Jambes deçà, jambes delà

L’Empire des Sens, Musée Cognacq-Jay

Last week our topic was women artists and their art. I fretted a little, I whined a little. I got defensive. Sorry. BUT, on the other hand, we didn’t have to worry our pretty little heads about how women are supposed to respond to paintings that male artists create for their male clients. In short, the male gaze was not our subject. But it may be today for the exhibition currently at the Musée Cognacq-Jay, 'L’Empire des Sens de Boucher a Greuze.’ It is a sexy and sensual exhibition scheduled to coincide with the 250th anniversary of François Boucher’s death. Thanks to COVID-19 it is a year late, but who cares!

Nearly all the paintings in this exhibition were commissioned by and painted for private patrons and seen only by the men who commissioned them and whomever they wished to share them with. Secret paintings for the delectation of a privileged clientele. Oh la la !

As I wandered through this exhibition the first time (yes, I saw it twice), I couldn’t help but be delighted. These paintings are familiar to me, or at least ones very much like them, are. Sure, I know them from studying and teaching art history. But mostly I know them from visiting the little museums where they can be appreciated in the same intimate, sumptuous spaces they initially graced - Wallace Collection (London), Frick Collection (New York), Jacquemart-André (Paris), and the little museum where this exhibition is now. Like delicate patisseries that are best eaten fresh, these paintings are best seen in the flesh.

If you just let your eyes look and tell your mind to be still, you cannot help but be seduced by the beautiful colors, patterns, textures, brush strokes all around you. But then I start to think, as one does. Do all paintings and statues created by male artists reflect and solicit the ‘male gaze’. And if that is true, if art was produced by men, for men, where does that leave the female viewer, and in particular where does it leave the female art historian. Because annually women earn over 75% of the Ph.D.s in art history. When I took graduate seminar courses I often wondered why all the students were women and all the professors were men. And that is the reality. Generally speaking, men achieve tenure more often and faster, earn more money, and are employed at institutions of greater prestige than women. What’s even worse, men benefit from marriage and fatherhood; women are disadvantaged by both. https://www.education.uw.edu/cirge/phds-in-art-history-over-a-decade-later/

So, let’s just acknowledge all of that and then let’s forget it and just look at the art. Because, dear friends, the paintings are gorgeous.

The exhibition begins, as will we, with Jean-Antoine Watteau. Although he died in 1721, at age 36 and only outlived Louis XIV by 6 years, there is nothing of the grand Baroque style that defined the Sun King in Watteau’s work. His paintings exemplify the Rococo style. They are light, airy and decorative. His delicate and fashionable scenes depict real actors from the commedia dell’arte and amateur actors in fancy dress pastorales. (Figures 1 & 2).

Figure 1. Pierrot, Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1718-20

Figure 2. Fêtes Venitiennes, Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1715

The first painting I saw when I walked into the exhibition was The Judgement of Paris.(Fig. 3) A contest to pick the prettiest of 3 goddesses, Hera (Juno), Aphrodite (Venus) and Athena (Minerva). Painted at the end of Watteau’s life, it was still with him when he died.

Figure 3. Judgement of Paris, Jean-Antoine Watteau, 1718-21

On the left is the judge of this contest, young Paris, nude save for a bit of drapery. At his feet, a dog, curled up, seems to have wandered over from a painting by Rubens, now at the Louvre but when Watteau studied it, at the Palais du Luxembourg.(Figs 4) Above Paris hovers an equally young, equally undressed, Mercury, identifiable by his winged helmet and caduceus. He advises the boyish judge, who tentatively holds out the golden apple to the contest’s winner. To the right of the scene are the two losing goddesses. One, helmeted and accompanied by her peacock, holds her Gorgon decorated shield. The other flies away, with a backward glance and a raised finger. There is going to be trouble. Of course there is. By choosing the goddess who promises him the beautiful Helen of Troy, the Trojan War will start. The title and accessories can’t hide the real subject of this tiny painting, the contest’s winner, Venus. Whom we see from behind. She is long and willlowy. Her blond hair is in a chignon, so we can admire her long neck, her small ears, her graceful long arms. As she removes her robe, with the help of her winged son, Cupid (good kid), we mostly admire her beautiful bottom. Her round, rosy, rebondi (bouncy) bottom.

