheon on the Grass) by douard Manet.

Some, of these later artworks didnt show homage to past art, but portrayed the way the

artist may have felt or what was going through their mind. Examples of this would

include the art of Pablo Picasso and his portrayal of women. In the article New

Encounters with Les Demoiselles dAvignon: Gender, Race, and the Origins of Cubism

Anna Chave talks about one of Picassos works and looks into the meaning of it. This

innovative type of art broke away from tradition and sparked a new style that confronted

people and made them think about the artwork.

The artwork Large Odalisque by Jean-Aususte-Dominique Ingres shows a

woman reclined on a bed twisting away from the viewer and looking back to gaze at them.

Ingres Large Odalisque was drawn from the exotic Near East when Napoleon was

campaigning again the British in North Africa. In the piece the womans pose shows only

the back of her body, but still shows eroticism and sensuality. She has exotic details of
her headdress and the brush of the peacock fan against her thigh (Stokstad/Cothren,

p.952), which make her more alluring to the viewer. This piece shows some reference to

Titians Venus of Urbino but still departs from tradition.

Its reference from Titians Venus includes the fact that she is directly staring at

the viewer, reclining on furniture topped by linen to accentuate the womans body and in

front of open drapes to the reveal the woman to the viewer. Though Ingres departs from

the Venus by having the Odalisques body turned away from the viewer, he maintains a

seductiveness about her. Other was it departs from the Venus is through color and the

proportions of the womans body. The Venus has warm tones that bring an ethereal glow

to her, making her seem goddess-like, but the odalisque has cool tones surrounding her

that make the womans pale body stand out. The proportions of the Venus are typical

while the odalisques back is longer that is should be and the position of her legs is

awkward. It also departs by having the Odalisques gaze feel more cold towards the

viewer, whereas the ,Venus is more warm and open. The Odalisques cold gaze seems to

challenge the viewer, as if trying to see if they have any power over her. Similar

comparisons and contrasts can also be seen in another work from the 19th century when

compared to two traditional pieces.

The piece Le djeuner sur lherbe (Luncheon on the grass) by douard Manet it

shows two men and two women having a suburban picnic (Stokstad/Cothren p.997).

The two men are fully clothed and appear to be of the middle class. They are seated on

the ground with one woman sitting next to them completely nude while the other woman

is scantily clad (Stokstad/Cothren p.997) in the background. This piece by douard

Manet had been submitted to the Acadmie des Beaux-Arts Salon Exhibition but was
rejected by the jury, along with 3000 other works from other artists. His piece was

considered controversial, but bears similarities to two past pieces: Raphaels The

Judgment of Paris and Giorgione or Titans The Pastoral Concert.

Manets Le djeuner sur lherbe (Luncheon on the grass) shows only one

similarity to Raphaels The Judgment of Paris. In the poses of the two men and women

seated on the ground. In Raphaels piece in the bottom right hand corner the three people

are seated in the positions but are men instead. Manets composition shows two men and

a woman and the man sitting next to the woman is not in profile like Raphaels.

With The Pastoral Concert Manets piece shares the two fully clothed men and

the two nude/scantily clad women in a fertile landscape (Stokstad/Cothren p.658). In

both pieces the two men are seated and one of the women sits with them while the other

near some sort of water source. Manets piece departs from The Pastoral Concert by

showing the men and women in a different manner. In The Pastoral Concert the men are

shown as an aristocrat and a peasant composing music completely unaware of the nude

women with them. The nude women also have the same ethereal glow that the Titans

Venus later has, making the women seem like the musicians muses. But with Manets

piece both men are upper class, conversing and seem to acknowledge the nude woman

sitting next to them. Both of the nude women in Manets piece appear normal, they have

no ethereal glow to them and their clothes are tossed aside at the bottom corner of the

piece. Another departure from the tradition is that in Manets piece the nude woman

sitting with the men stares directly at the viewer, unlike The Pastoral Concert where not

one engages with the viewer. She displays a smug look as if to confront the viewer and

say Yes I am here with these men, showing them my body, and no, I dont really care
what you think. This may have caused controversy, but it brought about his fame in the

art world and set about a new motion of the portrayal of women in art and how dramatic

and distorted it could get.

Picassos work showed just how dramatic and distorted art could get as the 20th

century came. One of his works, Les Demoiselles dAvignon, shows how he dramatized

and distorted the female body to express his feelings and thoughts. In the article, New

Encounters with Les Demoiselles dAvignon: Gender, Race, and the Origins of Cubism,

Anna Chave goes into more detail about this piece while also exploring other works of

Picassos on the same subject. In the article Chave focuses on the male viewpoint of

Picassos wotk and how that viewpoint degrades not only women but also people of

color (Chave p.605). She notes that from certain views the demoiselles in the poeces are

only seen as prostitutes and that their purpose was to bring emotion to the viewer while

also seeming chaotic in the process. Chave then continues into detail regarding how chaos

is seen in both the style and design of the painting. She also shows how Picasso was

influenced by African art when creating this brothel reverting [to a] jungle (Chave

p.600).

I found her viewpoint and the viewpoints of others that shred to be quite

fascinating. I found her viewpoint to be both positive and negative, in a way. She directly

identifies that she comes from the viewpoint of a heterosexual, feminist, female viewer

(Chave p.589). With this in mid I was able to identify with some of her view point in the

article about the portrayal of women in Cubist art and also in how other cultures art has

been an influence, but that this influence has been denied. The views of the others that

she shared appears to be white males. She did not share the views of other males or
females from minorities, shared very few female views other that her own, and did not

seem to share the views that would agree with or be neutral on the subject at hand. One

view of another female that she shared, Christine Poggi, was that the Cubist style of art

was impelled by a realization of the conventional rather that the imitative nature of the

representation...that style can be a kind of mask, to be worn at will (Chave p.601). This

view is based more on the style that the piece itself, while other views she shared opposed

her view or sexualized Picassos work more. Overall her article was very interesting to

read and I agree with some of her points, but her article would have more validity if she

had incorporated broader views on Picassos work.

The art of the 19th and early 20th centuries shocked people who were used to the

traditional styles of art and got people to think about the meanings of the artworks and

what the artists were trying to say. The artists may have been trying to point out political

issues or sharing what goes on outside of the world that we see. The work by Ingres,

Manet, and Picasso stimulated this type of thinking in art. Though their art was not

looked at as being the crme de la crme of the art world at that time, they made major

impacts on the perception of art. Their work caused controversy among the traditional

thinkers but they stimulated conversations that had people share their different views on

their work.
 Work Cited

Stokstad, Marilyn; Cothren, Michael W, Art History, Volume II, 5th Edition. London:

Laurence King Publishing Ltd. 2011. Print.

Anna Chave, New Encounters with Les Demoiselles dAvignon: Gender, Race, and the

Origins of Cubism, in Art Bulletin 76.4 (December 1994), 596-611

Madsen, Gamble. Class Notes. April 2015.