Olympia, Madame X, and Mme Matisse

20 Pages 4959 Words

Between 1870 and 1910 Paris was a prominent cultural center in Europe. It was a time of great change in society, education, women’s roles, the separation of church and state, industrialization, colonization and society standings. Many artists moved to Paris to be part of the cultural scene. These turbulent times created an atmosphere in which some artists felt brave enough to defy tradition in something as traditional as art. This situation applies to three outstanding paintings: Edouard Manet’s Olympia, John Singer Sargent’s Madame X, and Edouard Matisse’s Mme Matisse-The Green Stripe. Ironically, despite the push by the art community to revolutionize the art world, these three masterpieces were found appalling by the general public, largely due to how they portrayed their female models. Women were still very restricted by the laws of society, especially in the high-class, art elite of Paris. The way these women in these portraits were presented--self-confident, strong, and shameless--was a direct contradiction to the ideal woman of the time--compliant and humble.
Maxime du Camp, a prominent member of Parisian society, was quoted in 1858:

“Everything advances, expands, and increases around us…Science produces marvels, industry accomplishes miracles, and we remain impassive, insensitive, and disdainful, scratching false chords of our lyres, closing our eyes in order not to see, or persisting in looking towards a past that nothing aught to make us regret. Steam is discovered and we sing to Venus, daughter of the briny main: electricity is discovered and we sing to Bacchus, friend of the rosy grape. It is absurd!!”
This quote embodies the argument of this paper: that despite the ever-changing world, and the changes in the city around them, society tried to cling to a comfortable traditional past, one that did not allow for avant-garde art to be accepted.
Beginning in the 1860’s thousands of foreigner...