A Woman’s Pleasure: the Grand Odalisque by Jean August Dominique Ingres

[CTyankee]

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It has been said that every movie has its own historical moment, to a larger or lesser extent. This dictum can be applied to painting if we delve into the history of how and why an artist chose the “moment” to paint.

How does this idea play into Ingres great nude work, La Grande Odalisque? It seems to be a work of fantasy: a creamy skinned nude, lying on a cushioned divan with her backside to the viewer and turning her head to look at him. It has an indistinct, exotic reference to the Orient (and is, indeed, straight out of the Orientalist style of 19th century French art).

But the historical “moment” for France when Ingres was painting this work was its loss of Egypt after Napoleon’s earlier conquest. That sense of lost hegemony becomes imbued in French perceptions of the East after the defeat, perhaps sublimating unattainable desires in the theme of the harem woman and resulting in its haunting appeal to the French public going forward in time. What emerges in French art is the Oriental nude, bather or harem woman. Ingres’ Odalisque is rendered with hints of the harem -- the peacock fan, the ornamented opium pipe leaning on a narghile where we can see steam escaping, and her exquisite turban.

Ah, that turban! How it bespeaks Ingres devotion to Raphael’s turbaned Madonna della Sedia
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Ingres odalisque’s face is a contrast of the coolness in her eyes and the rest of her face. Try this: cover her eyes and you see that you are looking at a very young woman. Perhaps it is her small mouth and chin, but I found it an amazing experiment. Her mien changes instantly...was she looking at her harem sultan
in a questioning way...or was she trying to determine his mood?

There is an economy of color use here in his blue drapes with red and gold flowers that contrast coldly with the woman’s pale body. I think the artist did this for the effect of that contrast: he wanted his female subject’s sensuality to triumph over all in this picture (and proudly leaves his “signature” on the cushion underneath her bare legs and feet).

With this odalisque, Ingres is clearly on the road from Neoclassicism to the Romantic subgenre of Orientalism. He has his own idea about how to sensualize his subject by even more emphatically elongating her back and pelvis. Her right arm is also extended unnaturally. Her left leg is anatomically odd and her breast seems to emerge from under her arm. Ingres had hoped for a sinuous (and sensuous), almost serpentine, effect. But this distortion of anatomy was what annoyed the Parisians who attended the Salon of 1819 when he exhibited his Bather of Valpincon
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His bathers in The Turkish Baths evoked outrage by the public for its straightforward depiction of two women in a lovely but quite frankly erotic embrace. And perhaps the threatening idea that women could have a place of comfort with other women in a communal space where they were relaxing after their bath, drinking coffee and dancing. The central figure (who we saw in The Bather) is serenading them, accompanied by a black woman holding a large tambourine. One woman grooms another’s hair while holding a small incense ball by a chain.

Ingres used no real models for this work, relying instead on figures used in his previous paintings and his numerous figure studies. His inspiration was from the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, describing her visit to a Turkish bath in the early 18th century (in case you are wondering --and yes, you are-- she was, by all accounts, fully dressed herself). Ingres had copied those notes into his notebook. Note also that it is also the second appearance of the Bather of Valpincon.

The Turkish Bath was deemed so controversial it was only exhibited publicly in 1905 after the artist’s death. Pablo Picasso was in attendance. It is thought that this painting inspired Picasso’s early masterpiece, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907) now in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

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[trumad]

1. Beautiful

[CTyankee]

4. thanks. it's a bit odd but I like it's satiny "look"...

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Fascinating post, as always, my dear CTyankee!

I love how beautifully you explain the history of what we're seeing.

An enthusiastic K&R!

[CTyankee]

5. thanks. I think it is quite timely, too as we see events unfolding in the ME and

north africa. How much was this just waiting to happen after the French conquests in that part of the world?

[djean111]

3. Beautiful and informative, as usual - thank you!

[Warpy]

6. Funny, about the last thing I think of when I see that painting

is a woman's pleasure. That painting doesn't consider it much at all, except that the opium pipe might allow her to tolerate being pawed by her owner if the drugs would just kick in, already.

I've always thought of this one as the ultimate Victorian bar painting, the naked woman, slightly unwilling but utterly resigned, her head turned and staring at her owner, her right breast defying gravity and floating up toward her armpit.

In a culture where one's clothing indicated one's social rank and power, she is rendered utterly powerless, a thing to be used for the master's pleasure, not hers.

[CTyankee]

7. Frankly, I find the title sarcastic in tone and meaning...I sawit somewhere and thought

just what you did immediately and for the same reasons you list. But this is the irony, when you think about the historical context: a subjugated Middle East which is slowly rising up and fighting back against the cultural hegemony of France. The handwriting was certainly on the wall for France because Egypt was just the beginning and then we saw what happened in the West African nations and of course the ME.

no, to me this painting has huge overtones of political and historical irony, including the imprisonment of the drugs (altho I am informed by some who know better than I that often mint is smoked in a narghile so we can't assume...however, I had the same thought that you did...)

