Fillegorical Truth-telling via the Ferninine Baroque: RubensgMaterial Reality bY Maria Lydia Brendel fi Thesls submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial folfiilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of flrt History McGIll Uniuerslty Montréal, Canada 1999 O Marfa lgdlo Brendel, 1999 National Library Bibliothèque nationale of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K 1A ON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada Your hls Votre roferenw Our fib Notre réMrencs The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothêque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sel1 reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in rnicrofonn, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. 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Table of Contents Bcknowledgements ............................................................................................................... i i ... flbstract ........................................................................................................... 111 Résumb .............................................................................................................. iv LIst of Illustrations ........................................................................................................... v-vi Introduction - Ii critical reulew ofThree Recent lents on Rubens ........................ i Chapter 1 Met Pelsken: a Histoy of Reception 1878 - 1996 ............................ 24 Chapter 2 Refiguring the Recards- Letters from the Rrchiues hom(m10-se~ual Monopoly ................................ 45 Chapter 3 Baroque Dialectics: allegorlcal truth-telling uia the ferninine baroque ..................................... 71 Chapter 4 Reconnecting with Rubens: neo-allegorists Robert Rauschenberg Peter Oressler Jean-Luc Godard ................................. 112 Chapter 5 Produclng Erasure - Screening the ileal: traumatic reallsm ........... 141 Through her continuous interest, support and clear direction, Professor Christine Ross has made this dissertation an intellectual challenge. She created an atmosphere in which 1 could prosper while being free, so that 1 could dare to break new ground in baroque scholarship. My deepest gratitude and respect goes to her. Thanks are directed to Professor Thomas L. Glen. who in pnor years provided me with a solid historical background on which 1 could build this new theoretically infonned study. 1 also had the counsel and support of Professur Hans J. Boker, who in the capacity of chair, has redirected the acadernic trajectory of ihc department from which 1 could only draw intellectual rewards. Professor John Fossey's geniality and great sense of humour 1 enjoyed during those summer months of teaching. Thanks go to the people in the administrative offices of the department. Wnting a dissertation requires the help of many individuals on an institutional and personal level. In Vienna. 1 had the unstinting and imrnediate support of Dr. Karl Schiltz, director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. He gave me access to the research files and a space to work. Guardian Karl Piesel in his welcoming manner facilitated my repeated close- up viewings and readings of Het PeIsken and other tableaux. In Heidelberg, the friendly staff at the Universitatsbibliothek found many archival sources speedily. Prior to my research travels Professor Jeffrey Muller of Brown University gave me sound strategic advice. At McGill University in Montréal, both the stitff of the Inter-Library Loans Department and at the Blackader-Lautennan tibrary helped me to obtain needed matenal. There, Dolly from the stacks manager's office provided on short notice a quiet room to study and wnte during the spnng and sumrner months when street work filled the air unreleatingly with the sounds of jackhammers. On a personal level 1 would like to extend my sincere thanks to Professor Montague Cohen, whose generosity I especially appreciate. 