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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNudity, Art and Scandal in Paris! “Olympia” by Edouard Manet
Good artists copy. Great artists steal
---Pablo Picasso
Olympia. 1863. Musee dOrsay. Paris.
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What is it about this bare naked lady that drove Parisians to near riot in 1865? Its not like they hadnt been exposed to naked females in art before. Certainly, Paris with its sophistication and love of artistic expression would seem to be an unlikely place for such hysterical fits.
But fits they were! The works showing at the Musee dOrsay was greeted with outrage, catcalls, derision by art critics and hurled insults such as yellow-bellied Odalisque and female gorilla. Armed guards were placed next to it out of fears that it might be damaged or destroyed and it was placed high up, out of the reach of gentlemens canes.
The press delighted in piling on, publishing caricature cartoons such as this
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Olympia was a different kind of nude in art to Parisians of that time. Her slightly jaundiced skin was a shock to the senses of a populace that was used to seeing the female nude presented in creamy white toned skin and certainly without the hint of hair under her arm, as Manet does.
No, the difference was that Manet had painted a nude that was not idealized or allegorical. Furthermore, she is unabashed about her nudity, and her pose and gaze suggests that she was available only on her own terms. And she is presented frankly, as a prostitute or a mistress who is daringly lying in bed to have sex. Perhaps the real scandal here was that she was turning the male gaze on its head. In fact, she is looking directly at the viewer, unusual for women subjects except in portraits of a queen or other powerful women, such as a duchess.
To heighten the senses further, she is pictured languidly touching the silken shawl she lies upon. She is strategically adorned with a thin black ribbon around her neck, a bracelet on her arm, an exotic flower in her hair, earrings, and one slipper -- has she kicked off the other just to entice the viewer with her abandon even more?
Manet fully intended this painting to be his own version of Titians Venus of Urbino. Art historian Bruce Cole points out that Titian was a lodestar for painters of Manets day. In his book Titian and Venetian Painting, 1450-1590, Cole writes of Manet visiting Florence and painting a copy of the masterpiece while he was there.
1538. Galleria degli Uffizi. Florence
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(Note Venuss slightly tucked chin compared to Olympias steady, confident chin.)
Its predecessor was by Giorgione in 1510 (and finished by Titian)
Sleeping Venus. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister. Dresden
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Titians Venus, commissioned by the Duke of Urbino, was perhaps an instructional for the Dukes new16 year old wife. Its eroticism was intended for private display and remained the the Dukes family until 1637. It was placed in the Uffizi in 1736, but discreetly covered to keep it out of prurient view, given the subjects materiality and sensuality.
Mark Twain managed to find and see it there in 1880. He described it as the foulest, the vilest, the obscenest (sic) picture the world possesses and complained about the attitude of her arm and hand. In fact, that attitude in all three of these paintings is a gesture well known by art historians as the venus pudica, which describes the covering of the womans pubis with her hand and goes back to ancient Greek sculpture and Renaissance masterpieces.
The Birth of Venus. Sandro Botticelli. c.1486. Uffizi. Florence.
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No such gesture was required of male nudes, however.
It is helpful, as always, to know the historical context in terms of the social issues at the time Olympia was exhibited. Rampant prostitution (with the resulting spread of syphilis) in Paris was regarded as a very serious social problem. The service was initially intended for young, unmarried agricultural workers who had started to work in Paris, and it quickly became uncontrolled. The courtesans in the highest level of society were considered particularly subversive as their increasing power to make their own transactions was seen to corrupt and subvert money and therefore the new capitalism of the early 1800s. The new bourgeousie were sexually repressed, very much for political and economic reasons.
Manet had to know that he was painting at the edges of political correctness of his day, even though he was a reluctant rebel, saying that he just painted what he saw. Perhaps so, but even his dramatic use of black and light accentuates the pictures radical intensity. The black woman looms in darkness, bringing a brightly lit bouquet of flowers (implying a gift from a client but ignored by Olympia herself) to the luxuriant white pillowed bed. The black cat (replacing the little dog, symbolizing marital fidelity, at the feet of Titians Venus) arches its back with its tail in air, another defiant sexual connotation in the painting.
Manet also had to know that he was defying social norms by painting this work, and then by exhibiting it in the Paris Salon two years later. But he may not have realized that the critics and the public simply were not able to take it in stride and cope with it, in terms of analysis or understanding what they were dealing with. Perhaps they, and Manet himself, just did not know what to say in the aftermath.
