5-6 pages essay about naked body from the Renaissance to the present

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Sexism and racism in European Orientalist paintings of the 19th century

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Before we continue with this new material, we complete our discussion of the previous subject:

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Gender constructs of the Renaissance through the depiction of naked bodies:

Sexualizing heroic women, heroizing (sexually) violent men,

While the depiction of heroic women like Judith was in most cases distorted to uphold the patriarchal ideology of the time, ancient myths of sexual violence against women were frequently visualized from the Renaissance onwards, heroizing the assailant and reinforcing the perception of women as helpless, weak, and destined to be dominated. The sexual objectification of the women in such depictions was enhanced through their undue nakedness, not required by the narrative.

Palazzo Vecchio and Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, Italy (present). Statues added over time projected important political and socio-

cultural messages. Three sculptural groups present women as helpless rape victims.

Perseus and Medusa, Benvenuto Cellini, bronze, 128 inches with base, ca. 1554 (compared to Judith). In Ovid’s Metamorphoses (known in Renaissance Italy) Medusa is a rape survivor punished with a monstrou transformation and later decapitation! Gellini’s statue also sexualizes her, as a murdered rape victim!

“Rape of the Sabines”, Giambologna (Flemish), 1582.

Heroic young man abducts helpless woman and defeats older man.

Rape of Polyxena, Pio Fedi, 1866.

Greek hero kills Trojan man and

woman and abducts helpless Polyxena.

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Two marble statues by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Baroque master), commissioned by cardinal Scipione Borghese, now in the Borghes Gallery in Rome, Italy.

Hades and Persephone (Pluto and Proserpine),

1621-2, 89 in.

Apollo and Daphne, 1622-25,

96 in.

Hades and Persephone (Pluto and Proserpine), 1621-2, 89 in. The abducted niece is forced to marry her assailant uncle, despite the protests of her divine mother Demeter (Ceres).

Aestheticization of sexual violence...

Apollo and Daphne, 1622-25,

96 in.

The only way the nymph could avoid rape was to renounce her female nature and become a tree!

Even as a tree, Apollo possessed her: Daphne (Laurel) became his sacred plant.

Aestheticization of sexual violence...

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In his own life, the artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini was enabled by patriarchal ideology to behave like these heroized and entitled mythological men of power. (Righ: selfportrait of B., ca. 1623.)

When he discovered that his lover Constanza Bonarelli (wife of one of his assistants) also had an affair with Bernini’s brother, he almost killed him and paid a criminar to slice Constanza’s face. She was imprissoned and Bernini was married off to a wealthy aristocrat by pope Urban VIII!

Bust of Constanza by Bernini, ca. 1637.

Normalizing sexual violence against women by idealizing and aestheticizing depictions of rape has continued since the Renaissance. It is unfortunately prominent in contemporary popular culture, especially in advertisements for the fashion industry that glamorize violence against women….

21st c. fashion ad. Disturbing content and context. Besides viewers, who else is impacted?

2007 fashion ad. Disturbing content and

context… When the ad on the right was criticized as sexist, it was replaced by the one

below. Disturbing content and

context persisted…

The striking gender difference in clothing and body postures in the second ad still evokes sexual violence or at least rampant sexism… Protest involves: • criticism of such visual tropes

and their gender constructs, • boycott of relevant products • new social structures and

cultural values

Knowing the deep roots of sexism in the cultural production of the past is an important step towards change. Museums and other public institutions need to critically acknowledge the sexist content of much of the art they exhibit and diversify their holdings…

Palazzo Vecchio and Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, Italy (present). What meaningful interventions could we imagine in spaces like

these, to denounce the sexism of the existing sculptures?

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Sexism and racism in European Orientalist paintings of the 19th century

First, a look at basic trends in European visual culture from the 17th to the 19th c.

