James Tissot: Seduction and Social Commentary

James-Jacques-Joseph Tissot, though thoroughly concerned with high society and luxury, has also been proclaimed as concerned with the “veneer.” His focus on women in fashion and “false fronts,” if you will, conceal a deeper meaning as he exposes the seduction of surface-level values in society while involving the viewer. Each of these oil paintings join together in conversation in that scholars agree these paintings contain almost a lack of narrative, and so Tissot succeeds in communicating both narrative ambiguity and cultural comment in the same breath. These works in succession are almost socially satirical as Tissot creates illusions of society, women, luxury, and goods. 

In this collection of 7 of Tissot’s own works depicting society, luxury, and women, as well as one portrait of Tissot by his friend and pupil Degas, the French artist unveils the concealed anxieties of society. Tissot is by no means limited by lack of narrative, but uses it often to expose the viewers and the allure of appearances, as well as engaging in incredibly relevant narratives of his day in some of these works once you spend some time with them. Among the vulgar, Tissot reveals purity, and in proper and beautiful appearances, Tissot exposes the ugly and improper.

James Tissot, October, 1877

oil on canvas, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, inv. 1927.410

In this, one of Tissot’s largest works, his long-time muse, divorcee Mrs. Newton’s cheeky posture confronts us as she makes eye contact with the viewer. Mimicking the Japanese style of lengthy scrolls and in the color palette of the leaves surrounding the subject, Tissot is addressing the societal fabrication of fashion, as Mrs. Newton is declining from a fight with Tuberculosis. Her beauty inspired Tissot, even as she suffered and passed away from the disease. So here, Tissot uses the beauty and aesthetic of this subject to actually express grief.

James Tissot, Holyday (The Picnic), 1876,

oil on canvas, Tate Britain, N04413

First Considered a rather vulgar scene of flirtation, this group of young people have a lush picnic as their supposed “chaperone” snoozes in the corner. The men’s cricket caps suggest their elite status, and the location of Tissot’s own home in St. John’s Wood suggests the personal effects of this society of luxury and frivolity. The pond is a little dirty, and the soda water bottles are just as plain and everyday as the people, but the clothes make the people look above their reality of worth, as the trees and developed landscape elevate the ever decreasing sanitation of the pond.

James Tissot, Summer (‘Portrait’), 1876,

oil on canvas, Tate Britain, N04271

An open-narrative piece, Summer (‘Portrait’) lets the viewer interpret the subject, Miss Lloyd’s gaze as she stands in the door to a billiards’ room typically inhabited by men, wearing an engagement ring. We may wonder who she’s looking at, or rather, wonder at the significance of its later title as a published etching, A Door Must Be Either Open or Shut. Miss Lloyd was a professional model, and here Tissot is using her to establish ambiguity in the space she inhabits.

James Tissot, The Gallery of HMS Calcutta (Portsmouth), 1877,

oil on canvas, Tate Britain, N04847

Here Tissot addresses the propriety of Victorian culture as the woman in the foreground hides herself from the flirtatious man in the back of the painting. This painting was also poorly received as vulgar as the woman has an idealized figure, and the woman in the middle is keeping the flirtation at bay as a chaperone. In his final maritime piece, Tissot points to the fact that neither the flirty man or woman can see each other, but that does not hide the desires of either.

James Tissot, La Plus Jolie Femme de Paris (The Most Beautiful Woman in Paris, or The Fashionable Beauty), 1883-85,

oil on canvas, MAH Musée d’art et d’histoire, Ville de Genève, BA 1998-0239

The object of almost all eyes in the painting, the woman at the center of La Plus Jolie Femme de Paris (The Most Beautiful Woman in Paris, or The Fashionable Beauty) is a narrative of the awareness of the viewer’s involvement in the ephemeral scene. A picture of beauty at the center, this woman’s body is the currency, the men’s gazes, the wallets getting fatter. What is powerful here is the woman’s awareness, and her direct acknowledgement of her predicament. She is subject to the interest in appearances because of her beauty, and so Tissot is using such direct confrontation to expose the interests of not only the figures around her, but our involvement as a viewer, to comment on the frivolity of beauty. This may be the most Ecclesiastical of Tissot’s works.

James Tissot, Tea, 1872,

oil on wood, accession number: 1998.170

A replicated left half of a larger piece, Bad News (The Parting), Tea, or Tea Time drops the story-telling elements of the two other figures and becomes a genre painting without narrative. The city, water, and sailboats are typical of some other genre works of the period, but this re-envisioning of his original painting signifies the shift in detail from Tissot’s narrative works to genre works. This painting is not so much about the woman as it is about the elements of the River Thames behind her.

James Tissot, Seaside (July: Specimen of a Portrait), 1878,

oil on fabric, The Cleveland Museum of Art

This same white and yellow ruffled dress appears again as Tissot again depicts Kathleen Newton in a portrait art historians say is the nearest adoption of the Aesthetic Movement that Tissot hints at. This is about the hairstyle, the upholstery of the couch, and still the view out the window. An allegory of different months of the year, this painting upholds sentiments of summer luxury and comfort as the subject almost appears drowsy.

Edgar Degas, James-Jacques-Joseph Tissot (1836–1902), 1867-68,

oil on canvas, accession number: 39.161

In this representation of his friend and mentor, Degas paints James Tissot among pieces of other art that echo the interests they shared. This is a painting of a painter in a studio. So here among an honoring of Northern Renaissance art with the painting of Frederick the Wise, and other contemporary references in the corner pieces of art, we see a representational appearance of intentional work. Tissot had interests, he had treasured objects and did not leave himself out of his work.