NOTE: an added ironic twist to this story is that Manets model, Victorine Meurent, was no courtesan but was herself an artist and musician. Titians model, on the other hand, was.
These two paintings were exhibited together in 2005 at the Doges Palace in Venice. It had fulfilled a dream of art historians to see them side by side and, since Italian regulations prohibit the Venus of Urbino from leaving the country, Manets work had to go to Italy.
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CaliforniaPeggy
(149,719 posts)I always enjoy reading your posts on these works of art. And what works they are!
Thank you for furthering my education.
K&R
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)It's fascinating...totally useless in practical terms unless one was teaching, but it is fun to do the research....
1monster
(11,012 posts)Last edited Fri Jul 24, 2015, 10:13 PM - Edit history (1)
others if the subject happens to come up on Jeopardy one evening.
Of the two, Titian's is more lush, but I prefer the directness of Manet's. Titian's Venus strikes me as sly but I'm not sure why.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)I am particularly fascinated by it. Why is it "passed down" from artist to artist? What happens to make each one different?
My guess with Titian is that he is reflecting his own era's hypocrisy, much as Manet is doing...
NV Whino
(20,886 posts)Wonderful to see those two great paintings together.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,426 posts)Thanks for the thread, CTyankee.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,426 posts)and I appreciate what you bring to D.U.
Warpy
(111,358 posts)because she was so very ordinary, someone wives would have seen in a dressmaker's shop and men would have seen bringing their food and wine to the table at their favorite cafe. She was like the difference between Playboy and Penthouse, the former airbrushed into perfect vinyl and the latter shown with moles and hair.
Also, Manet didn't call her Venus or a wood nymph or any of the other terms classical artists were using for their naked women. She is who she is, ordinary, approachable and available and that is what the people of the day found so threatening. She was someone the average middle class husband could actually get, threatening the sanctity of the home and his peace of mind, mistresses requiring maintenance.
Now, of course, the picture looks pretty tame to us. It's easy to see why Manet caused riots in his own time. He dared to rub people's noses in reality instead of assuaging their fragile nerves with the unattainable perfection of the mythical being.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)she totally upset the "male gaze."
Warpy
(111,358 posts)that she's still bound in some way.
I've always loved the woman on the right, baby in arms, looking somewhat reproachful. She seems to be warning the woman about the eventual outcome of all that fooling around.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Warpy
(111,358 posts)but it's always looked to me like a baby in a flowered wrap. I think Manet probably meant it to be ambiguous, the black area is anatomically impossible to be a part of the figure but is absolutely correct to be an infant's head.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)see your point and it could make some sense...
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)You say that "the black area is anatomically impossible to be a part of the figure...." To me it looks like her right hand. Her index, middle, and ring fingers are together, but her little finger is slightly separated from her ring finger. That separation explains the strip of white (where we see the paper or cloth that wraps the flowers).
If the dark area is an infant's head, how did that white strip get there?
Also, when I enlarge the image and look closely, it seems to me that the dark area is slightly lighter toward our right. If it's the woman's right hand, that part is the fingernails, which would be lighter than the rest.
flamingdem
(39,328 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)So informative. And so beautiful.
Thanks, my friend.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)I love how art can make people a little crazy...
Hydra
(14,459 posts)Giving excellent insight into the evolution of this part of our social system.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)almost as if there is a sixth sense that the artist has of his/her time to present something that is different...and new way of looking at the world...
Hydra
(14,459 posts)And while they don't always successfully attack the status quo, you can bet that whenever some change was in the air or needed to be, someone was there hinting at or flatly throwing it out there in their art form.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)eppur_se_muova
(36,299 posts)He proposed that "it was painted for a bagnio, and it was probably refused because it was a trifle too strong", adding humorously that "in truth, it is a trifle too strong for any place but a public art gallery".
Twain writes:
If I ventured to describe that attitude there would be a fine howl but there the Venus lies for anybody to gloat over that wants to and there she has a right to lie, for she is a work of art, and art has its privileges. I saw a young girl stealing furtive glances at her; I saw young men gazing long and absorbedly at her, I saw aged infirm men hang upon her charms with a pathetic interest. How I should like to describe her just to see what a holy indignation I could stir up in the world yet the world is willing to let its sons and its daughters and itself look at Titians beast, but wont stand a description of it in words.
