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Manet’s Olympia of 1863 famously refers back to Titian’s painting of three hundred years earlier, his Venus of Urbino.
In the Titian a young woman, naked, reclines on a bed. Half rising she is supported by her right arm, on which she wears a bracelet. Her left arm extends the length of her upper body, the hand resting gently on, and covering her vulva. A dog sleeps at her feet. Two women are in the room beyond, busying themselves with clothes.
The strength of the gaze of the young woman has been much remarked on. Indeed it is the focus of the work. The more you, the spectator, look at it the more the eye is drawn along the languid body to her face - and her eyes.
Contrast this with a standard soft porn image of a naked young woman. Here the spectator’s gaze rests on the body alone, as the source of the vicarious pleasure that it stimulates. In the Playboy girl the eyes are empty. They do not look back at you - or if they do it's in that conventional 'come hither' leer that pretends to allure. Indeed they have to be that way, for if they weren’t, you, the spectator, would have to look back at her, and recognise her not as the instrumental sexual object of your voyeuristic pleasure, but as a person. The Playboy girl can’t look back at you, as that would challenge your all devouring gaze.
Venus’s gaze, though, is offered as a lover’s, and only to the lover. Her gaze and her face make the look personal. Her serenity is the security offered by the lover’s gaze that goes back to her. We see her body, but experience her soul.
Query. I’m not sure if her languorous gaze is one of welcome to the lover who has just entered. The left hand brushing her vulva is a gesture of modesty. Is this gesture and her gaze part of a look of erotic invitation, the offering of herself as a person, transfigured by the erotic gaze of the lover? Does the sleeping dog – fidelity disarmed – suggest illicit love?
Or is it a look of parting, to the lover who has just left her bed, on which she still lies, fulfilled after their night of love. Her gaze is the look of satisfied love, and she is transfigured by the love they have made. It is early, the dog is still asleep, the maidservants are getting ready her clothes for the day.
I think I prefer the second interpretation.
Manet’s take on this has no such ambiguity. Once more the gaze is all. But it is the hard, unsentimental, mercenary gaze of a woman of the world. Here it is the client, not a lover, who has entered. The flowers he has brought, offered by the black maidservant are barely acknowledged. She’s contemptuous of gifts, and of the semblance of personal sentiment their offering implies.
She is naked, but in a different way. Olympia’s nakedness is not that of the lover, but of one of one stripped of her clothes in preparation for the service to be negotiated. Clothes are emphasised by their absence, and by the fragments of them that remain – the string around her neck, the shoes still on her feet. Her left hand covers her sex, but there is no sense of sensuous caress, of a lover’s offering. Its palm is flat down on her upper thigh, its gesture one of resistance.
Money, not love, will release it.
In the Titian a young woman, naked, reclines on a bed. Half rising she is supported by her right arm, on which she wears a bracelet. Her left arm extends the length of her upper body, the hand resting gently on, and covering her vulva. A dog sleeps at her feet. Two women are in the room beyond, busying themselves with clothes.
The strength of the gaze of the young woman has been much remarked on. Indeed it is the focus of the work. The more you, the spectator, look at it the more the eye is drawn along the languid body to her face - and her eyes.
Contrast this with a standard soft porn image of a naked young woman. Here the spectator’s gaze rests on the body alone, as the source of the vicarious pleasure that it stimulates. In the Playboy girl the eyes are empty. They do not look back at you - or if they do it's in that conventional 'come hither' leer that pretends to allure. Indeed they have to be that way, for if they weren’t, you, the spectator, would have to look back at her, and recognise her not as the instrumental sexual object of your voyeuristic pleasure, but as a person. The Playboy girl can’t look back at you, as that would challenge your all devouring gaze.Venus’s gaze, though, is offered as a lover’s, and only to the lover. Her gaze and her face make the look personal. Her serenity is the security offered by the lover’s gaze that goes back to her. We see her body, but experience her soul.
Query. I’m not sure if her languorous gaze is one of welcome to the lover who has just entered. The left hand brushing her vulva is a gesture of modesty. Is this gesture and her gaze part of a look of erotic invitation, the offering of herself as a person, transfigured by the erotic gaze of the lover? Does the sleeping dog – fidelity disarmed – suggest illicit love?