Figure 4. Coronation of Marie de Medici, Peter Paul Rubens, 1622-25, detail bottom right, dog

Bottoms are the leitmotif of this exhibition. Yes, there are breasts, but when the artists had a choice or the curators made a selection, the bottoms won, every time. And as you will see, most of the bottoms are rosy. I know why women paint their lips red but I don’t know why women paint their cheeks pink or why all these artists painted these fesses rose. Another research project awaits. Right before he died, Watteau destroyed paintings, drawings, sketches that were pornographic, in his opinion. Our loss.

François Boucher, the star of this exhibition, was Watteau’s artistic heir. You probably know Boucher’s paintings of bergers and bergères. (Fig. 5) Right out of central casting for Marie Antoinette’s Petit Hameau. Scenes where nobody does any work and nobody gets their hands or anything else, dirty. Where everybody is dressed up and everybody is play acting. Where the scenes of courtship and veiled love making are gentle and discrete. You might also know Boucher’s portraits of Mme de Pompadour, (Fig. 6) Louis XV’s maîtresse en titre, a title that came into use during the reign of Henry IV and continued through the reign of Louis XV. It came with perks and bennies, specifically a private apartment at the royal palace.

Figure 5. Spring, The Four Seasons, Francois Boucher, 1755, Frick

Figure 6. Mme de Pompadour, Francois Boucher, 1768

From the Renaissance through the mid-18th century, artists got away with depicting nudity by making their nudes gods and goddesses and the humans they hung out with. Jupiter’s various rapes were always a hit. There was Leda and the Swan, (Fig. 7) wherein Jupiter transforms himself into a swan and impregnates the delicious Leda, who happens to be the mother of Helen who happens to be the reason the Trojan War started (see Judgement of Paris above). And of course, Danae is always popular, depicted lying naked in bed, her legs akimbo. (Fig. 8) To get to her, Jupiter transforms himself into gold coins, and showers himself down upon her. Does she get pregnant? You bet. Perseus was her son with Jupiter.

Figure 7. Leda and the Swan, Francois Boucher, 1742

Figure 8. Danae and the Shower of Gold, Francois Boucher, 1740

There is one painting by Boucher that startled me. It is a boudoir scene of a very white woman embracing a rudy complected man. (Fig. 9) It wasn’t their difference in coloring that surprised me, women are typically depicted paler than men because our domain is the home, theirs is the outdoors. We stay pure and pale, they get tough and dark. No, what struck me with this. The man has his hand firmly on one of the woman’s breasts. The gesture looks unusually aggressive. Even odder, the woman’s leg is over the man’s thigh. The ‘slung leg’ motif is a classical sign of dominance, of possession. But women don’t possess men, men possess women. What was going on here ? The title explains it all, Hercules and Ompahle, Here’s the backstory. After killing Iphitos in a blind rage, the Delphic Oracle condemned Hercules to three years of servitude. Omphale , the queen of Lydie, bought Hercules and he became her slave. Yes, he performed several brave deeds for her kingdom but she also insisted that Hercules do a few humiliating ones too, like wear women’s cloths and spin wool. She, on the other hand, sometimes wore his lion skin and held his club, both shown in this painting as toys of the two putti at the foot of the bed who are completely indifferent to what is going on, on the bed itself. Another putto is part of decoration. A video describing this painting points out other details of the decoration. Like the vagina shaped sheets and the penis shaped drapes. So, now the scene makes sense. Omphale throws her leg over Hercules’ leg to show him who’s in charge. And he grabs her breast to show her who’s boss. And so it goes.

