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I guess you might wonder why I’ve put a picture of Édouard Manet’s Olympia next to this paragraph. After all, Manet was famously part of the Parisian flâneur culture that basically objectified women for a laugh. Flâneurs were intelligent men in the 19th century who would stroll the streets of Paris and take trips to the parks or the theatre in order to watch people. Mostly women. Some of them, like Manet and Baudelaire would draw the women that they saw on these outings too. I mean, the modern day equivalent is a male photographer following a young woman around with his camera and long lens taking pictures of her. Oh wait…
But anyway, I included the very naked Olympia here for a reason. You see, although Manet was pretty much a pervy creep (although, he is marginally forgiven because he was ‘of his time’) he did paint his naked chicks with interesting context. You see, Olympia broke the mould (as did his painting of Suson in A Bar at the Folies-Bergère) because he understood that him and his mates were being creepy pervs and was actually commenting on it within his works.
Olympia isn’t just a naked chick lying on a bed in her finery being served by her black slave. No. She’s a prostitute. You see the way she’s staring at you? That was unprecedented for the time. She’s looking at you and accusing you, and I guarantee when you went with your wife to view the work in the polite company of the French Salon you would have been rather flustered and embarrassed. You see, she’s not only displaying herself as a prostitute, she’s reminding you that you use her services.
