Manet's Olympia in Modern France

Last fall when I lived in Paris, I was lucky enough to take a class named, “introduction to art through Paris museums”. When I was making course selections, I was immediately drawn to this class because I knew that Paris is home to some of the most famous museums and one of the epicenters of Art and Culture in Europe. During my time in this class I was lucky enough to spend 4 months exploring different museums with my class and my very French professor.

            I loved going to the Museums and learning about the artworks. Throughout my months in France, I was lucky enough to visit the Louvre a total of five times, and don’t get me wrong, I loved the Louvre, but my favorite museum I visited was Musée d’Orsay. It was my favorite because the museum was in an old train station and home to a large collection of French artwork and impressionist paintings. While visiting Musée d’Orsay, my professor showed us various artwork from sculptures to paintings, but there was one work that stood out to me. Edouard Manet’s Olympia. I was intrigued by the historical significance and context of this painting, and the symbolisms within the painting. I was so interested in the painting that I spent countless hours researching the painting and even writing a final paper on it. I wanted to understand why Manet depicted the women in a provocative, bold way, and understand how the French public felt about the painting when it was created.

            Manet began creating Olympia in 1863. He was inspired by Titian’s painting, Venus of Urbino, which showcased an idealized nude woman and goddess, Venus[1]. Despite drawing inspiration from Titian’s painting, Manet’s Olympia differs largely from Venus because he did not illustrate a mythological female and nude figure, instead, he illustrated a natural, modern prostitute. The painting was created using techniques quite different from academic paintings. He utilized quick brushstrokes, which were visible to the audience and emphasized the realistic nature of the nude woman’s body. The woman’s body lacks definition and shading (which was often shown in academic paintings) highlighting the realistic look of the naked woman. While most academic paintings used bright colors, lighting, and shading to make the female figures look one way, Olympia is dull and painted in muted colors. In the context of the 19th century, the painting challenged many societal opinions on sex, race, and prostitution.

            Édouard Manet was born in Paris, France in 1832. Manet was a realist and impressionist painter, well known for painting modern French life and culture. Born into an upper-class family, Manet was expected by his family to go into the law or military field. Monet, however, decided to pursue art instead, studying below the academic painter Thomas Couture. While he did not formally attend the French Academy of Fine Arts, he was still influenced by the academic style through Couture, who had studied at the academy himself. Manet’s absence from the academy furthered his rebellious spirit against the academic, conventional ways of creating art in mid-19th-century France. Manet’s art reflected modern Parisian culture – such as, Olympia and its depiction of a modern women’s nude body and prostitution. Writer and scholar, Charles Bernheimer argues that Manet’s Olympia scandalized Parisian culture because it was one of the most provocative depictions of prostitution at the time. Bernheimer also describes how many 19th-century art critics believed that Manet’s painting was offensive, and one critic even compared Olympia’s body to a “‘dead and decomposing body, a painted corpse’”.

            In 1863, Edouard Manet sought to break free of artistic conventions placed by academic paintings, and created his now infamous painting Olympia, which was then premiered to the public in 1865. The painting depicts a young adult woman lying on her side, with a Black middle-aged woman, likely a servant or housemaid, standing behind her handing her flowers. The painting used rather muted colors, mostly pale whites and pinks. The painting was controversial when it was revealed because it illustrated a naked woman, who was unlike the other nude women who were depicted in academic paintings. Unlike the others, the woman in Olympia was unidealized and portrayed as a modern Parisian woman, not an allegorical or mythological female figure. Her body language and features were equally revolutionary and shocking to the French public in the mid-19th century. Olympia reflected the changing times and culture of France in the 19th century, however, in my research I strived to understand whether Olympia could reflect modern French society as well.

            To fully understand the public reaction and outcry to the painting, one must also fully understand the painting and what it shows. The painting is 130.5 cm by 190 cm (approximately 4 feet, 3.38 inches by 6 feet, 2.8 inches for my fellow Americans) making it an almost life-size representation of the naked woman. The nude woman lays down, tilted to the side. She wears an orchid in her hair and high heels while lying on top of a floral shawl. The flower and expensive, luxurious shawl imply her wealth and status, while her nudity and the black bow tied around her neck imply sensuality and intimacy. Because of her body language and outfit, or more so lack of an outfit, it is also believed that she is a courtesan, or in modern terms a sex worker. Because she is surrounded by symbols of wealth and expensive items, it is also implied that her clients and courters are wealthy, elite men. The bed she lays on is lavish and covered by plush pillows, while the walls behind her are dark green and brown, contrasting with her light skin and bed. Her maid is a Black woman with dark skin and hair, which is covered by a wrapping. The maid carries a large bouquet, which seems to be handed to the courtesan. At the end of the bed is a black cat with an arched back, which can be perceived as a suggestive symbol of sexuality because of the French word, chatte, which is slang for a woman’s private area, thus making the painting even more provocative to the French-speaking viewers.

