MLS 542m Fall 2015 EDOUARD MANET’S ‘OLYMPIA’: SEX, RACE, AND CLASS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY PARIS WEDNESDAYS, AUGUST 26-OCTOBER 7, 2015 6:45-9:15 REX BEACH CLASSROOM Dr. Susan Libby Department of Art and Art History CFAC 121D * [email protected] * 407-646-2448 2 Course description This Masterworks course focuses on Edouard Manet’s painting, Olympia, exhibited first in 1865. The picture depicts a reclining nude woman looking straight at the viewer, accompanied by a female servant holding a large bouquet of flowers, and an angry back cat at the foot of the bed. The main figure was immediately assumed to be a prostitute, for reasons that will make sense as this course gets underway. Critical reaction to the painting was scathing at worst and confused at best. In the public’s view, the painting was poorly executed (not realistic enough) and blatantly depicted the sordid reality of prostitution by not disguising Olympia as Venus or some other classical, “approved” nude woman (too realistic). The presence of the servant, who is black and thus seen as ugly by Europeans simply because of her race, did not help matters. To audiences now, Olympia probably does not appear especially scandalous, although on close inspection, it may remain somewhat bafflng. Why the cat? Why is it arching its back? Why is the servant (if that’s what she is) carrying a huge bouquet? Why is Olympia looking at us with such an implacable gaze? Manet’s body of work remains difficult to categorize and his aims almost impossible to determine. This course is not designed to find answers to these mysteries, although speculation is more than welcome. However, by exploring the world of this painting, we can begin to understand what French spectators perceived when they first viewed the painting in the huge exhibition spaces of the Louvre, located in the middle (literally) of the rapidly changing city of Paris. We will also engage with scholarship on Manet and Olympia that employs a variety of interpretive methods and suggests ways to understand the painting in the present day. Reading Your textbook is T.J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life : Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers, revised edition (1999; first published 1984). Available in Rollins bookstore. You will find that Clark’s book is challenging, rambling, and annoying for its untranslated quotations in French, but, in this professor’s view at least, it remains the best scholarly source on Manet and his world. It offers massive amounts of fascinating information and incisive, original interpretations of works of art. Clark’s methodology is what was then called Marxist art history, meaning that his primary interest is the socio-economic milieu in which art was being produced in nineteenth-century Paris and its function as a mirror of modernity. Clark does not address gender or race, but this course will fill those gaps. Other readings are available on Blackboard and are listed below. Assignments Your main assignment is to write a research paper on any theme covered in this course (see the course schedule below). It does not have to focus exclusively on Manet, but it should address nineteenth-century artist(s) and visual material. The paper should be at least 10 pp., not including title page, bibliography, and illustrations. The paper is due Oct. 7, the last day of class, when you will present your work to the class. Further guidelines are forthcoming. In addition, you are asked to briefly present in class at least one of the scholarly sources that you are using for your research that is not among the assigned readings. You 3 should also hand in a 1 or 2 pp. summary of your chosen reading. These presentations should take no more than 10 minutes and will take place at the beginning of class starting Sept. 9. The purpose of this assignment is to encourage you to keep up with your research and to contribute information and ideas to the class. Grades Participation: This largely includes completing the reading and discussing it. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions! No one is expected to arrive in class having easily understood all of what you’ve read. The reading assignments are meant not only to provide information and stimulate discussion, but to challenge you to contend with ideas and points of view that may be new to you. You will also want to discuss the images and other material that will be shown in class. 