Twain is making the rather astute observation that a written description of such a scene a woman touching herself would prompt horror and discomfort, and probably cause the author to be run out of town. But a visual depiction which carries beautiful, decorative qualities of technique and composition along with the scene makes a sexy, lascivious painting tolerable, even acceptable, for it is still a glorious, timeless expression of nudity and sexuality despite pushing the boundaries of social mores. It is still celebrated, still embraced. Twain believes that he would never get away with it if he described it in writing and that painters are given more latitude. I think he has a point, dont you? Processing words is a different mental exercise than processing images. Could it be that one of them makes us squirm more than the other?
https://artmodel.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/mark-twain-looks-at-titians-venu/
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)our republic, we rejected fine art as "decadent." I see that Twain was trying to break that with what you have revealed. But he said what he said so there is that...
elleng
(131,140 posts)MERCI!
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)stuffmatters
(2,574 posts)Are definitely ignorance descendants of this form of intolerance towards the reality of women and universal sexuality.
pnwmom
(108,995 posts)even more than German and Jane Austen.
longship
(40,416 posts)A Clemens quote upon his leaving the NY Met on a performance of a Wagner opera. He certainly did not like Wagner.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)longship
(40,416 posts)I have tried to post this response three times, but every time I click to a different tab to look something up, my entry and all the text and links disappear.
What I have tried to post is that I love Puccini. Two of the greatest opera recordings ever made were Puccini.
1. La Boheme - Sir Thomas Beecham conducting. With Jussi Björling and Victoria del Los Angeles. A cast, conductor, and orchestra that was put together at last notice. An amazing performance, certainly the best of this work ever recorded.
2. Tosca - Victor di Sabata conducting. With Callas and Gobbi, it is an incredible performance with Maria Callas in top form. Again, the top of the top.
3. Bach, Goldberg Variations, Glenn Gould, 1955. I can listen to this over and over again. The virtuosity and interpretation says that even old Bach would be astounded.
And Mozart? Try Giulini conducting his operas. I recommend Le Nozze di Figaro with Schwarzkoph and Moffo.
If Safari did not utterly suck, I would have links to performances. Just Google Tosca di Sabata and La Böheme Beecham and you'll get them.
BTW, I also love Solti's Wagner's Ring cycle, recorded in the late fifties to sixties. All 19 CDs of it!
My thing is audio arts, your is visual. Somehow we seem to be meeting between. That's good.
Sorry for all the edits. As I said Safari utterly sucks.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)so beautiful...Mozart and his wonderful trouser roles "voi che sapete" is a wonder...but my husband was the music major and not me...I' have had to learn all this from him and have enjoyed it immensely...
longship
(40,416 posts)Breaks my heart every time. On the other hand, you ought to hear her sing "This is Tosca's kiss" and "Oh Scarpia! Avanti a dio!" As she plunges into the Tiber.
Beacool
(30,253 posts)but neither one had the best instrument and lost their voices before their time. Personally, I prefer the Tosca of her biggest rival, Renata Tebaldi and Montserrat Caballe.
Here's an interesting video of Montserrat talking about Maria, they were friends. It's in Spanish with English subtitles.
Montserrat's full version of the aria. Notice her fantastic breath control and the beauty of her voice. Brava!!!
Renata Tebaldi's version. Callas' biggest rival, although Tebaldi mostly ignored her. She had a magnificent instrument, but when she was not singing she was happy being home with her husband and children. Callas loved to create drama, Tebaldi did not.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)His house is there, altho it was closed for renovation and repair the very day I visited.
Lucca is a lovely walled town near Florence. No cars allowed within the walls and folks just get around on foot or bikes...they even have their very own golden pasta...
longship
(40,416 posts)With Carlo Maria Giulini's wonderfully understated orchestral underpinnings. My favorite Le Nozze. Cossotto, playing a character who appears prominently in all the acts, is more important to the comedy than some of the majors. I have seen Von Stada play this role at the Met. But Cossotto nails this one.
And her version of the first act aria, "Non so piu cosa son"
And yes, Cherubino is a pants role, where a mezzo-soprano plays an over-sexed adolescent boy. And in Le Nozze, boy is Cherubino over-sexed. That is why it is such an important role in this comedic farce and why many focus on this performance in this opera. The brat is everywhere!
Beacool
(30,253 posts)Another wonderful singer and one of the best mezzos of her generation.
