Page 36 - Courbet

with Paris admired as a locus for amorous adventure.51 It is worth noting that despite the presumed male
presence in The Demoiselles on the Banks of the Seine, the man himself is nowhere to be seen.The viewer is his
surrogate, as in pictures with undressed females who are by themselves.

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D uring the years 1864 to 1866, Courbet made two versions of a painting however, in which the viewer
is reduced to a third-party voyeur. Both Jealous Venus Pursuing Psyche (Fig. 35) and The Awakening
(Fig. 36) show two nude women, one sleeping in the presence of the other. In both, male agency is
transferred to the brawny dark-haired woman who observes or wakens the more delicate blond.The contrast
between the two figures enhances the potential for violence indicated by the first picture’s title. Courbet knew
of course that lesbian themes were beyond the bounds of public propriety. Despite its mythological disguise
and recent Salon reforms that made acceptance less restrictive, the picture was rejected in 1864 on grounds of
indecency.52 Such scenes existed only in pornographic photographs or prints (Fig. 37).To be sure, Courbet’s
paintings were aimed at private patrons.Yet that he would indulge in images which at the time could only be
regarded as triple X implies a level of misogyny that can only have roots in personal experience.

In 1862, the painter who would become Courbet’s rival for public attention and controversy, Edouard
Manet, painted his own updated version of the reclining nude. However his notorious Olympia was not
to be exhibited publicly until 1865 (Fig. 38), a year after the rejection of Courbet’s Venus and Psyche.
Might Courbet have known of Manet’s picture ahead of its public exhibition? Manet went further than
had Courbet, both thematically and technically. He made no pretence of mythology, for Olympia is an
unvarnished courtesan, a woman of business who looks frankly at the presumed male viewer while calling
attention to what he wants with a hand covering herself at his pleasure’s focal point. It almost seems as
if she is posing in the display window of a storefront. She is attended by a servant bringing flowers from
an admirer, yet that does not prevent her from signalling her availability. In addition, Manet’s pictorial
technique eschewed the voluptuous curves and warm colours of Courbet’s nudes, using bold contrasts,
broad brushstrokes and flattened forms to signal deliberate pictorial gestures that accompanied his thematic
challenge to convention. Courbet himself was shocked, but only by what he deemed the effect that made the
picture look flat like a ‘playing card’.53 It differed significantly, in other words, from Courbet’s celebrated

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