17th c. Western European art: “Baroque”

Caravaggio, 1603-4 Rubens, 1614 Bernini, 1621-2

An example of Baroque art: main altar of the Co-Cathedral of St. John, Malta

An example of Rococo (Late Baroque) art, 18th c.: interior of the Basilica of the Ottobeuren Abbey, Bavaria, Germany (1737-66)

An example of Rococo painting: Louise O’Murphy (“little mistress” of King Louis XV), François Boucher, 1752, oil on canvas, 23.23 x 28.74, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany.

An example of Rococo painting: Diana and Callisto, François Boucher, 1759, oil on canvas, 22.8 x 27.5 in., Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, USA.

An example of Neo-classical art (mid 18th -21st c.): interior of the Basilica of St. Louis, La Roche-sur-Yon, 1812/30, France (compared with Baroque and Rococo).

The Lincoln Memorial (1914-22), Washington DC, is a prime example of Neoclassicism.

Another example of Neoclassicism: George Washington, by Horatio Greenough, 1840, marble, 136 x 102 x 82.5 in,

National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C. Modeled on the statue of Zeus in Olympia (5th c. BC)

Moved around several times, because the American public found his attire ridiculous or even offensive…

An example of Neoclassical painting: Cupid and Psyche, Jacques-Louis David, 1817, oil on canvas, 72.5 x 95, Cleveland Museum of Art.

How are the traditional gender stereotypes of passive female versus active male visualized?

Neoclassicism was used by several well-established European painters of the 19th c. to depict scores of naked women:

mythical, historical, or imaginary characters (e.g. Orientalist paintings). Such images were usually very popular.

The Birth of Venus, Alexandre Cabanel, 1863, oil on canvas, 51 x 89 in, Orsay Museum, Paris, France (compared with the “Medici Venus”.

Is Cabanel’s Venus emancipated (because she is not hiding her nakedness)?

The naked body in 19th–c. Orientalist paintings of French artists (Gérôme and Ingres)

Note the difference in the following terms

Orientalist: about the “Orient”, as it is imagined by Europeans Oriental: of the “Orient” In both cases, the “Orient” is a reductive European construct that groups together diverse cultures of “otherness” (people of Asia but also Islamic North Africa and East Europe).

British and French colonies in 1885 Especially French Orientalism used the naked female body as a metaphor of the

colonized lands.

The Birth of Venus, Alexander Cabanel, 1863, oil on canvas, 51 x 89 in, Orsay

Museum, Paris, France.

Odalisque with Slave, Jean- Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1842, oil on canvas, 30 x 41.5 in., Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, USA. How does this painting add racism to its sexist message? European Orientalist painters created an imaginary “Orient” according to their Eurocentric and sexist male perspective. In their work, the “Orient” was reductively depicted as:

mysterious, exotic, backward, unchanged, uncivilized, decaying, decadent, deviant, sensual, languid, lazy, irrational, violent (in relation to men but potentially also women)…

Gustav Klimt, 1901 Franz Stuck, 1928 Paul-Albert Steck, 1885

Judith as an Oriental temptress/murderess

Moorish Bath, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1870, 20 x 16 in., oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts,

Boston.

The Bath, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1880-85, 29 x 23.5 in., oil on canvas, Legion of

Honor, San Francisco. The politics of sexism, racism, colonialism, and slave trade converged in such paintings.

Moorish Bath, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1870, 20 x 16 in., oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts,

Boston.

The Bath, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1880-85, 29 x 23.5 in., oil on canvas, Fine Arts

Museum, San Francisco. The politics of sexism, colonialism, racism and slave trade converged in such paintings.

Venus at her mirror, Rubens, 1614-15, oil on

panel, , 49 x 39 in., Princely Collections,

Liechtenstein.

Gérôme visited the Eastern Mediterranean several times, but his Orientalist paintings were still based on fantasy, not fact.

Which elements create the false impression of truthfulness?

The Turkish Bath, Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1559 (rectangular). 1862-3 (tondo), signed “at age 82”, oil on canvas, 43 in., Louvre Museum, Paris, France. Another sexist and racist male European fantasy. Lady Mary Montagu who visited such baths, described them very differently. She criticized male travelers to the East as writing “"trite observations… superficial…[of] boys [who] only remember where they met with the best wine or the prettiest women."