[Warpy]

9. Sarcasm makes sense but so does

the typical patriarchal projection that says if he's having a good time, she must be over the moon. At least the presence of the opium pipe (which held the goods, not mint) would alleviate her disgust somewhat.

I do find different political overtones than you do because she is portrayed as creamy white, not golden brown. She's a Europe who would be ravished by brown savages unless they were kept in check through brutal governance, which is exactly what was happening at the time. Still, even that is reading too much into this painting.

As I said before, it's the ultimate bar painting, the resigned and powerless woman looking over her shoulder at her would be owners.

[CTyankee]

10. I think you are right about the temptation to read too much into paintings...

I think Ingres took it as normal what was going on in the harems and made it into an ideal that was entirely his white, colonialist Frenchman of his day was (or thought it was). However, the painting is in the Louvre and, as such, it should be studied for the work of art that it is, not what we would like it to be politically.

My source for the mint reference was a woman who had been in north Africa as part of her studies at Harvard Divinity School and she gave me some first hand information about the habit of smoking from a narghile that I had no way to dispute. So you could be right, but trust me, her politics and that of the Harvard Div School were as left as you can get...

[CTyankee]

19. I also wanted to include exactly what you said about the skin color of the nude...

one modern critic pointed out that aspect as well, as part of her larger analysis about how this odalisque simply didn't exist...it was a fantasy image. I have done some research into this very subject in the past with a harem painting by Delacroix called "The women of algiers." He actually was in a harem to make his sketches and his sketchbook has been preserved...it serves as a fascinating development of that painting.

The difference here is that Ingres was working totally from his imagination and perhaps some popular images in art of the day. Delacroix had actually been in a harem in no. africa.

The closest we have to an actual firsthand experience was that of the Englishwoman who had been allowed in to see a harem in Turkey. She kept a diary of her experiences and Ingres had relied on it for his Turkish Bath painting. I don't think the erotic embrace of the two women in that work was part of her writing but doing research on it turned into an interesting look at western european's fascination with the harem and other "exotic" places. If you study Gerome you see the same fascination, bordering on the extreme...and all white as can be bodies of women...

[flamingdem]

8. fantasique!

[edhopper]

11. Thanks

I am very familiar with Ingres and the overall historical background, but the details you give add extra context.

And the Picasso link is fascinating. Looking at the two together you can see the figures Pablo used as reference points.

[CTyankee]

13. that is so good coming from you, ed...

I am encouraged again to keep on with my art essays...

I wanted to do not only Ingres from his historical point of view but the point of view of modern day critics and observers, like me (an observer), who come from a different world view.

The Picasso link is a wonderful extra, isn' it? How close in time Picasso and Ingres were, when you think about it. French Colonialism reigned supreme for so long in their lives and modernism emerged from that experience, didn't it?

[edhopper]

15. It really is an explosive change from Ingress to Picasso

in less than a century. Nothing like it has ever occurred in Art History.

I think part of that is when you see paintings the quality of Ingres' how do you go forward from there.
More realistic and better technique seems impossible.
Do you change the definition of what painting is. You move away from perfecting a representation of the real world.

[CTyankee]

25. well, also Picasso loved doing his own cubistic takes on so many other artists' famous

works...

[Generic Other]

12. Great post!

I love the fact that Ingres focuses on the backs of these figures. They do not exactly invite the viewer to intrude on the scene. The second figure is especially realistic looking to me which is interesting given that it is the one that "annoyed" the Parisians.She just looks like a real female's shape to me. Not drawn to appear anorexic or liposucked (is that a verb?).

[CTyankee]

14. I think it was those extra vertebrae that annoyed folks so much...

I get that it was Ingres art but I don't get it why he proceeded to make it so central. That's where my ability to understand his art stops...

[femmocrat]

16. K & R

Thank you, CTyankee!

[kwassa]

17. I always preferred this one.

as I am not a big fan of Ingres.

I like the directness of Manet. This woman is challenging.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

18. Hi CTYankee, we're glad you're back!

I always wondered why the Odalisque had a spine that was entirely too long, and her rear, right hips, legs and feet are just about abstracted into smooth blobs. In fact, her whole skin is creamy and looks like a white marble abstract sculpture.

Thanks for the background info on French imperialism. I had no idea about the opium pipe or what a narghile was! The textural contrast with the deep blue curtain is beautiful.

I hope you saw my post in honor of Veterans Day about my dad, where I posted a sepia-and-white photo of the Cathedra Petri at St. Peter's Basilica that my dad took. He and his buddy went to the Basilica and took pictures with a box camera they used for recording bombing runs in the Air Force. He said the first day they got beautiful pics. I also have a pic of the altar and another church considered the main church in Vatican City. The second day they got the bum's rush from the Swiss Guards. You can't take pictures inside (or at least you couldn't in 1944).