1 hope that his Oxford days as editor were in part re-lived through his work on my dissertation. Claire Sutton added needed touches for which 1 am grateful. I had the academic and personal support of Dr. Rizwi Faizer, Andrea Fitzpatnck, Dr. Suzanne Kelly, Nicolas Mavrikakis, Chiara Pardini, Nina Roy and Andrea Smith. Their help has been enormous. Very special thanks go to Otto Dorzbach, Doris Kuhn, to my Father and to my loving Wppi-Vita. Rubens' matenal reality culminates in the tableau which he named Het Pelsken (Flemish for 'The little Fur,' known also as La Pelisse). Of his vast oeuvre it is the most frequentiy cited work, described by one spectator as an "oil painting of a subject quite unusual ... a beautiful woman naked beneath her dark fur."' Arnong art historians the tableau has been the subject of debate as to its 'meaning,' especially since the life-size image does not include narrative paraphernalia that would dlow mythologicai interpretations. But as one scholar wrote, "most are reiieved that the work was never meant to be sold.'Q This dissertation's trajectory is different. It points to Rubens' late style tableaux, of which ffet Pelskn is one, as items painted in an exquisite technique effecting (bodily) presence, and conceived as cornmodities destined for circulation. Thus the works are heavily invested by producer(s) and buyerts). Painted in a sophisticated allegorical language that simultaneous1y defies easy (narrative) access and yet keeps viewers continuously spellbound, Het Pelsken is being refrarned together with some of Rubens' other paintings to establish a dialogue with today's audience. This study analyzes the allegorical paradigm by way of Walter Benjamin's dialectics in order to locate levels of truth - which are of relevance to current viewers - and aiso probes the forces that generate such an overt and repeated display of the ferninine body. In so doing, the study also spotlights neo-allegorists, who in their' more ment art practice reconnect with Rubens and disconnect with some compositionai and technical strategies of the Baroque master's paintings. These artists include contemporaries Robert Rauschenberg, Peter Dressler and Jean-Luc Godard. ' Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, piease see Chapter One for more of his wmrneniaq Julius Held's rcsearch and response is also taken up in Chapter One. iv R6surn6 Rubens, tout au long de sa carrière, a developp6 sa capacité à rendre prksents les sujetq qu'il a peints. L'apogée de cette oeuvre picturale a été atteinte avec un tableau intituld Het PeIsken, titre que l'on peut traduire du flamand par abpetite fourrure&.Ce tableau est un des plus cité parmi l'immense corpus des oeuvres de Rubens. Un de ses spectateurs, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, l'a &peinte comme étant eune peinture à l'huile au sujet des plus inusité.. une belle femme nue sous sa fomre noired La signification de ce tableau a W le sujet de nombreux ddbats de la part des historiens dtart.II faut dire que cette image grandeur nature ne montre aucun des attributs qui dans la methode iconographique permetknt la reconnaissance du personnage representé ou tout au moins sa filiation mythologique. Cependant, comme le faisait remarquer l'historien d'art Julius ~eld~,tous s'entendent sur le caractère pnvd de cette peinture, plusieurs étant même usoulag6-s que cette oeuvre ne fut pas destinde &trevenduem. Le point de vue de cette thèse est bien différent. Nous souhaitons analyser Het Peknen la replaçant dans le contexte du style du peintre ce moment priviltgid de sa canibre. Comme bien d'autres oeuvres produites par Rubens cette dpoque, ce tableau a ett réalisé, avec une technique remarquable, comme une marchandise pour des collectionneurs' bventuels. Cette peinture a eté pensée comme une image prête & &tremise en circulation afin de permettre li la fois un investissement ewnomique mais aussi symbolique de la part de son producteur ainsi que de ses acheteurs (successifs). Het Pelrken utilise un langage alltgonque très raffine qui déroute toute analyse narrative, Iàissant le spectateur bouche ô&, litthlement sans mot. L'argument ici presenté tente de montrer ce qui fait Itefficacitéencore actuelle de ce tableau, la pragmatique de l'oeuvre (ce que l'on pourrait nommer comme 6tant sa prhence) en la re-cadrant, paradoxalement, dans le wrpw des oeuvm de Rubens. Cette thèse tente d'analyser le'rapport que Er.bens entretient ifalidgorieet le fonctionnement plus g6néral de ce type d'image. Nous tenterons alors de comprendre pourquoi le corps fCminin a pu &treutilise comme une surface vide de sens en attente d'un investissement symbolique de la part de son spectateur. Pour rendre compte de tout cela nous utiliserons des unCo- alldgoristes~qui dans leurs travaux récents ont renou6 (pour parfois prendre leurs distances) avec Rubens, ses techniques de uniposition et ses stratt5gies visuelles. Parmi ces artistes. citons Robert Rauschenberg, Peter Dressler