It has been a well-known fact that prostitution has been one of the oldest professions in the history for women. This profession does not only apply to specific women from another culture but rather this covers the lives of the women throughout the world. From the medieval times up to the late 19th century, prostitution became the booming industry reserved for women with no formal education, no family, and worst no dowry to gain a potential husband. Throughout their lives, women who worked as prostitutes had hard lives and often in poverty. Only very few of these women had managed to rise from the poverty but never from the demeaning industry. Some women became mistresses of wealthy men but the majority became part of the working class; treating their bodies as a tool to gain a small amount of money to support themselves and their families. In a society so obsessed with morality especially in the 19th century, prostitution was one of the abhorred professions by the Catholic Church. Therefore, women who sold their bodies as commodities in order to survive the harsh life became the constant subject of scorn, anger, and humiliation. However, artists have managed to present the 21st century a vivid and colorful picture of how prostitutes became the subjects of beauty, perfection, and their images illustrated only a facet of the ills of the society. In this paper, paintings from the Impressionism period will be examined in accordance with the topic.
Artists had tried to glamorize the harlots as goddesses of beauty and love. Indeed, there might be some truth in that because painters often painted these nude lovely ladies clad either in skimpy muslin clothing or nothing to emphasize their femininity denied by the society. Yet, whether their approach was the appreciation of the women’s bodies artistically, it still does not change the fact that these women once became the subject of the city’s gazes.
Edouard Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass
Painted in 1863, this painting lovingly rendered using oil pigments on canvas had once cause an outrage and scandal to the conservative Parisian society. Upon its initial exhibition, the panel of judges from Salon des Refuses banned the exposure of Manet’s masterpiece to the public due to its excessive nudity and outright lasciviousness. Depicted on the foreground were the three figures; two of them were men dressed casually in an attire befitting the late 19th century costumes. In contrast with the men’s covered bodies, the woman on the right side of the panel is naked yet her womanly parts are barely hidden from the audiences’ view. But the contours of her body highlighted by the light shining on the top right corner leaves very little to the imagination. The bottom of her body was covered with a blue silk cloth stretching from the bent left foot up to the left panel where it leads to the pile of discarded woven basket filled with food. To convey more realistic portrayals, Manet used the pigments to outline the entire figures of the three characters. On the background, a girl also clad in diaphanous white muslin can be seen isolated from the group, crouched, her hands attempting to cover her body. Her face was painted sideways, as if embarrassed to be seen in not decent attire. The decorative foreground complements the muted background of forest awash in a harmonious blend of warm earth tones. Chiaroscuro has been accomplished; looking closely on the painting, one can see an implied triangle starting from the girl on the background stretching towards the group of men and a woman engaged in a lively conversation. The image is balanced on the center and there are also vanishing points from the sides and the top of the panel that emphasizes three-dimensional illusion. According to the artist, he used the painting to deliberately attack and express his rejection of traditional imagery, but rather to pay his respects by making renditions of the past artists’ styles such as Titian and Raphael. (Musee d’Orsay, “Edouard Manet Luncheon on the Grass”, n.p.).
Henri Gervex’s Rolla
Another interesting piece from the Musee d’Orsay was a French Impressionist painting depicting a slumbering young maiden named Marie on a pristine white bed. Her body is thoroughly exposed; however, the lower part of her body has been meticulously obstructed by a small crumple of the bed sheet. On the left side of the panel, was the brooding figure of Jacques Rolla, a young man from the middle class lineage. The fact that his figure had been placed on the side of the painting suggests his involvement in prostitution. According to the details published by the Musee d’Orsay, “Gervex found his inspiration in a long poem by Alfred de Musset (1810-1857), published in 1833. The text recounts the destiny of a young bourgeois, Jacques Rolla, falling into a life of idleness and debauchery. He meets with Marie, a teenager who found in prostitution an escape from misery. Rolla is seen here ruined, standing by the window, his eyes turned to the girl sleeping. He is about to commit suicide by poison.” (Musee d’Orsay, “Henri Gervex Rolla”, n.p.). Although this painting was done in 1878, Gervex’s style was a combination of realism and Impressionism. Unlike other paintings done within the movement, the artist never used short and rough brush strokes in order to create impressions of the figure. Instead, the impressions of the body outline have been highlighted by the pigments as implied lines in order to emphasize the contours of the body as well as the chiaroscuro to create a dramatic effect. The figure of the lying woman was proportioned; the same goes for the figure of the man standing as a dedicated observer to the slumbering lady. Lines used were natural and realistic; the imagery is located from the right going towards the center and ends on the left part. The figure of the man provides a balance on the picture. The foreground was filled with other images such as the white corset as well as the dress tossed carelessly onto the brown ottoman chair. The pigments used herein were blended using smooth and delicate brush strokes that resulted to soft contrasts of dark and light colors; thus, providing depth and three-dimensional illusion. Like Manet’s work, this artwork painted by Gervex was also banned for public viewing due to the lewdness of the characters. Yet, despite all the negative assumptions, Gervex painted this picture as still life of the woman’s garments instead of the body. (Musee d’Orsay, “Henri Gervex Rolla”, n.p.).