The Slave Market, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1866, 33.3 x 24.9 in., oil on canvas, Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, Williamstown, MA, USA.

Slavery or the abuse of women were presented as the barbarous custom of “other people”!

In 1848 France abolished slavery in its colonies but continued to exploit and oppress local populations.

European colonial violence was not represented in Orientalist paintings.

Gérôme repeatedly painted women as slaves (not men). Why?

The Purchase of a Slave, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1880?

Slave Market in Rome, Jean-Léon Gérôme, ca. 1884, oil on canvas,

37 x 30 in., Cincinnati Art Museum.

Another Slave Market in Rome painted by Jean-Léon Gérôme.

The Slave Market, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1871, 29.5 x 23.5 in., oil on

canvas, Cincinnati Art Museum.

The Slave for Sale, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1871, oil on canvas, 84.5 x 56 in., private

collection. Which visual elements emphasize racist

stereotypes?

Contemporary (19th c.) critic E. B. Shuldham wrote about the standing woman that there is honesty in her nakedness and that she is no mere chattel but “a dark, strong-limbed Eve… irrevocably doomed to dishonor.”

He wrote that the black woman, careless of her fate, squatting indifferently, represented a more primitive type on the evolutionary and moral scale (!?)

He added: “… a marvelous monkey… squats huddling by her side, from the terms of the sale almost an acknowledged equal, the monkey and the negress evidently going together as one lot.”

(WTF!!!!!!!???????)

The Dance of the almeh, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1863, oil on wood, 19.75 x 32 in., The Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio.

A male European fantasy.

Dancers in the Islamic world in the 19th c.:

Almeh = learned woman, master of her trade

Ghaziyah = female entertainers of the working classes.

Belly dance: term and costume are both a Western invention of the 19th c.

The Snake Charmer, Jean-Léon Gérôme, ca. 1879, 33 x 48 in., oil on canvas, Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, Williamstown, MA, USA.

The Snake Charmer, Jean-Léon Gérôme, ca. 1879, 33 x 48 in., oil on canvas, Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, Williamstown, MA, USA.

The Snake Charmer, Jean-Léon Gérôme, ca. 1879, 33 x 48 in.,

Clark Institute, Williamstown.

Lilith, John Collier, 1887, 77 x 42 inl, Atkison Art Gallery,

Southport, England

In Orientalist paintings, males

may also be depicted as

devious, demonic, and comparable to

women…

Another Snake Charmer by Jean- Léon Gérôme.

This male nakedness is not of the “heroic and rational type” evoked in European themes.

Compare Oedipus and the Sphinx, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres,

1808-27, oil on canvas, 75.5 x 57 in., Louvre, Paris.

Public Prayer in the Mosque of Amr, Cairo,

Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1870, 29.5 x 35 in.,

oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New

York.

The half-naked “holy fool” or beggar is another non-heroic naked male.

In European eyes, nakedness in other cultures (imagined or practiced) was synonymous with primitive and savage life, lack of morality and civility.

That was a racist and colonial ideology that operated on double standards:

The nakedness of figures in European “high art” was not considered problematic as long as it followed a certain moral code (applicable to “European” figures):

The submissive female (without a vulva) and the heroic or at least active/superior male (preferably with covered genitals)!

Cupid and Psyche, Jacques-Louis David, 1817

“Oriental” women might be depicted with a visible vulva that becomes a sign of their presumably “wild

and uncivilized” sexuality. The Slave for Sale, Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1871

The nakedness of figures in European “high art” was not considered problematic as long as it followed a certain moral code (applicable to “European” figures):

The submissive female (without a vulva) and the heroic or at least active/superior male (preferably with covered genitals)!