So I told him, "You're the only person I have ever met who CANNOT say 'I've been thrown out of classier places than this!'"



Here's the thread complete with 72 year old picture of the throne of St. Peter:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018814029

[CTyankee]

20. I didn't see that! I'm so glad you shared it with me...

Last edited Sat Nov 21, 2015, 09:28 AM - Edit history (1)

I've been battling shingles for a couple of weeks and have not felt up to posting an art essay. I actually had written it but had technical problems the day I tried to post it and finally had to give up...then on came the shingles and I had to temporarily abandon the Ingres essay.

But I am hoping to have another one ready in two weeks...it's a complicated painting which I will actually see for the second time when I go to the Gardner Museum in Boston the friday after thanksgiving. I've done some of the writing and have the picture folder images all ready for upload....

I loved that photo your dad took. what magnificence...saw it in person in 08 on a Rome art trip with a buddy. I also got to visit the 3 Matthew series of Caravaggio when I was there...it was a delight...

[KitSileya]

21. To me, it sems the beginning of the butt and breast pose

So beloved by comic book artists. The male gaze, wanting to ser both butt and breast at the same time, so they draw women in postures that are anatomically impossible, with anatomically impossible bodies.

In another note, last month I was in a conversation about this picture, as it was on the cover of a book about which one of us was writing a term paper. I thought the title was that of the Manet picture posted above, but a quick google search showed my error. We ended the conversation without knowing the title or the painter, but thanks to you, now I know.

[CTyankee]

23. a very good point. When I was doing research for my essay on Delacroix's Women of

Algiers I ran across quite a bit of feminist art critiques of this an other Orientalist period art featuring nude women. The whole notion of the "male gaze" has been extended from film to art.

I also did an essay here on that Manet http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027007476

That was a fun essay to write...

[kentauros]

22. Minor nit-picking for educational purposes ;)

I know most Americans call them tambourines, but the drum pictured is a frame drum (tambourines are smaller and have the zils in the frame.) Nonetheless, all are frame drums, with different names for country of origin and the like

When the Drummers Were Women - Layne Redmond


Frame Drums

Tambourine

(this is mostly just an opportunity to play the music of a favorite drummer )

[CTyankee]

24. here is a better close up of the instrument in the painting

The woman playing it is fabulous....

[kentauros]

39. I can see how it can be mistaken for a tambourine.

And, honestly, I don't know all of the various Arabic and Persian designations for frame drums. However, it is interesting to see how most ancient cultures had some form of frame drum. You see it again and again in paintings and other artforms, as well as how many cultures still use it today.

I bet the woman playing knew some great rhythms for dancing, too

[CTyankee]

41. it doesn't seem to be on a frame here. unless you mean just the rim of the instrument

itself...

[kentauros]

43. Yes, it's on a frame.

It's skinny, but still there. It has to be, otherwise what would keep the skin taught? From what I remember of seeing them in paintings and on vases, they were always pretty skinny. I'm guessing it made them easier to hold when you weren't sitting and playing. Plus it would be less weight.

[CTyankee]

45. oh yes, the rim. i was totally thinking something else

[kentauros]

46. Yes, that's also the frame.

I don't know how skinny they can get, just so long as it can keep the skin taught. And, I didn't realize that the frame was also called the rim. 'Rim' has always meant a location to me versus the whole object. Thanks for the clarification.

[CTyankee]

47. I know nothing about that musical instrument. So I'm glad this came up in the discussion

about Ingres art! I learn new things and that's wonderful...

[CTyankee]

28. i absolutely love that Remo video. What a thrilling sound...

[kentauros]

36. It is, indeed!

And I still lament her death from cancer a couple of years ago. Many of the people she taught turned into greats drummers as well (I never learned as my rhythm can be a bit chaotic.) Still, I go back to her performances when I want to be mesmerized

[JudyM]

48. She is great - never heard a tambourine played that way, loved it.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

26. Ingres' depiction of feet seems a little odd.

Either the model he used most frequently had edema issues, or he had some reason why he made his women without any real definition to their ankles and feet. Even heavyset people still tend to have more definition that he seems to be painting.

[CTyankee]

27. her right arm is strange, too. and that left leg...

I don't know what was going on with Ingres. I get the sexualization of her pelvis even tho how sexy that is escapes me.

he had no model for this painting so you have to wonder...

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

30. If I wanted to suggest a common theme, the term sinuous would come to mind.

She's elongated and stripped of definition in a way that almost is reminiscent of a snake, perhaps one that has eaten a large meal that hasn't fully digested.