Beacool
(30,253 posts)People who are dipping their toes in the operatic world tend to prefer lighter fare like bel canto. I like Puccini a lot, but my favorite Italian opera composer is the unsurpassed Giuseppe Verdi. The list of his works is extensive: Aida, Otello, La Traviata, Nabucco, Rigoletto, Un Ballo in Maschera, Ernani, Macbeth and more. All these works are the bread and butter of most opera houses. Along with Bizet's Carmen, Puccini's operas and a few of Rossini's works (Barber of Seville, La Cenerentola and L'italiani in Algeri come to mind).
longship
(40,416 posts)Or as I wrote above when Samuel Clemens was quoted upon leaving the NY Met Opera House after a Wagner opus. "Wagner's music isn't as bad as it sounds."
Myself, I love Wagner's Ring. Especially the old recordings. Solti's is the best, IMHO.
When it comes to music, ones taste is within ones mouth.
I am a huge fan of 50's classical recordings. And of the di Sabata/Callas Tosca. Some may have done Tosca better, but there are few who had both Callas and Tito Gobbi as Scarpia.
Here's the deal. It is not about one individual performance, but how the ensemble works as a whole. There have been many Toscas, and quite a few have been better than Callas. However, her 1953 recording with de Sabata has the distinction of being one of the greatest of the opus because of the cast, orchestra, and conductor just simply work together.
It's like Giulini's Don Giovanni or Beecham's La Böheme with Jussi Björling and Victoria de Los Angeles.
Sometimes forces of nature come together to make a perfect storm.
One can pick at the edges but nobody can credibly claim that the whole is diminished in these iconic recordings.
Try Glenn Gould's 1955 Goldberg Variations, another iconic recording, just like Callas' Tosca, de Los Angeles and Björling's La Böheme. And like Solti's Ring cycle. And like Barbirolli's Elgar Cello concerto (with Jacqueline duPre) and Mahler Fifth.
There are many iconic recordings, performances which go far beyond individual performances but have a ensemble which just works well for a particular work or composer. My list of such things is quite long and goes back decades.
None is perfect. All one requires with music, or any art, is that one is moved by it. And one chooses their favorites.
My best to you.
Beacool
(30,253 posts)Wagner is an acquired taste and IMO not for people who are not familiar with opera and just started dabbling in the genre. I used to take friends to the Metropolitan Opera who had never been to see one. I always made sure that I picked something Italian (unless Carmen was plying that season). I had success with my friends because every person that I took ended liking the opera and agreed to go back and see another one.
longship
(40,416 posts)It is a fairly simple story. The music is fantastic. It is not too long. The basic plot is easy to understand -- the opera is over when the last character dies.
Beacool
(30,253 posts)I LOVE Tosca. It's my favorite Puccini opera.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)we were regular subscribers. When I was growing up in Dallas, my aunt took me to operas when they visited. She would have her libretto and follow the opera along. I will always remember those libretti,they were rather elegant...Oh, and I had "opera length gloves" to wear also! Does anybody still remember those gloves?
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51-Van04%2BVL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
Beacool
(30,253 posts)I was too young for the opera length gloves, but my mom and aunts would wear them if it was a gala event. People used to dress a lot more to go see an opera than they do now. In summer, I've seen people in shorts attending a matinee performance.
nolabear
(41,991 posts)As my art history prof said, "Manet didn't paint nudes, he painted nakeds." His subjects, (Victorine Meurant was a favorite and a great painter in her own right) looked frankly at the observer, daring to be people rather than objects. Dejeuner sur L'Herbe was my absolute favorite painting for years. It turned objectification on its ear.
Thanks for the post! Made my afternoon.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)It's a wonderful painting, that's for sure...
I have always felt that Manet was overshadowed by Monet unfairly. I want to see that rectified...hence this post...
nolabear
(41,991 posts)The deep blacks and shadows...even that little barmaid doesn't have a fluffy bone in her body.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)he "gets" so much of his "zeitgeist."
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)Beacool
(30,253 posts)It's a large work and it's impacting. Olympia is looking straight at the viewer. Renaissance nudes of women were mostly allegorical and represented either the Madonna or Greek goddesses. Olympia is a real woman, looking straight at her lover. She's not afraid of her femininity and the effect that it has on men. She owns her sexuality. That in itself was scandalous in an era where men had mistresses, but decent women were expected to be virginal until marriage. Even then, moral women were not supposed to enjoy sex.