50% of final grade. Research presentations: 10% of final grade. Research paper: 40% of final grade. Course policies and resources I will normally be available to meet with you between 5:00 and 6:30 before class (except Sept. 16). If that doesn’t work for you, we can arrange other times. I am happy to help you with all things concerning the course, including the readings, how to write about works of art, and how to find appropriate scholarly resources. You should expect to attend all class sessions for this course except in case of dire emergency. Note that participation is a large percentage of your grade, and you cannot participate if you are absent. _______________________________________________________________________ Course schedule Aug. 26: The Heroism of Modern Life . Introduction to Manet, the art of his time, and Olympia . The French Royal Academy of Fine arts and its traditions; the female nude in art Sept 2: The Shock of the Nude: Manet Talks Back to Art History . The Salon des Refusés and Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass . Critical reaction to Olympia . The concept of the “male gaze” Clark, “Introduction” and “Olympia’s Choice” Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Screen, vol. 16, no. 3 (Autumn 1975), pp. 6-18. Paper proposal due; assign research reports 4 Sept. 9: Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century . The city of Paris; Baron Haussmann, Napoleon III and gentrification; modernity, consumption, and spectacle Reading for Sept. 9: Clark, “The View from Notre Dame” and “A Bar at the Folies-Bergère” Ruth Iskin, “Selling, Seduction, and Soliciting the Eye: Manet’s Bar at the Folies- Bergère, Art Bulletin, vol. 77, no. 1 (March 1995), pp. 25-44. Walter Benjamin, “Paris, Capital of the Nineteenth Century,” 1939, in The Arcades Project, written by Benjamin 1927-1940, Rolf Tiedemann, ed., Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin, trans., (2009), pp. 14-26. Georg Simmel, Chapt. 1, The Metropolis and Mental Life (1903), pp. 1-9. Research reports Sept. 16: Courtisanes, Demimondaines, Grandes Horizantales, Cocottes, Filles Insoumises: Regulating the Woman for Sale . Prostitution in Paris Reading for Sept. 16: Hollis Clayson, “Painting the Traffic in Women,” in Painted Love: Prostitution in French Art of the Impressionist Era (1991), pp. 1-26. Jill Harsin, “Criminal Marginality” and “Disease and Clandestinity,” in Harsin, Policing Prostitution in Nineteeth-Century Paris (1985), pp. 205-279. Selections from Emile Zola, Nana (1880) Research reports Sept. 23: The Black Female Body and the Colonial Gaze . Black servants in European art . Colonialism, empire, and representations of black women . European notions of black female sexuality Reading for Sept. 23: Sander Gilman, “The Hottentot and the Prostitute: Toward an Iconography of Female Sexuality,” in Race-ing Art History, Kimberly N. Pinder, ed. (2001), pp. 119-138. T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, “Desirous and Dangerous Imaginations: The Black Female Body and the Courtesan in Zola’s Thérèse Racquin,” in Sharpley- Whiting, The Black Venus: Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears, and Primitive Narratives in French (1999), pp. 71-85. Charmaine Nelson, “ Vénus Africaine: Race, Beauty, and African-ness,” in Nelson, Representing the Black Female Subject in Western Art (2010), pp. 158-169; pp. 221- 224. Research reports 5 Sept. 30: Will the Real Olympia Please Stand up? Locating the Women in and Out of the Painting Reading for Sept.30: Griselda Pollock, “A Tale of Three Women: Seeing in the Dark, Seeing Double, At Last, With Manet,” in Differencing the Canon (1999), pp. 247-315. Research reports Oct. 7: Paper Presentations Research papers due _____________________________________________________________________ Holt School Course And Instructor Evaluation At the end of each semester, students are asked to evaluate the course and instructor. These evaluations are extremely valuable in the teaching and learning process on our campus. Student evaluations help assess student perceptions of classroom learning and often lead to improved teaching. Your feedback is important and Rollins students are encouraged to be honest, fair, and reflective in the evaluation process. The online evaluative survey is anonymous. Students are never identified as the respondent. Instead, each student’s comments are assigned a random number. You will be asked to rate your course and instructor on a numerical scale and through narrative comments. The online Course and Instructor Evaluation (CIE) process opens at 8:00 a.m. on the first scheduled date. It remains open for a period of 14 days (2 weeks) until 12:00 a.m. (midnight) on the final scheduled date. The evaluation period ends prior to the start of final examinations and faculty cannot access completed evaluations until 10 days after the end of final exams. Students will receive one email at the start of the CIE period, one after the 15th day, and a final reminder the day before the CIE period ends. Students who complete evaluations for all classes will be able to view grades ten-days before students who do not complete an evaluation form. _______________________________________________________________________ Images on syllabus: . Nadar, Portrait of Edouard Manet, c. 1870 . Manet, Luncheon on the Grass, 1863 . Map of Paris, 19th century . Manet, Nana, 1877 . Jean-Léon Gérôme, Moorish Bath, 1872 . Manet, Berthe Morisot With a Fan, 1872 .