Edgar Degas’ Nude Woman Drying her Neck
Edgar Degas was one of the four pioneers of Impressionism Art movement in Paris with aims to develop, hone, and modernize the way painting subjects were created. In an age where the society developed an obsession to portray good domestic scenes, Degas’ painting created an uproar that rejects the traditional image portrayal of women in the late 19th century. In this work, the audience can see the struggle and the step-by-step procedure of creating images based from sequences of lines, their arrangements to create body contours, as well as the minimal cross hatching to create shadows. This was done using charcoal and pastel pigments that is why the image rendered on paper appears to be quite rough unlike the two paintings presented previously. Yet despite the allegations pertaining to debauchery, Degas intended this painting to showcase the realism based from the naturalist philosophy. Here, the naked body of the woman with the torso and limbs completely visible. Her back was turned and there was no emphasis on the face of the bather, signifying that the detailed anatomy of the body is what the artist tried to emphasize to the public. The woman on this sketch appears to have finished her bath and pictured drying her neck so that the garments that she will be wearing after will not get wet from excess water. The background was a cacophony of opposing colors while the colors used on the human body was monochrome ones to illustrate the real life appearance of the woman’s body.
“Degas occupies such an important place in the history of 19th century art, highlighting his ability to bring together the classical culture of his era and the avant-garde movements of the 20th century, through works that are seldom exhibited together because of their fragility and their diversity.” (Musee d’Orsay, “Degas and the Nude”, n.p.).
Based from the three artworks presented here, why is it that the image of the naked woman enthralled the artists for centuries? Why did the conservative image of women changed in the Impressionist period? To answer these questions is to go back from the past: from the Renaissance and the late 19th century. In the Renaissance, despite the spur of outrage by the Catholic Church in the artists’ portrayals of naked women from the pagan mythology, images of women dating back from the 15th to 17th centuries were languid feminine forms that emphasize the liberty and the consideration of women’s own sexuality. From the Renaissance works of Raphael and Titian, audiences are seeing skimpy clad women with seductive smiles, languid poses, demure, yet alluring. Despite the obscenely sexual portrayals, the women of Titian and Raphaelite were more humanized in a sense that they had tried to embrace their own sexuality instead of repressing them. This can be seen on the simple and diaphanous costumes they wore; this reveals their transparency as equal creatures like men, with equal freedom to explore their humanity. Their image radiates sensuality and raw animalistic desires that shows women’s human side rather than monotonous obedient figures preferred by the latter societies.
“The combination of an avant-garde ideology; ‘we artists lead the way and march [sic] ahead of public taste.’”(Walker 1).
As a conclusion, the nudity depicted in French Impressionist paintings utilized prostitutes to become their models and by drawing their naked bodies, here the artists’ tries to emphasize by toning the imagery and reverting to realism in addition to remodeling the image into something that would cause shock in order to allow the entry of radical ideas to change the society.
WORKS CITED
“Degas and the Nude.” Collections and Exhibitions. Musee d’Orsay. 2006. Web. 9 Apr. 2016.
“Luncheon on the Grass.” Collections and Exhibitions. Musee d’Orsay. 2006. Web. 9 Apr. 2016.
Gervix, Hneri. “Rolla.” Collections and Exhibitions. Musee d’Orsay. 2006. Web. 9 Apr. 2016.
Walker, John A. Art and Outrage. London: Pluto Press, 1999. Web. Jstor.
Werness, Hope B. “The Modest Maiden in 19th-Century Art: Evolution of a Theme.” Woman's Art Journal 5.2 (1985)” 7-10. Web. Jstor.
