Page 39 - Courbet

Khalil Bey, who was the Ottoman ambassador to Paris. Bey was well-known for his collections and artistic
taste. Not only is the picture highly finished with a nearly Ingresque polish but it includes exquisite details on
the decorative table next to the rumpled bed and magnificent flowers in a porcelain vase on a stylish console in
the background. No longer is the relationship between a blond and a brunette threatening. Rather they sleep in
post-coital satiety with limbs entwined.The sole sign of violence is a broken string of pearls winding serpent-
like alongside the brunette’s body. Its missing links are near the foot of the bed, accompanied by a hairpin with
prongs that resemble the fangs of a poisonous snake.The male presence has been reduced to symbolic objects
and is broken, as is the taboo against lesbian subjects, while the clearly blissful couple drift off to dreamland in
each other’s arms.

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A t a personal level, Courbet’s nudes imply
the combination of his desire and his
frustration. His vulnerable masculine
ego was certainly affected not only by failures at
female relationships – a fact that his public bluster
confirms by hiding – as well as by the emergence of
a rival artist who stole his spotlight.Whether these
circumstances encouraged him to paint The Origin of
theWorld (Fig. 41), they can hardly have discouraged
him.54 This controversial painting, also painted for
Khalil Bey, was an open secret almost as soon as it
was painted. A caricature by one Léonce Petit on
the front page of the satirical journal Le Hanneton
for June 1867, shows it represented by an oversized
fig leaf at the upper right of an image of the artist Fig. 41. The Origin of theWorld, 1866-67, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
holding up a mug brimming with beer (Fig. 42).
This painting, which has almost as many interpretations as it has had viewers over time, can at the very least be
acknowledged to reduce the image of woman to the essential function Courbet had in mind for his own ladies.

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