The Shock of the Nude: Manet's Olympia

In Manet's time, Olympia was considered an infuriating painting because it did not conform to traditional ideas of how a nude should be presented in visual art. Now, of course, the nudity in Olympia is itself considered traditional. Are there boundaries today for what is acceptable in the portrayal of a male or female nude in painting or other visual arts?

Manet's Olympia
Leatrice Mendelsohn - 12:30pm Feb 4, 2000

The program demonstrated to me that the members of an audience, like an audience encircling a statue in the round, always see an image [even one that is two-dimensional] from multiple points of view. The greatest painters have been able to present their own visions in such a way as to make the spectator believe that his or her view is unique and the only one the painter intended to be seen.

The illusion of the reclining goddess, as the program brilliantly demonstrated, was deliberately demystified by Manet. He did so, I believe, almost entirely through technical means. By flattening the previously voluptuous female nude into a limited area of paint surrounded by an obvious contour, he deflated the illusion that the female could be possessed. Not only her audacious gaze defied possession, but her evident and literal 'flatness'. A man can't make love to paint but it can, nevertheless, seduce.

No one looking at the painting today can avoid noticing Manet's technique. But those of his contemporaries whose expectation was stimulated by contemporary erotic images, could only be disappointed when they 'literally' were prevented from grasping at the lack of flesh. Their denegration of the figure was a symptom of Manet's deliberate denial of the satisfaction of their desire. Like the seductress Eve, Olympia's promise is not fulfilled and another is substituted.

Students, whether in college or high school, will not be fooled in the way an 1860's Bourgeoise Gentleman could be fooled. And most will not lash out in anger when deprived of illusion. But they may, instead, empathize with the painting's deconstruction of both the white and black women. The two women have much in common, in the painting as well as in life. To me, there is a hint of sadness in their expressions along with a kind of passive resistance, something students can empathize with. From my point of view (which Manet has successfully, if falsely, convinced me is mine alone)neither of these females was free to express herself. Only the cat has her back up.

The value of destroying an illusion is perhaps better understood and more necessary to understand today than yesterday. Consequently, such powerful images should not be censored.