Boudoirs and Harems: the Seductive Power of Sophas
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Boudoirs and Harems: The Seductive Power of Sophas A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Architecture and Interior Design of the College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning by Gülen Çevik M. S. Architecture, University of Cincinnati June 2002 Committee Co-Chairs: A. K. Kanekar, Ph.D. P. Snadon, Ph.D. Members: E. B. Frierson, PhD. Joori Suh, PhD. ABSTRACT This dissertation investigates the cultural influences between the so-called East and the West through the harem and the boudoir. This research is the first of its kind to explore the influence of the harem on the development of boudoirs in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through the analysis and synthesis of historical accounts of these spaces. The staple ingredient of the French Rococo period (1723-74), the pursuit of pleasure and happiness, produced spaces and furniture with an unprecedented attention to bodily comfort. In addition to Ottoman- inspired furniture pieces such as sopha, divan, lit à la Turque (Turkish bed), lit de repos à la Turque (Turkish bed of rest), canapé à la Turque (Turkish couch), veilleuse à la Turque (Turkish sofa), veilleuse à la Ottomanne (Ottoman sofa), and ottomanne (ottoman) to be used in a chamber à la Turque (Turkish room) or elsewhere, there was one space every modern eighteenth-century upper-class woman needed: the boudoir. The boudoir was an exclusive space for females, informed by the late eighteenth and nineteenth-century Western fascination with Orientalism. Encapsulating the experience of colonialism, the boudoir became the site for both the repression and reconciliation of gender roles and biases. Furthermore, the eighteenth-century boudoir was a space where modernization of the interior was underway due to the level of informality, personal privacy, and bodily comfort it afforded to its users. Although both the boudoir and the harem were feminine spaces, men authored most of the primary sources on them. 1 When the aristocratic boudoir reemerged in the more bourgeois nineteenth-century, it also marked the highpoint of paintings depicting bourgeois boudoirs both fictional and authentic. The boudoir genre paintings exposed the awkwardness and the ironies of female bodies disciplined by corsets and placed on soft, Eastern-inspired furniture pieces. The nineteenth- century Anglo-American revival of the boudoir embraced Victorian ideals. Another extraordinary development was the adoption of the boudoir as “budvâr” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the Ottoman Empire. Embellished with Victorian ideals, the re-envisioned boudoir as an active feminine space to manage the household, read, and mother the children was the perfect fit. The adoption of the budvâr, in order to replace the traditional harem, became a means to empower modern Ottoman women. This study will thus focus on women; they became agents of reciprocal cultural exchange. The body and the dress was at the center of this exchange. The dress manipulates our sensual relationship to space and furniture as it conceals and reveals parts of our skin. One’s ability to move or restriction of them correlates directly to how the dress envelopes the body. The dress physically determines our pace, movement, and posture, hence our relationship to the furniture pieces we use. The history of the boudoir and the budvâr will be complete only with the inclusion of the body and the dress, which envelops it. This study will utilize the dress and the body as a common thread to tie together the history of the harem, the boudoir and the budvâr. 2 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not have been possible without the support and help of many individuals. First, I would like to thank my committee co-chair Dr. Patrick Snadon who has shown me, by his example, what a good scholar, teacher, and person should be. I feel indebted to Dr. Snadon for agreeing to continue serving on my committee even after his retirement. He was very generous with his time and patient with my shortcomings as a scholar. I would also like to thank my co-chair, Dr. Aarati Kanekar, and committee members, Dr. Elizabeth B. Frierson, and Dr. Joori Suh. A special thank you is due to Dr. Frierson for agreeing to serve on my committee at a very challenging moment in her life. Among many other things, she inspired me to be a fighter and never give up. Moreover, I would like to thank Dr. Frierson for the unique Ottoman perspective she provided for the advancement of this dissertation. I feel extremely blessed to have the chance to be one of her students. Dr. Aarati Kanekar helped me to rethink my topic spatially and architecturally. Dr. Joori Suh helped me to construct a cohesive argument and well-organized dissertation. Without the invaluable advice of my committee members, this work would not have been possible. Their knowledge and patience cannot be overstated. The University of Cincinnati will always have a special place in my heart. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to the wonderful professors and administrators I had the honor to know and work with over the years, especially, Dr. Nnamdi Elleh, Dr. Rebecca Williamson, and Dr. Adrian Parr. Thank you for believing in me, supporting me, and teaching me. I am extremely grateful to the staff of UC Blue Ash College Library, Miami University Libraries, and the Ohio State University Libraries for all the support they have provided in my quest for high quality scholarship. 4 I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my dean, Dr. Elizabeth Reitz Mullenix for supporting me to pursue my PhD while I was serving as a full-time faculty member at the College of Creative Arts, Miami University. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of friends and colleagues who were interested in my topic, listened to me for hours, and gave me ideas: Dr. Linda Nubani, Ben Jacks, Ayşemin Quick, and Dr. Edson Cabalfin. I would like to recognize my friends for helping me fill my life with love: Dr. Ebru Duffield, Duygu Strasser, Ezgi Genç, Pınar French, Yeşim Salahifar, Buket Karaca, Aslı Kadir, Sevi Eroğlu, and Müjgan Strunk. I thank Sadiye Dirsel, and Fulya Genç for giving my children and me their motherly love and support. I sincerely thank Evelyn King for caring for my daughter. Without her help, I could not have had the peace of mind to pursue my scholarship. I also would like to express my gratitude to Aza Gogitidze for helping me to care for my family. Without a doubt, she is the most generous person I know. Lastly, I would like to thank my family. My husband Burak, my children Demir and Aylin, you are the meaning of my life. I owe a special thanks to my children for forgiving me when I was not as present. I thank my daughter Aylin, for being a little angel. She was only 55 days old when I started my studies. I thank my wonderful son Demir, for being a great big brother. I thank my husband for filling in for me numerous times in the past five years. Without the support and love I received from the three of them, I could not have continued. I thank my father Hamit Özden, for inspiring me about all kinds of things I could accomplish when I was a little girl. I would like to express my gratitude to my mother-in-law Niyal Çevik for her support. I thank my sisters Gülay Kaya and Ayşegül Trifyllis for their encouragement. I thank my mother, İnci Altınok for being the best mother I will ever know. She is my eternal cheerleader. She inspired me to work hard and be the best version of myself. Thank you! 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS: ABSTRACT 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4 INTRODUCTION 11 LITERATURE REVIEW 22 SOURCES AND METHODOLOGY 46 1. THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH BOUDOIR AND THE HAREM BEHIND IT A. Introduction and Analysis of the Eighteenth-Century French Boudoir: Access, 48 Connection, Privacy B. Body, Posture, Fashion and Furnishings in the Eighteenth-Century Boudoir: 67 Harems and Comfort C. The Eighteenth-Century Boudoir in Contemporaneous Literature and Art: The 81 Western, Male, Sexual-Fantasy Constructions of the Imagined Space of the Boudoir 2. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY A. Re-Presenting the Invisible: The Women and the Harem in Western Imagination 88 B. Fictional Boudoirs in the Nineteenth Century 110 C. Fashion, Furniture, and Comfort in the Nineteenth-Century 118 D. A Difficult Undertaking: Reconstructing the New Boudoir in the Victorian Home 136 3. MODERNITY AND THE “EAST” A. An Empire in Transformation: Disrupting the Colonial Scale 153 B. The Voices of the Women: Changing Identities, Fashions, and Spaces 169 C. Modernizing Bodies, Modernizing Interiors: From Harem to Budvâr 201 CONCLUSION 246 6 LIST OF IMAGES: INTRODUCTION 1. ‘L’Odalisque,’ François Boucher (1703-70), the Louvre, c. 1745. 2. ‘Blonde Odalisque’ (Marie-Louise O’Murphy) François Boucher, Alte Pinakothek, Munich, 1752 3. The Swing, Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806), Wallace Collection, London, 1767. 4. Memoirs de Casanova, Javal et Bourdeaux, Jules Marie Auguste Leroux (1871-1957), Depiction of two lovers on a lit de repos à la Turque (Turkish bed of rest), 1923. 5. Memoirs de Casanova, Javal et Bourdeaux, Jules Marie Auguste Leroux, Depiction of three blindfolded lovers on a veilleuse à la Ottomanne (Ottoman sofa), 1923. LITERATURE REVIEW 6. Pool in a Harem, Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, 1824. THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH BOUDOIR AND THE HAREMS BEHIND IT A. Introduction and Analysis of the Eighteenth-Century French Boudoir: Access, Connection, Privacy 7.