Figure 9. Hercules and Omphale, Francois Boucher, 1732-35

How about another naked woman theme. Okay, the sleeping woman, on a bed or in the bois. Who doesn’t like watching a naked woman sleeping. (Fig.10) No foul, no harm. Except when some creepy, priapic satyr pulls the sheet off (if there is a sheet), to better examine his prey, and perhaps eventually, but not while we are witness, to succumb to his lusty appetites. The satyr is the voyeur, the stand-in for the male client on whose wall this painting hangs.

Figure 10. Jupiter and Antiope,Francois Boucher, 1755

Some of the women stretch luxuriously on their backs but many, at least many of Boucher’s nudes, lie on their stomachs. Boucher was an ass man, or at least his clients were. And for these clients, the ‘cover’ offered by classical gods and goddesses wasn’t necessarily necessary. Paintings for these patrons were destined for the walls of private salons in sumptuous mansions where intimate soirees were held.

One of the best known of Boucher’s clandestine paintings was a posterior portrait called "L'Odalisque Brune”. (Fig. 11) The woman, his wife as it turns out, does have a ‘cover’ of sorts. An exotic title and a few accoutrements that evoke the harems of the Middle East. Boucher is hedging his bets. Boucher’s épouse lies naked, on her stomach with her thighs spread (largement écarté - don’t ask how I know that phrase), ‘acting’ surprised to see us. Her bed is not made. Her chemise is pulled up above her waist and down below her shoulders. Delicious.

Figure 11. L’Odalisque Brune, Francois Boucher, 1745

This was a private painting. It was not in the public domain. But Denis Diderot, who reviewed the annual Paris Art Salons from 1759 to 1781, and who admitted to being seduced by Boucher’s painting, still found it indecent and shameless. He accused Boucher of prostituting his own wife. Were Diderot’s views shared? Probably. But Boucher was commissioned to paint three replicas of this Odalisque for other clients.

Boucher painted another Odalisque, this one blond, who is also known by her name, Mlle Louise O’Murphy. (Fig. 12) This young miss doesn’t look at us. We admire her lovely round bottom while she looks straight ahead so we can also admire her beautiful profile. Apparently, Louis XV was so taken by the portrait, that he took Mlle O’Murphy as a mistress.

Figure 12. Mlle O’Murphy, Francois Boucher, 1751-52

Did you notice that Watteau’s females are long and lithe. They are women. Boucher’s females are fleshy, round, even chubby. They are girls. Tastes vary with the person, with the period. You can date a Japanese print by the age of the woman depicted and the width of the obi (belt) on her kimono. Jane Russell, the voluptuous pinup of the 1940s wouldn’t have made it in androgynous Twiggy’s swinging 1960s.

Boucher had the good fortune to live and work when his style meshed perfectly with the style of the day. Alas, his successor Jean-Antoine Fragonard, did not. Fragonard found himself completely out of fashion at the height of his career with the arrival of Neoclassicism. The paintings at the Frick in New York are a case in point. (Fig. 13) They were commissioned by Mme du Barry, the last of Louis XV’s mistresses for the pavilion she had built for the Chateau de Louveciennes, just outside of Paris. She rejected Fragonard’s rococo paintings because her pavilion was Neoclassical and so were her tastes. Fragonard paintings aren’t typically populated by cavorting classical gods and goddesses or oriental concubines. His paintings are filled with young beautiful people in contemporary or at least indeterminate attire. Le Verrou, for example, (Fig. 14) depicts a young man who could as easily be the gardener (Lady Chatterley’s Lover anyone?) or the Count. The woman struggles, but in vain, as one of her hand reaches for the bolt, the other, her partner’s face. But really, the struggling is in vain. The young man pushes the bolt with one hand and holds the young woman (on a rumpled, unmade bed, bien sur) with the other.

