Body Politics: Seurat’s Poseuses By presenting the three models in “Poseuses” as nothing more or less than what they are—contemporary urban working women—Seurat rejected the traditional notion of the female nude as both timeless and quintessentially natural. ‘Above and opposite (etal), Georges Searat’s Poseuses, 1886-8, el on canras, 78H by 97 inches, ‘© The Barnes Foundation BY LINDA NOCHLIN [ris ere versions of the Poseuses, the ange one in the Bares Colletion (1886-88), the smaller one in the Berggruen Collection (1888), Georges Seurat problematizes one of the central themes of later 19th-century painting, the female nude.' Although at first glance the paintings may appear to be fairly conventional, deploying as they do the tradi- tional topos of the model in the studio, visual analysis and historical contextualization reveal that these are slyly subversive works, calling into question both the epistemological and th status of the subject. As such, one might say that Seurat’s Poseuses consti- tute a critical politics of the representation of the female body in the late 19th century. Artin America 71‘Use Balgnade, Asides, 1854, oon cenzas, 79 by 118 inches Netinal Galery, London. Gourley Girandotirt Reve ‘The conventions of the “body politics” to which Seurat responded ae bth fama and persisent. A highly praised fm of two years 0 bythe French director Jacques Rivet regaled the audience for four hours with the spectacle ofan aging painter attempting to reignite his flckerng genius by workdng on e-eapping masterpiece under the inspiration ofa beautiful model muse ee AA, Jan. 2. Ahough the fm, La Bele Noiseuse, is based specifically on Balzac’s erly 18th-century novela Le Qhefdoewore incon, the motif ot the artist who must prov hiself through the master represetation ofthe naked bod of « ‘woman—or women—Is understood to be & timeless and universal sig of genius hgh st chalenge. Tat the female nude ste major subject fo artic eration is tan for granted in this fn—ty te ecto, his east and pre sumably his udience—as beng as valid today ain Balac’s tine, The ait the naked model andthe audience sweat out to the sound of Michel Picea’ seratching pen and seraping bush unt the masterpiece is achieved. That the artist must be male and o certain age and the model in question must bea beaut young ‘oman is ofcourse integral to the sccepted ath o ratty inthe visual ars. tithe cor restoe ofa comentional boy plies. Yet if we exatine the history of the nue in aut, we find thatthe female subject did not always occupy such a central postion in ati- tie ereation Pom the time of Michelangelo's ‘avidin the Renaissance, down through the cary 18th century in the work of David and his school, it was mastery of the male nude that constituted the most serious challenge to the aspiring atist® Indeed, the subjects for the ‘eucial Prix de Rome invariably involved the representation of the heroic male nude, and the single-figure composition contest—that of the so-called Académie—was always based on the male, not the female, model. Heroism, sub- limation, knowledge of anatomy and antique exemplars were the issues at stake rather than overt sensuality and the embodiment of desire? It was not until later in the century, with the rise of the art market and the dealer system and the fall in importance of history painting itself thatthe female nude came to take the dominating position which it has ‘occupied ever since—to the exent that when Someone says “this isa show of mudes,” it is ‘understood to be naked women that are at ‘issue, unless otherwise specified. Body pol: ties, then, can be understood on one level as being a politics of gender, specifi to a certain period and certain practices inthe history of ar, rather than being a universal given of the creative act. Accordingly, Seurat's decision to make a major painting featuring the female rude and, above all, his choices about how to represent this subject inscribe a polities ofthe ‘ody rather than a purely esthetic position* Seurat has positioned the models in his, painting in such a way that they bear a prob- lematic, even parodic, relation tothe elevated nudes of tradition o ofthe recent past: that vast array of naked Susannahs, Diana, Three Graces or Baigneuses that had Seemed to con- Clothing still lifes figure in Seurat’s earliest works, and in Poseuses the shapes and forms of inanimate clothing are far more alive than the models themselves. stitute a selfjustifying category of elevated physical and spiritual beauty, While it is cer- tainly true that Manet's Déjener sur Uherbe and Olympia (both 1863) gave a salutary jolt to the notion ofthe nude as timeless and ele- vated, even thse revolutionary works did so in terms ofa justifying subject matter: the nude in nature inthe former case, the naked prosti- tute in the later, By contrast, Seurat’s models, despite their overt reference to traditional pro- totypes, are represented as nothing but the ‘models they are, here posing as models off uty, These are, in Seurt’s terms, simply con- temporary, rather unidealzed bodies for whom the state of nature is anything but natural, as. attested by their abandoned chemises, hats and umbrellas, which form an important part ofthe composition, low, in the Poseuses, does Seurat prob- imate the female nude? First of al, he refuses to represent the subject as a natural and timeless one. In so doing he reects the Young Woman Pondering Hersel, 1889.9, oll on canta, $74 by $1 Inches (Gonrtald