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Body in 19th Century Art Term Paper
Courbet's the Sleepers is thus one of the first honest depictions of lesbian love in the history of Western art. There is no distortion of either of the two women's bodies, as we find in Ingres's painting. All of the details look nearly photographic in their authenticity. That is not to say that the image is crude, or inharmonious in its depiction of forms. The curvature of the women's bodies, particularly the leg of the woman on the left as she wraps it around her lover's waist, is highly stylized - but not stylized to the point of distraction.
Stylization would take precedence over faithful representation in the ongoing development of modernism, which would reach a critical peak in the work of Pablo Picasso. In his painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which was completed in the summer of 1907, Picasso rendered five nude prostitutes in a brothel in a style that was completely incomprehensible to most of the viewing public at the time. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon represented, among other things, a complete break from the realist tradition as interpreted by Gustave Courbet. In fact, instead of looking to the past traditions of Western art, Picasso took a lot of his inspiration from 19th century African Fang sculpture, as can be seen in the funky way that the prostitutes' faces are drawn in the painting. The women's bodies consist of sharp geometrical shapes rendered in flesh tones. There is scant attention paid to traditional anatomy as such, rendering the controversies caused by Ingres's painting null. And unlike the entwined lovers in Courbet's painting, each of the five women in Les Demoiselles d'Avignon seem to be completely detached, unaware of each other's presence. They stare outward at the viewer, striking dramatic poses meant to emphasize their wild sexuality. Much like Ingres's concubine, they are well aware of their sexual power, and are not ashamed to flaunt it. Given the subject matter, Les Demoiselles was quite controversial at the time of its first showing, much like the other paintings discussed in this paper. Today, however, it is regarded as the most famous painting of the 20th century.
As we study the evolution of the nude in the painting of the 19th and early 20th century, we discover the fact that the general public has never been completely comfortable with aggressive renderings of the female form. Each of the artists discussed here rendered female sexuality in a style that was considered shocking at the time. From a 21st century standpoint, however, the subject matter of the paintings seems quaint; their real importance lies in their stylistic achievements,…
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