Actually, the painting that really shocked Paris was Gustave Courbet's "Origin of the World", painted in 1866.
Anyone who has the opportunity to go to Paris should visit the Musee dOrsay. IMO, it holds more interest than the Louvre. You'll get to see all the paintings that you had to study in school, plus a lot more. I also love the building, it's a former railroad station.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)fabulous back story on this...Courbet's model, Joanne Hiffernan, was James McNeill Whistler's lover at the time. When Whistler saw this painting he never spoke to Courbet again...uh oh...
Beacool
(30,253 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Hekate
(90,829 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)now for two upcoming essays. That process is actually fun for me...
CrawlingChaos
(1,893 posts)You did an amazing job of shedding light on Olympia and what makes her so important. Thank you CTYankee - I love all your art posts!
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)edhopper
(33,623 posts)I personally find the Manet less sexually provocative than the Titian or Botticelli to my modern sensibilities.
Recently viewing Sargent's Madame X again, it is strange to see what made public scandals in times past, Khardashians not withstanding.
Artistically, Manet, though thought of as the Father of Impressionism, is much closer in style to the Academic painters of the day than Monet, Renoir, Degas etc... or even Turner for that matter.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)she is not classically proportioned. And, of course, she is pretty much emphatically saying she's not terribly interested in "engaging" with the viewer...
I almost included La Maja Desnuda by Goya with this grouping but have decided to make that an essay all its own in the future.
Manet kinda fascinates me. Maybe it has to do with him being on the cusp of old and new...
edhopper
(33,623 posts)and that is the big difference between this and the classical paintings. I was referring to his painting technique alone.
His subject matter was also a jump from the academics of his time. And he got more impressionistic in other paintings.
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CTyankee
(63,912 posts)the one with the brioche is after a Chardin of the same image...
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,847 posts)CTyankee
(63,912 posts)Hekate
(90,829 posts)Manet's lays her open hand along her thigh, and the others (Titian and Giorgione) cup their fingers into the outer folds of the pubic delta itself. I find the latter much more overtly sexual -- everything says, "I'm here, I'm available to you".
Manet's Olympia, in addition to her direct and challenging gaze, places her hand in a guarding position. The onlooker cannot see that which she guards and he desires -- until she is willing. Above all, that may have been the social norm Manet was transgressing.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)ismnotwasm
(42,014 posts)Thank you
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)what a portrayal of a strong willed woman!
and isn't it funny that the David doesn't have his hand slapped over his genitals? I can't figure that whole thing out...as Mr. Rogers said "Some are fancy on the inside some are fancy on the outside."
11 Bravo
(23,926 posts)I dare you.
Don't get me wrong, I absolute enjoy and appreciate your knowledge of, and appreciation for, fine art..
But female nudity has apparently become doublelusungood, and context be damned.
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)I will tell you this: if I got disrespected for putting up female nude art, it would be my last art thread on DU and I would look for another place to do them. I put too much time and effort into crafting these essays and I enjoy doing them...but if they aren't appreciated, well, time for me to go elsewhere for them. I can still come here for political commentary and probably still would.
So I agree with you but I also agree with Skinner when he bows to the jury system here. He is basically saying the same thing as I just said. DU is what its members say it is. What I or you or anybody else does about it is also our prerogative and I have just stated mine.
11 Bravo
(23,926 posts)In any case, I pray that the possible push-back to which you alluded never occurs. Your posts are always scholarly, well-written, and respectful. Their absence would be regrettable.
(Hell, I am an artistic naif, but one of my most gleeful moments on this forum came when I was the first to be able to successfully identify Monte Cassino in one of your splendid "what is this" posts.)
CTyankee
(63,912 posts)And as for art, I'm not even doing much in the way of nudes right now anyway (not because of any controversy over nudity, just the way my research goes). I thank you for your kind remarks and hope you return for my future offerings...one of the things that terrifies me is when I am unsure about the religious paintings since I have no religion and have had to depend on the kindness of strangers to help me understand all the "players" in the prodigious supply of religion related works in western art.
But, if my research is correct, art always makes SOMEBODY mad! Just you wait and see...
ismnotwasm
(42,014 posts)My "thing" lately has been street art, my city is fairly poor in it, but I follow blogs that show the most incredible street art all over the world--I'm sure not everybody is excited about some of it