Or is it a look of parting, to the lover who has just left her bed, on which she still lies, fulfilled after their night of love. Her gaze is the look of satisfied love, and she is transfigured by the love they have made. It is early, the dog is still asleep, the maidservants are getting ready her clothes for the day.
I think I prefer the second interpretation.
Manet’s take on this has no such ambiguity. Once more the gaze is all. But it is the hard, unsentimental, mercenary gaze of a woman of the world. Here it is the client, not a lover, who has entered. The flowers he has brought, offered by the black maidservant are barely acknowledged. She’s contemptuous of gifts, and of the semblance of personal sentiment their offering implies.She is naked, but in a different way. Olympia’s nakedness is not that of the lover, but of one of one stripped of her clothes in preparation for the service to be negotiated. Clothes are emphasised by their absence, and by the fragments of them that remain – the string around her neck, the shoes still on her feet. Her left hand covers her sex, but there is no sense of sensuous caress, of a lover’s offering. Its palm is flat down on her upper thigh, its gesture one of resistance.
Money, not love, will release it.
12 comments:
The gaze of the woman in Titan's Masterpiece seems to elicit a bemused 'and then what?' attitude. The sleeping dog puts a nail in it. As far as modern porn, They've yet to get a clue as to what is erotic and arousing.
~HawkPunk~
Hawkpunk - Thanks for your comment. Of course the animal in Manet's Olympia is a cat, which carries a more sexually promiscuous symbolism than Titian's sleeping dog. You're right about porn - more than that, I don't think porn can do eroticism, by definition almost. The truly erotic focuses on the truly personal (this woman, in this body, who has these charms). Porn denies the person - which is why the gaze is empty.
Regards
OF
The Titian painting is indeed more alluring.
Perhaps you will prompt a new genre of porn where young women pose in Titian tableaus with a modern twist OF!
But no, I can't imagine it is that easy to get worked up over someone with dead eyes trying to interest one with a false leer, rather than a look of genuine longing or gratitude!
Laura - You're a woman. Men don't work the same way. The vacant look is essential to the pornographic image. If not, it won't work as pornography. Porn depends upon the woman not being real, but a fantasy. A look of genuine longing requires a person, someone real, not fantasy. It works if you love and desire her, that individual. That's what makes it genuine - which porn can never be.
Best wishes
OF
I wonder whether these aren't rather modern interpretations. I think that both paintings, even if they are about sex (as in having it) are more than anything about art and economics. Titian lived in a world in which art was made for very rich people. I suppose he painted what they liked, and what he liked as well. What this says about women, beyond how they look, I don't know. Manet was rebelling against the prevailing salon view of what art should be, and I think he was saying, this is a painting, and she is a paid model. Painting is not necessarily about what is pretty. I have gone on too long. Great and thought provoling post. Thanks.
20th Century Woman - Yes. You're right. These are (my) modern interpretations. I'm not trying to do art history. The interesting thing is the extent to which a historic work can carry one. At the moment the future of the UK government is being discussed in Shakespearean analogies - Macbeth, Hamlet and King Lear - showing how powerful and contemporary historic works can be.
Regards
OF
so i ran across your blog, and i'm so glad i did. i love art, am impressed by it, but don't know much about it....i completely enjoy your intelligence and insight on the matter...
Jenny - Thank you for reading this and commenting upon it. In the matter of good art I'm not sure there is ever a complete understanding of it - there's always a mystery that eludes us. You've just got to try - and trust your instincts.
Regards
OF
I'm in love with the ordinary in art, OF. The scaffolding of lives if you will whether sex or hanging clothes on a line or taking dance lessons.
The two you have chosen are indeed opposite. I think as you do on the first, it is apres le nuit.
The second is thought provoking, I sense her sadness and her resignation and possible reflection on what might have been but never will now.
Good selection.
XO
WWW
PS And I covered pornography in some past posts and think as you do, the depersonification of the subjects.
WWW - Yes, good thought on the second, as if her hardness is part a result of her disappointment.
Best wishes
OF
OF:
I hope all is well in your world, I've missed your posts!
XO
WWW
WWW - Thank you for the kind thought. I've just gone off the boil here, I guess. I keep the music and Jane Austen blogs ticking over - otherwise waiting for the block to dissolve.
Best wishes
OF
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