Cupid and Psyche, Jacques-Louis David, 1817

Contrary to “European” men, “Oriental” men’s nakedness was portrayed as

“devious” rather than heroic. The Snake Charmer, Jean-Léon Gérôme, ca. 1879

When did European artists start to cover male genitals despite their initial uncovering during the early Renaissance?

Cupid and Psyche, Jacques-Louis David, 1817

Last Judgment, Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel, altar wall, 1534- 41. Naked bodies and especially male genitals and bottoms were censored in 1565 by Daniele da Volterra (“the breeches-maker”). This was an early example of Counter- Reformational visual politics (Council of Trent, 1545-63) During recent restorations (1980-94) half of the “breeches” were removed. The rest were left as examples of the censorship.

Lower half of the Last Judgment. Remaining

“breeches” are of a darker color

In earlier Renaissance art (e.g. David by Michelangelo, 1504), male genitals were not hidden, following ancient examples. During the 16th c., the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic Counter- Reformation called for Christian modesty and decorum, leading to the tendency to hide male genitals in art (e.g. Hades by Bernini, 1622). Female genitals were usually hidden from the begining: Either because women were depicted without a vulva, or because they themselves were portrayed in the act of hidding their genitals, or both!

From antiquity to the Renaissance, gender inequalities persisted (with censored female genitals), but eventually Christian modesty also censored the male genitals. Uncensored female genitals were usually a sign of destructive female sexuality (e.g. Judith’s depictions condemning “The power of women”)

Orientalist paintings mostly continued this trend, focusing on female bodies. Compare The Slave Market (1866), and Slave for Sale (1871), by Jean-Léon Gérôme Left, woman without a vulva is depicted as more submissive. Right, woman with a vulva or at least some indication of pubic hair is depicted as more wild, shameless, and by extension promiscuous…

Orientalist paintings mostly continued this trend, focusing on female bodies. Compare The Slave Market (1866), and Slave for Sale (1871), by Jean-Léon Gérôme All these identity constructs are both sexist and racist, reflecting and promoting Eurocentric and colonial ideologies that had a devastating effect on the lives of people of color and especially women of color.

An example of this devastation is the tragic life of a South-African Khoikhoi (Khoisan) woman who was enslaved by the Dutch and was named Sarah

(Saartje) Baartman (1789?-1815). Between 1810-15 she suffered the racist and sexist horror of being exhibited in England, Ireland, and France as a “freak attraction”. In 1814 she was sold to a

French animal trainer who exhibited her in Paris. Baartman was lured and coerced into this horrific treatment by the false

promise of freedom and wealth (which she never got). Towards the end of her short life she possibly suffered from alcoholism and

had to prostitute herself to survive. She died penniless and sick in Paris. Numerous European engravings depict Baartman, but rarely as an individual.

Usually she is offensively caricatured, with exaggerated bodily proportions.

Baartman was paraded as a curiosity of nature and as the lost link between animals and humans. She was examined by doctors and scientists who often asked her to remove all her clothing (but she refused to remove her apron). She was often caricatured because of her steatopygia (accumulation of fatty

tissue in the buttocks) and was reputed to have an enlarged labia (presumed to be an indication of her uncivilized sexuality).

In what ways is this caricature of “The Three Graces”, with a very short woman, Baartman, and an albino woman, reproducing

racist (and sexist) ideologies of the time?

Baartman was called the “Black Venus” or “Hottentot Venus” (Hottentot being the word the Dutch used for Khoikhoi people). Why was that nickname racist (considering European attitudes

towards Venus and Baartman respectively)?

Venus of Melos, 2nd c. BC

“Venus of Willendorf” 28-25,000 BC

Male scholars of the 19th-early 20th c. who named Paleolithic female figurines “Venus” probably had in mind Baartman as “Venus Hottentot”. Why was the association of the Paleolithic “Venus” figurines to Baartman

also a racist act? Baartman’s abusive treatment continued after her death (trigger warning)

Venus of Melos, 2nd c. BC

Baartman

Baartman’s skeleton, brain, genital organs, and body cast were exhibited at the Natural History Museum in Angers, later in the Museum of Humankind, Paris,

France, until 1974/76, when they were removed from display. Nelson Mandela asked for her repatriation in 1994. Her remains were returned

and buried in South Africa in 2002. She is a national hero in her country. Objections raised by director and assistant curator of the Museum of Humankind:

Baartman would be “safer” and better preserved and “cherished in the home of liberty, fraternity and equality, than in South Africa”.