Figure 13. Fragonard paintings originally intended for Mme du Barry, now at Frick

Figure 14. Le Verrou, Jean-Antoine Fragonard, 1775

Another Fragonard painting here is called Les Débuts du modèle (The Model’s First Session). (Fig. 15) The action takes place in a painter’s studio. To the left, a lovely young woman, semi-reclining on a chaise, is having her breasts uncovered by the woman standing behind her. To be examined by the artist, a dandy all in pink, on the right. He is not content to gaze upon the beauties revealed, but instead uses his stick to examine her legs. Behind him, a blank canvas, waiting to be defiled.

Figure 15. Les Débuts du Modèle, Jean-Antoine Fragonard, 1770-1773

Remember I told you last week that female artists couldn’t study at the Royal Academy because they were not permitted to draw from the male nude? And that’s what much of the advanced training at the academy was. Well, it turns out that male students were equally forbidden from drawing from the female nude. But of course that presented no problem for male artists - students or masters. They just found women of ‘loose virtue’ for whom posing nude was probably a lot less strenuous than their alternative options.

I want to talk to you about one final artist, Jean-Baptiste Greuze. Most familiar are his paintings of remorse, the morning after the day before. Young women, usually with their parents, and one or more symbols of lost virginity - broken eggs, broken jugs, spilled milk, etc. (Figs 16, 17)

Figure 16. The Broken Jug, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1772

Figure 17. Broken Eggs, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1756

One painting by him in this exhibition is not typical. It is called La Volupté, (Fig. 18) and now I know why Vigée-Lebrun was sanctioned for showing her teeth in a self portrait. (Fig. 19) Greuze’s painting, maybe his wife, shows a beautiful young woman, her head flung back, her ‘bedroom’ eyes at half mast, her mouth slightly open to reveal her teeth, her breasts taut and pink. So, now we know, open mouth revealing teeth = woman in sexual ecstasy.

Figure 18. Volupté, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, 1765

Figure 19. Self portrait, Elisabeth Vigée-LeBrun-LeBrun, 1790

Right before the exhibition’s finale is a grand map, ‘Paris Libertin’ with locations throughout Paris of ‘les lieux erotiques’ where racy, sexy stuff was happening. There is a detail of Watteau’s last painting, the Enseigne de Gersaint. (Figs. 20, 21) A man kneels in front of a painting of cavorting nudes, examining them with a magnifying glass. We are told that at this merchant mercier where lovely and expensive objet d’arts were sold, one could also buy naughty cards, examples of which are in the little jewel box of a room which is the end of the show. Called ‘Erotica’, over 60 (according to the gallery sheet, I didn’t count) prints, miniatures, paintings, sculptures and objets d’arts decorated with ‘licentious, obscene and lascivious’ scenes are displayed. (Figs. 22, 23, 24) These works, we learn, were produced clandestinely and circulated ‘sous le manteau’. They went hand in hand (if that is the correct expression) with the best selling books “qu’on ne lit que d’une main”. From orgies to auto-eroticism, the two principal variants (from what I could tell), were the number of positions and number of participants.

Figure 20. Enseigne de Gersaint, Antoine Watteau, 1721

Figure 21. Enseigne de Gersaint, Antoine Watteau, detail 1721

Figure 22. The Little Room of Erotica, Musée Cognacq-Jay

Figure 23. Little Room of Erotica, Musée Cognacq-Jay, detail

Figure 24. Little Room of Erotica, Musée Cognacq-Jay, detail

What I found surprising and even gratifying was that on these little cards, there seemed to be as many female private parts being twiddled as there were male private parts being branler-ed. I found this display terribly enlightening and and I understand why the second half of the 18th century merits the title, Age of Enlightenment. But what happened afterwards? Victorian era doctors treating their female patients for hysteria until one of them finally invented a vibrator. Husbands, partners, lovers nowhere in sight.

This was a fabulous exhibition. If you can’t get to Paris before July 18, then consider the catalogue. Even if you don’t read French, there are lots of pictures. And you know, just this once, do what I did, forget the male gaze and enjoy yourself. It is what it is.

Copyright © 2021 Beverly Held, Ph.D. All rights reserved

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