[CTyankee]

32. ouch, that's a painful thought...

but yes, sinuous slithers to mind...the figura serpentinata of the Mannerist era...

[etherealtruth]

29. As always, thank you K&R

[CTyankee]

31. thanks so much...I want the Saturday DU folks to see the painting and hopefully contribute

their thoughts...

[ananda]

33. V. interesting connections

I appreciate seeing the way that exoticizing the "infidel" and making it French in order to provoke young French males, and the way that the idea of the harem somehow proves the moral superiority of the French in occupying and exploiting Muslim regions in North Africa and elsewhere.

This art and all the associated art and the avenues for exploration that it inspires is just wonderful. But the reality behind it all is something else entirely. I always wonder what incitement shows the reality to be more important than the mystique, in the same way that has happened with certain sports for example or the Catholic Church in these modern times.

Thus, if the outbreaks of Muslim rage these days does this, I would say fine... let the reality show itself out from behind all our cultural sugarcoating, no matter how beautiful or artistic. We need to see the truth... how those centuries of brutal hegemony, which hasn't really ended, are coming back to haunt us.

About the painting itself: I don't think the opium pipe is resting against a "narghile" but rather some kind of censer. Also, what is that ornamental object behind her back to the left of the peacock fan? I read a piece that said there was a zither in this painting, but I can't find it. Is that it?

Last, I also read something about Ingres' use of "disegno" in the making of this painting, that is, using drawing first. That was interesting because it stems from a belief that "disegno" is the secret behind sculpture and painting that turns craft into art.

[CTyankee]

34. About disegno it was the overarching principle of the Renaissance in Florence, following

what was laid down by Brunelleschi and others and concerned linear perspective and the vanishing point. The opposite pole is colore or colorito, which was the Venetian ideal with such artists as Titian. My understanding is that drawing is first in the disegno dictum. Everything must be balanced and in order. Emphasis in the Veneto on the color aspect might be because the light in Venice playing on all of the surrounding water made a real difference in how artists saw things. I don't get the application of disegno to this work because linear perspective is not stressed nor do we imagine this work to be laid out on a grid the way some early Florentine Renaissance art was. I see his work as one of a transition to Orientalism of the early 19th century. See the artist Gerome for a full dose of this style!

I went round and round on the narghile thing myself. A censer probably is the same thing, but I was trying to distinguish the part of the overall pipe construct was where the incense was burned and the pipe attached for someone to draw the smoke into their bodies. In this painting the pipe was attached to burner, as I interpret it. I have never seen one IRL so I can't say for sure. But I figured out that the pipe was indeed connected to that thing that has steam coming out of it, whatever it might be termed.

You see a woman holding a censer ball on a chain in Turkish Bath (in the middle of the painting while she arranges another woman's hair), much like a smaller censer of the type used by the Catholic Church during Mass.

I don't see anything resembling a zither myself. You can try Googling "details from Grand Odalisque" as they have some closeups you can't make out in the larger picture.

[ananda]

35. question

Though not all great drawings were turned into colored paint, Ingres' "disegno" for The Grand Odalisque was.

Here's a good article on disegno and colorito which also shows the difference between the two.

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/drawing/disegno.htm

And here is Ingres's disegno for The Grand Odalisque.


Thanks for this thread, CT.

[CTyankee]

38. Oh, you mean disegno in terms of having it sketched out beforehand...now I get your context.

Last edited Sat Nov 21, 2015, 05:20 PM - Edit history (1)

http://venice11.umwblogs.org/disegno-vs-colorito/

so yes, in that sense disegno was used by Ingres. I don't know why I got myself all tied up in perspectival grids and so forth...

[panader0]

37. Thanks CT--did you hear about this Verona art theft?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/20/art-masterpieces-stolen-gallery-italy-verona-rubens-tintoretto

[CTyankee]

40. no I didn't, thanks for showing me this...that is awful...but luckily, if it follows most

theft of very famous art it will be recovered. It's been estimated that it is either recovered very quickly or it takes 20 years or so. Most art thieves aren't savvy enough to know that it isn't very easy to sell masterpieces that are that well known. I heard a fabulous lecture a year or so ago about the 1995 theft of master pieces by Vermeer and Rembrandt from the Gardner in Boston. The lecturer, who is now the security director at the Gardner gave us a fascinating look at art theft and how the FBI tracks down the art and the thieves...

Poor Verona...such a lovely town...

[annabanana]

42. I was taught that The Odalisque was a scandal because of the

frank look that the model shoots directly at the viewer, rather than vaguely into the middle distance I guess..

[CTyankee]

44. here's a fun explanation for you from Wikipedia...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande_Odalisque

I guess people have their own ideas about what is art and what is something to get outraged about...seems hard to fathom that the extra vertebrae would be such a problem, but lots folks sure got upset by it...