“We never know what science will be able to tell us in the future. If she is buried, this chance will be lost ... for us she remains a very important treasure."

WTF???!!!

On August 9th 2002 (South Africa’s Women’s Day), Baartman was buried in her homeland.

Already in 1999, the Saartjie Baartman Center for Women and Children, a refuge for survivors of domestic violence, opened in Cape Town.

In 2005 the first offshore environmental protection vessel of South African was also named Sarah Baartman.

On December 8th 2018 the University of Cape Town (the most prestigious higher education institution in the continent) renamed its Memorial Hall to

Sarah Baartman Hall. Another moving tribute to Baartman (which also contributed to her

repatriation) is the 1998 poem “I’ve come to take you home”, by South African poet Diana Ferrus. See her recite the poem here, with mention of native plants.

Baartman has inspired feminist black artists like photographer Renée Cox, who posed in the photo “Hottentot Venus” (1993-94). In an interview, Cox said: “I was horrified when I first read about her and found out she was taken to Europe and toured around like a specimen, as if to justify colonization. I’m

certainly not ashamed of her; that’s how some of our people look.” In her work, Cox redefines black female identity in terms of beauty, sexuality, power, agency, and visibility. To create this photo, she used plastic body parts she found at a costume store. What do you think is Cox’s message here and what visual elements of the photo convey it? *Racism stereotypes black women today as it did back then (white cord holds body parts in place). *Cox recuperates Baartman’s dignity and identifies with her as a women of beauty and strength (looks proudly at the viewer).

We have seen pervasive racism in depictions of naked women of color, both in Orientalist paintings and in caricatures related to popular spectacles.

In the following examples, racism is still present even in images that have a pretense of equality or are celebrated as challenging social norms.

The Two Pearls, Fernand Le Quesne (French), 1889.

The title suggests the two women are equals, but do the visual elements of the painting really support this notion?

Olympia, by Edouard Manet (French), 1863, oil on canvas, 51.4 x 74.8 in., Orsay Museum, Paris. Celebrated as: founding work of Impressionism; challenging social conventions.

Yet this remains a rather conventional work in terms of its sexist and racist content. It is based on another conventional work, Titian’s Venus of Urbino.

Renée Cox replied to Manet with Olympia’s Boyz, 2001, digital print

mounted on aluminum, 48x60 in. The Boyz are her two sons. What do you think is her message here and what

visual elements of the photo convey it?

The complex and empowered identity of a black woman,

flipping the script of racist and sexist stereotypes:

beauty, sexuality, motherhood,

queenship, proud African descent…

Cox speaks of her work as an act of self-love

and healing necessary for all black people.

Next week we will examine many more contemporary works by black feminist artists who “flip the script”

Here I introduce just one example by Afro-Cuban and American artists Harmonia Rosales.

Madonna and Child, Paolo di Giovanni Fei, 1370s, tempera and gold leaf on wood, 34.25 x

23.25 (with frame), Metropolitan, NY.

The Virgin, Harmonia Rosales, 2017, oil on canvas.

I made her young and she's not as serene because right now she has to grow up. It's hard work, but it's all about passing along the knowledge. It's about raising another queen."

Rosales says: "So this is after, of course, the Virgin Mary. But it has a whole different meaning of being a single mother.”

Rosales and Cox introduce black women of power and authority into Christian iconography, reversing the established sexist and racist trends of a religion with an exclusively male God always depicted as a white man. Here the black Virgin’s baby is also female (not the male Christ Child). “It is about raising another queen.” More examples

next week!