Imre Györgyi szerk.: A modell, Női akt a 19. századi magyar művészetben (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 2004/2)

Tanulmányok / Studies - Linda Nochlin: Erotika és nőábrázolás a 19. században / Eroticism and Female Imagery in 19th-century Art

Eroticism and Female Imagery in 19th-century Art LINDA NOCHLIN Considering how much of Western art deals with themes that are overtly or covertly erotic, it is surprising how little serious attention has been paid to the specifically erotic implications of art works by scholars and critics.

1 While the psycho-sexual development of artists has been thoroughly investigated, mainly by psychiatrists, since the time of Freud, no similar interest has been shown in the erotic content of their works, unless, as is the case with certain Surrealist examples, it is simply too obvious to ignore. Even in the latter case, the approach to the erotic is generally descriptive and psychological, rather than analytic and directed towards investigation of the socially determined concomitants and conventions of erotic imagery in different art groups during different periods. It would seem that the world of erotic imagery is no more controlled by mere personal fantasy in vacuo than any other type of imagery in art. It is precisely in the nineteenth century - at a time when older prototypes and motifs were transformed by new needs and motivations - that the social basis of sexual myth stands out in clearest relief from the apparently "personal" erotic imagery of individual artists. Certain conventions of eroticism are so deeply ingrained that one scarcely bothers to think of them: one is that the very term "erotic art" is understood to imply the specification "erotic-for-men." The very title of this investigation "Eroticism and Female Imagery" - is actually redundant. There really is no erotic art in the nineteenth century which does not involve the image of women, and precious little before or after. The notion that erotic imagery is created out of male needs and desires even encompasses the relatively minor category of art created for or by homosexuals; it has always been male homosexuals who are taken into consideration, from Antiquity through Andy Warhol. Even in the case of art with Lesbian themes, men were considered to be the audience: Courbet painted his scandalous Sleep not for a femme damnée of the time, but rather for the former Turkish ambassador, Khalil Bey, who no doubt felt as invigorated by the spectacle of two voluptuous female nudes locked in each other's arms as he had by the delectably realistic bas ventre Courbet had previously executed to his specifications. As far as one knows, there simply exists no art, and certainly no high art, in the nineteenth century, based upon women's erotic needs, wishes or fantasies. Whether the erotic object be breast or buttocks, shoes or corsets, a matter of pose or of prototype, the imagery of sexual delight or provocation has always been created about women for men's enjoyment, by men. This is, of course, not the result of some calculated plot on the part of men, but merely a reflection in the realm of art of woman's lack of her own erotic territory on the map of nineteenth-century reality. Man is not only the subject of all erotic predicates, but the customer for all erotic products as well, and the customer is always right. Controlling both sex and art, he and his fantasies conditioned the world of erotic imagination as well. Thus there seems to be no conceivable outlet for the expression of women's viewpoint in nineteenth-century art, even in the realm of pure fantasy. This lack of a women's viewpoint in erotica is not merely a corollary of the fact that nineteenth-century art "mirrored" reality. It is obvious that there could have been no equivalent of Degas' or Lautrec's realistic and objective brothel scenes

2 painted by women and populated by men, given the non-existence of such accommodations for feminine sexual needs. (III. 1-2.) Women were never even permitted to dream about such things, much less bring them to life on canvas. Equally unthinkable would be such an egregiously unrealistic erotopia as the Turkish Bath, populated by sloe-eyed, close-pressed, languid youths, and painted by an octogenarian Mme. Ingres. Those who have no country have no language. Women have no imagery available - no accepted public language to hand - with which to express their particular viewpoint. And of course, one of the major elements involved in any successful language system is that it can be universally understood, so that its tropes have a certain mobility and elasticity, as it were - they can rise from the lowest levels of popular parlance to the highest peaks of great art. While certainly low on the scale of artistic merit, a nineteenth-century photograph like Achetez des Pommes nevertheless embodies one of the prime topoi of erotic imagery: comparison of the desirable body with ripe fruit, or more specifically, the likening of a woman's breasts to apples. (111. 3.) Achetez des Pommes represents this image on the lowest level, to be sure, but the fruit or flowerbreast metaphor can move easily up into higher esthetic realms: in Gauguin's Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms, 1899, the breasts of the women are obviously likened to both fruit and flower. (111. 4.) As Wayne Andersen points out: "Gauguin used this image in Tahiti because the charm of it fitted in with his surroundings, and with his favorite myths about the Promised Land. In Tahitian Women with Flowers, a noble-featured Tahitian girl holds a tray of flowers beneath her bosom; the lushness of the presentation causes the breasts to appear as cornucopias from which all good things flow...'" In the case of Cézanne, Meyer Schapiro has devoted an