Perhaps the most enduring subject of art is the human form and figure. Some of our earliest records of art are Paleolithic handprints or little stone carvings of nude bodies, like the Woman of Willendorf. Idealized and realistic alike, we see all kinds of figures throughout the development of Western art, and in the late 1800s they are at the forefront of the symbolist movement. The symbolists, fascinated by and obsessed with emotion, capitalized on the 17th century historical use of women as mythic motifs or allegories for things like liberty, justice, and virtue as well as commentaries on sexuality and promiscuity, like Manet's Olympia. They relied on the female figure, and through it the tropes of the virgin and alternatively the femme fatale, to talk about a variety of feelings, movements, and ideologies. It's important to note here that the symbolist movement was primarily composed of men, and those men reduced the concept of feminine sexuality into a binary of purity pitted against seductive corruption. Whether used to talk about love and desire or anguish and death, the female body is just that: used. I hope the pieces below, beautiful, strange, and enticing as they might be, will be taken with a grain of salt and an understanding of the artists' contexts.
Edvard Munch, Puberty, 1894-95, Oil on canvas, National Gallery, Oslo
Munch, like many of his contemporaries, spends a fair amount of time and work wrestling with ideas of fear and anxiety. His 1893 work The Scream is maybe his most recognizable piece, but other paintings of his are titled things like Anxiety, Separation, and Ashes. In this painting, he uses a pure, untouched body, not yet adult, and places the girl alone, nude, and casting shadow. She is actively covering herself, following a long tradition of divine female nudes, but she appears more naked than anything. This girl is a virgin, but her purity only exacerbates her fear.
Odilon Redon, Pandora, ca. 1914, Oil on canvas, Accession Number: 60.19.1
The story of Pandora is one of a beautiful mortal woman who, out of curiosity, releases all the evils known to man. In this painting, we see the precursor to this unleashing: Pandora's innocent beauty. This is her virgin type, her goodness enhanced by the blooming world around her. But Redon hints at the femme fatale, citing Pandora specifically for her role in the end of harmony. This resonated further when we realize that Redon paints this on the eve of the first world war, using Pandora's story and body to explore an outbreak of chaos.
Gustav Klimt, Danae, 1907, Galerie Würthle, Vienna, Austria
Danae's story is one of virginity as well; the mythic mother of Perseus locked away but impregnated by Zeus nonetheless. In this painting, the shower of gold flowing between her legs is Zeus. Red hair, notably a mark of prostitution and promiscuity, makes its first appearance in this collection, identifying Danae as a sexually desirable figure. So desirable, in fact, as to be visited by Zeus while locked away. Klimt uses Danae's powerful, virginal attraction to comment on divine love and transcendence.
Ferdinand Hodler, The Dream of the Shepherd, 1896, Oil on canvas, Accession Number: 2013.1134
A mix of both femme fatale and virgin, the women in this piece are the object of longing, anguish, dreams. Painting this piece after some of his work had come under intense derision for its gross sensuousness, Hodler maintains his interest in sex and lasciviousness while incorporating a fascination with modern dance and a purity of color and form that makes these women dynamic and yet stiff, desirable and yet autonomous in their own group. They're heavenly, but their allure reaches the earth.
Gustave Moreau, Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1864, Oil on canvas, Accession Number: 21.134.1
Moreau moves us into the world of the femme fatale, drawing a very distinct parallel between woman and beast. The sphinx often functions as an offshoot of the femme fatale trope, alluring and dangerous, tricky with their wit. The connection between woman and cat quite literally paints a type of woman as seductress, charming yet venomous. It's at least somewhat amusing to call attention to the fact that while the description of a sphinx is that of a lion or similar large cat with the head of a woman, Moreau deems it necessary to include her breasts. This only furthers allusions to her dangerous sexuality.
Fernand Khnopff, Caress of the Sphinx, 1896, Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
Khnopff reiterates this same storied symbol of the sphinx, albeit a fair few years later than Gustave. Though the exact intended story of this piece is not known and an allusion to the story of Oedipus and the Sphinx is only guessed at, the equation of this woman with the ferocity of the cheetah is characteristically symbolist, again portraying women like a succulent piece of brie to a truly lactose intolerant person: enticing, yet ultimately wholly destructive.
Edvard munch, Love and Pain, 1895, Oil on canvas, Munch Museum, Norway
This piece is interesting amongst its companions for its supposed intent and its provoked interpretation. Munch is adamant that this is nothing more than a painting of a woman kissing a man on his neck, but since his friend called it Vampire, the enduring legacy of this work is the image of a man becoming submissive to a sexually perverse power, the femme fatale. And although Munch maintained his original intent for this piece, the four other iterations of it painted over the following 22 years are all named variations of Vampire. Love and Pain is discarded as a title entirely, so whether or not Munch noticed his own initial use of the femme fatale trope, once pointed out to him, it became the theme he centered the work around.
Edvard Munch, The Sin (Woman with Red Hair and Green Eyes), 1902, Lithograph printed in yellow, red and green, Accession Number: 1984.1167
This piece by Munch seems the perfect work to end on. Rather than dance around an insinuation that women's sexuality falls squarely either into the categories of virgin or femme fatale, he fully embraces the latter. Employing red hair and a full torso as means of conveying lascivity and desirousness, Munch calls this piece The Sin. Without context other than her nudity, this woman, a model he paid to pose for him, is either the active party in or the object of sin. Why not both? That's what femme fatale is, and that's part of what the symbolists were so quick to assert.
Gudrun Schubert. “Women and Symbolism: Imagery and Theory.” Oxford
Myers, Nicole. “Symbolism.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New
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