            One of the main reasons that Olympia was met with such negative reactions and criticisms was because it was shown at the Salon, a prestigious art exhibition hosted by the French Academy of Fine Arts, which occurred every other year. The Salon was a prestigious event where elite artists and their works were exhibited, so Olympia was taken especially negatively in this environment.

            Another reason that Olympia was seen as provocative and controversial was the blatant and explicit depiction of a sex worker. In the 19th century, prostitution was a common, yet taboo topic in France. At the beginning of the 1800s, brothels were both completely legal and common in France. Brothels were especially common in densely populated cities such as Paris, but laws made it, so they had to be run by women and the outside preface had to be discreet. Any woman working at the brothel or caught in prostitution had to be put in a national registration, meaning they had to abide by France’s regulations, which included bi-weekly health checkups, a measure put in place by Napoleon[2]. It was common for members of the elite and royalty to visit brothels or sex workers, specifically Courtesans, who were sex workers with clients from the high class. Despite it being common and normal for men to visit brothels, sex workers were often seen as “sub-citizens”. French Historian, Alain Corbin explains that women, often sex workers, who contracted a venereal disease were subjected to inhumane conditions by doctors. Because of the stigma between sexually transmitted diseases and prostitution, sex workers were mistreated by doctors who were supposed to help them. The mistreatment of sex workers inspired Manet to paint Olympia as an effort expose French society to its stereotyping. But how has French culture changed in the nearly two hundred years since the creation of Olympia? How does the painting reflect modern French culture?

            In current day France, prostitution itself is not illegal, however, the purchasing of sex acts is illegal. The law is not against sex workers, and modern French society is much more accepting of sex workers. However, now, the act of prostitution or procuring prostitution is illegal. So, Manet’s paintings reflect the ever-changing opinions of sex work in France. Many people were upset by France’s ruling in 2016 which outlawed the purchasing sex acts, and when Manet’s painting was unveiled at the prestigious salon in the mid-1860s, many people were upset as well. In both instances, there was a strong public reaction and upset over what happened.

            In another aspect of the painting, Olympia can also reflect France’s complex racial history. Olympia was painted 15 years after the total abolition of slavery in France, however, it depicts a very realistic, yet troubling power and racial dynamic for that period. While slavery was not allowed in mainland France, even much before 1848, there was still much racial discrimination and oppression in France in the 19th century. Denise Murrell, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, analyses the role of Black women in history, and specifically dives into Laure, who was the model of the maid behind Olympia. Murrell argues that Manet’s representation of Laure is a symbol and an important representation of a “small black presence in Paris”.

            Manet’s Olympia reflects France’s complex, complicated history and its complex, complicated relationship with prostitution. Despite prostitution being legal in France’s past, but now illegal, sex work is much more accepted in society now. Manet’s Olympia was a radical change in the culture and society of French art, changing the way the French both think about and view sex workers. Paintings like Olympia need to continue being studied and researched, because art is so often known to reflect life. I feel this immense sense of gratitude toward this painting and my art class because it opened my eyes to the importance of art in history. Time passes by every second, but the beauty of art is that it can capture time and preserve it.

[1] Venus, the Roman goddess of love, beauty, and fertility.

[2] Napoleon Bonaparte was the emperor of France from 1804-1814.

Works Cited

1. Bernheimer, Charles. “Manet’s Olympia: The Figuration of Scandal.” Poetics Today, vol. 10, no. 2, 1989, pp. 255–77. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1773024. Accessed 10 Dec. 2024.

2. Corbin, Alain. Women for Hire: Prostitution and Sexuality in France after 1850. Harvard University Press, 1990.

3. Murrell, Denise. Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today, Yale University Press, 2018. A&AePortal, aaeportal.com/?id=-21014.