An Object of the Male Gaze, Private Moments Made Public

An Object of the Male Gaze, Private Moments Made Public

Today, the objectification and oppression of women has been widely seen as unacceptable. However, in the mid to late 19th century, although unacceptable in the public arena, oppression was widely seen but accepted if it was cast in shadow, tucked away in the private life of an individual. That’s to say oppression was considered to be an individual endeavor and therefore not available for discussion or judgement. Many artists that have been recognized as Impressionist or Post-Impressionists including Degas, chose to paint the everyday experience, including not only the public but also the private lives of their subjects. These artists included male as well as female subjects which shed light on the promiscuity and the oppression that each woman was obliged to accept as normative through the depiction of the male gaze. Questions about why the artists chose to include the direct male gaze has become an important part of the conversation around each of these pieces. What were the social implications that manifested out of this break between private and public exposure have also become a topic of conversation. By viewing these artworks we can gain a better understanding of the nature of the male intent and why the promiscuity and oppression can be easily be identified through the use of a simple gaze. This exhibit specifically provides evidence of a widely spread understanding of the oppression and objectification of women and how they became a theatrical and often sexual experience for the male viewer.

The Ballet from “Robert le Diable”

Edgar Degas

1871

Oil on canvas

29.100.552
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

In Degas’s work, The Ballet from “Robert le Diable” the most centralized figure in the piece in a man who has been identified as an abonne, or subscriber in the foreground of the painting. Like this abonne, many would go to the opera and watch their dancer perform with the rest of the audience. Unlike many of Degas’ other paintings, where abonnes were depicted within the shadowy margins of the stage, this abonne watches from the public’s perspective. However, the abonne is not paying any attention to the ballerinas, but instead he gazes out to the left of the stage towards others in the audience which could be a result of boredom after watching the same performance many times the opera seats as well as a private spot backstage during rehearsals.

The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage

Edgar Degas

ca. 1874

Oil colors freely mixed with turpentine, with traces of watercolor and pastel over pen-and-ink drawing on cream-colored wove paper, laid down on bristol board and mounted on canvas

29.160.26

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Degas’ The Rehearsal of the Ballet Onstage,” is an example of the way in which what was once private, scandalous, and hidden behind a curtain, had been captured on canvas and given to the public. Dancers in the late 19th century often had to submit to the oppression of their abonne, or sponsor which allowed the dancers to pursue their career in the theatre. The mundane lives of each dancer and the hours of labor that had been dedicated to the perfection of a dance, often went unnoticed. Until Degas yanked back the curtain creating a space for uncomfortable conversation, allowing the hardships of these women to be blatantly laid before the viewer’s feet. Now exposed, the dancers’ watchful male patrons have become part of the show, their gazes which had once been purposefully hidden, now rest in the spotlight.

In the Loge

Mary Stevenson Cassatt

1878

Oil on canvas

10.35

Museum of Fine Arts Boston

Inspired by European Impressionism, American Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt moved to Paris in the mid 19th century and was heralded in as a member of a small Impressionist group in Paris which also included Edgar Degas. In her work, In the Loge, Cassatt, paints a scene in the opera. A woman in the audience is the main focal point of the piece. She uses her opera glasses to focus intently on the performance. However across the way from the woman, a man has directed is attention away from the performance and instead is staring directly at her. Although the woman is unaware of his gaze, Cassatt allows for this private indulgence to be given to the public.  “Cassatt’s painting explores the very act of looking, breaking down the traditional boundaries between the observer and the observed, the audience and the performer.”

Ballet

Edgar Degas

1876

Pastel on monotype

2084

Musee d’Orsay

Degas’ Ballet is another example of a dancer that is bound to the financial support of an abonne. As she dances gracefully alone in the spotlight, her male sponsor stands back behind a piece of the set, exercising his privileges as an investor. Unseen by the audience, the abonne can enjoy her performance at close range. Degas paints the abonne’s so that his face is hidden behind the set. In addition, the other dancers wait in the wings obscuring with loose brush strokes so that the ballerina in the center of the stage is the only component of the artwork that is in focus.

Fastening a Corset

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

1896

Lithograph printed in five colors on wove paper

1984.1203.166(11)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Graphic artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec created vibrant posters that expressed the variety of roles of women in Belle Époque society. Women were depicted as moving away from conventional ideas of femininity, domesticity, and subservience to become a part of demimonde. Demimonde was a term used in the 19th-century as a  title for a class of women who were considered to have loose social standing and loose morals. In this particular print, Toulouse-Lautrec provides a quick sketch of a woman undressing as a man of presumably high social status sits and watches. The style makes the print seem slightly detached from reality however based on much of modern Parisian life at the time, Lautrec’s print would have been understood as a common circumstance of a performer and  a common indulgence of her wealthy male patron.

The Englishman (William Tom Warrener, 1861-1934) at the Moulin Rouge

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

1892

Oil on canvas

67.187.108

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Englishman at the Moulin Rouge, is not an uncommon scene. In the Parisian neighborhood of Montmartre, many colorful performances and celebrations were constantly taking place. Artists, writers, and intellectuals poured into the district where art was celebrated and experienced. As the district of amusement, Montmartre was a place were performance met pleasure and women such as the women is Toulouse-Lautrec’s piece were constantly under the watchful eye of the male consumer, seen merely as dazzling entertainment. In this particular piece, a well dressed Englishman openly flirts with two women at the Moulin Rouge, a dance hall known its cheap and loose nightlife of fin-de-siècle