TettteGalertes, London1 Chal, 187 anid crayon and white gouache on paper, 12% by PH Inches Mtropliian Museum. traditional politics ofthe body as represented by, for eal, Renoir’s Grandes Baigneuces, an equally ambitious and large-scale compost tion of exactly the same date as the Poseuses, and like it featuring three female nudes. In Renoir’s painting the connection between woman and nature, particularly the naked female and the ahistoric, bucolic landscape, is foregrounded by composition and setting the female nude, conceived of as part of nature, is, atthe same time, a natural topic forthe artist. Moreover, unlike more overtly academic painters, Seurat does not attempt to tle his ‘nudes to nature by means of classical reference, as does Bouguereau, for example, in his Bathing Nymphs (1818), orto allgorize them ‘as embodiments of the “natural” cycle of the seasons, as Puvis de Chavannes does in his Autumn (1864), Seurat means his nudes to be ‘een as contemporary urban working women. In presenting them as such he complicates the tople in avaretyof ways: not merely by insisting that a raked woran is something more than an eternal type but also by asserting tha: these par ticular naked woren are workers who are pal for posing, a fact wich renders ther social as ‘well as their esthetic position equivocal In their Iiteral and not very gamarous status as working ‘models standing around waiting to pose within the selfreferential world of the artist's studio, they serve to body forth—lteally embody—the central issue of art and art-making itself at thePosense de Courtesy GleandaniArt Resource, 1A March 1904 oe. ae os, 188687, of on wood, 9% by inches. Musée d Orsay. end of the 19th century: the relation between the artist and his subject and, ultimately, between te ats and his pubie* In rethemaizng the topic ofthe ans’ sta- dio in a large-scale, ambitious composition, Seurat takes over where Courbet left off in his provocative Studio of the Painter (1855), a similarly dramatic statement of the major {issues confronting the atists of the time, In Courbet's painting, however, the focus is the ‘working artist; the model merely looks on. Courbet, unlike Seuat, is hesitant fo break the connection between naked woman and nature; indeed, despite the studio setting, the model is sill materially connected to nature by means of the landscape on Courbe’s easel, which serves «partial background for her body. Andi the model is represented as contemporary and ‘unelohed, rather than idealized and classically nude, she nevertheless functions asa kind of updated inspiring muse, plying a subordinata role in Gourbet's tion of eeaton, rather than being its whole subject, tke the models in the Poseuse. Seurat was hardly alone in astempting to modernize the theme ofthe model inthe studio in the late 18th century. Many of his academic contemporaries, lke the prolific J. Dantan, trod rather desperately to update the topic by highlighting naturalistic detail o by emphasiz- ing juicy, seraly changed vignettes relating to the theme, Such Salon paintings are unvarying ly vulgar, banal and aneedotal, and, unlike Seurat's they usualy show the artist himself plying & provocative ifnot dominant oe in the scenario. Sometimes, asin Gérome's The Artist aad his Model (1885), the artist represents himself as actually at work with the nude rodel. In Gérdme’s painting the question of touch isa primary factor in the body polities controling the scenario. Ifthe artist is repe- sented as only touching the work, not the model herself the gesture presumably provides the observer with an enjoyable lite frisson over this close ell, and with a sense of power, how ever fleeting, through identifietion with the all-powerful artist inthe painting who at oneo exercises complete control and admirable restraint in his dealings with an unelothed ‘woman, In other versions ofthe theme, it may Jn the innocence and potential sexual ntiaton ofthe mode, the violation of her natural mod: esty, which les at the ex ofthe seene, a it does in Bompard's A Debut in the Studio or Cogs Anety (1902), Inthe Paseuses, by contrast, there is no tt luting incident, no prurience, no hint of dolicoa vetinization. Mhese women are repre sented as professional, even blasé posers, not terrified novices; thie thin, unseductve bodies aw matter-oF actly stripped for work. Within this context of ordinariness, a certain specifi: ty of lass and ethni type may be hinted al. Wenow something of the institution of modeling during this period: who did It, where the models were available. There seems to have boen a whole industry of ltalian models during Seura's time, for example, and different ethnic, ‘types were often remarked upon," Indeed, the naturalism with which the central mode is rep- resented in the large version of the Poseuses made at least one contemporary viewer, Gustave Kahn, himself a Jew and later the owner of the painting, refer to her “téte juive'—Jewish head—“beneath a flat coffure ofblack hair,” when he wrote about the work on its first appearance.’ ‘Yet what constitutes the politics ofthe paint- ing, and its confrontational novelty as wel is not mere naturalism but something far more interesting and provocative. Seurat achieves in the Poseuses a feat of visual demystification. This he does by playing tradition and its weight. of authority against the challenge of modernity and contemporaneity. If the poses in the Poseuses recall the art of the past—most notably the Three Graces, viewed from front, side and back—that past is appropriated and transformed by Seurat in gigantic, joky meio- sis: he makes sure we are aware it i the banal act of posing itself, not the traditional elevated mythological topic, that he is presenting imary in the construction of the Poseuses, especially the large version in the Bames Collection, is the repr ional ‘modernity offered by the relatively new medi- “Ingres: The Small Bathe, 1826, ol on cana, ‘Wiby Wine, a later version ofthe Valpngon Bathet. The Pllipe Collection, Washington Di, um of photography. Seurat, absorbed as he was inthe pereeptual discoveries of modern science, must surely have been interested in Photography as @ medium, as a new way of conceiving ofthe perceptual il While photography quickly took over the representation ofthe nude female figure and disseminated ito a greatly extended market of eager amateurs—including amateurs of overt pornography—this branch of photographic representation also made its appel to profes- sionals, Artists made use of this cheap and convenient source of ready-made, two-dimen: sional models, models available in a wide variety of poses, including those associated ‘with traditional ge tsel, By midcentury there ‘wer, for example, many photographs based on the classical threesome. Stereoscopic photog- raphy in particular, with its emphatic, indeed iusionisticthree-dimensionality, undrsoored the notion of possession ofthe image through the gaze of the individual beholder. Hand- tinting of the nude figures added to the {mmodiacy ofthe sion. 1s seoms to me that Seurat is attempting to some degre to duplicate this visual effect of ilusionistie space through optical means in the large version of the Poseuses, by all accounts his most naturalistic painting and the one in Which the effets of divisionism and the poinilé are least in evidence." Other aspects of photography are also sug- ested by specific features ofthe painting: for example, the pose ofthe profl-vew model to the right duplicates a specific artist's photo- ‘raph of the time—J.E, Lecadre's Profile Model Kneeling in the Clouds (ca. 1890). The deliberate vavety of poses offered by Seurat’s painting recalls the photographed artist's “sheets” of the perod, with their convenient multiple views of the nude body. And, if we think of Seura’s Poseuses as a single woman inthree different poses, as several authorities have suggested." the relation to Muybidge's or Marey's near-contemporary photographic experiments withthe human body in motion right seem apposite YY sei amas degree of visual naturalism, art and artifice lie atthe heart of Seurat's ambitious project in the Poseuses. Indeed, as Francoise Cachin has suggested in her excellent catalogue essay on the painting, Seurat’s very choice of the tte *poseuses” ere ates, in the French viewer at least, eertain expectations of deliberation or artifice. “Poseuso” is not the term normally used in French to indicate the studio model—that term is “moddle"—but signifies rather ‘one ‘who... seeks to attract notice by an artificial or affected manner." Throughout the composition, Seurat estab- lishes an ambiguous interplay between art While clearly meant as an homage—or parodic reference—to Ingres’s Valpingon Bather, Seurat’s Poseuse de dos is in most respects far and reality, asserted first of all by the over- whelming’ presence of his own major ‘masterpiece of contemporary life, the Grande atte, on the wall to left. There is a constant visual badinage between elements of the real and those of the artificial: “real” in this case referring to the world of the depicted studio and “artfilal” to that of the painting-within- the-painting, On the most obvious lovel, it is implied that the naked models inthe Poseuses are the same women who posed, in contempo- rary dress, for the Grande Jatt, and are now stripped for action as “nudes,” thereby reminding the viewer that there is nothing particularly natural about being naked. Even in small details, Seurat reinforces the inter- play between the two paintings. For example, although itis extremely dificult to see when the painting is in situ at the Barnes Collection, the “painted” dog from the Grande dJatte appears to be jumping up at the ribbon ‘on the handle of the *real® parasol in the stu- dio in which the models are posing. In addition, recognizable items of clothing— hats, dresses, parasols and gloves—from the Grande Jatte are strewn around the fore- ground of the Paseuses. Seurat plays with the polka-dotted skirt in the foreground, punning on the identity between the dotted technique of the pointillé and the real" polka dots— red/orange on blue—of the printed fabric. He also plays with other colo relationships existing between the Poseuses and the Grande Jatte. The predominant green of the arass and trees of the latter is picked up by the unexpected and deliberate notes of green. in the stockings and bag hanging on the wall This linkage serves to unite the left side of the painting with the right, and at the same time implies thatthe single color green, associated with grass, trees and the natural order in the earlier painting, now refers to the world of artifacts in the later one. Seurat emphasizes the perceptual basis of his artistry, and his controlling role in the construction ofthe pereeivable in the work, by playing with visibility and invisibility or the zone between the two. Although it is easy to make out that there are at least four small Pictures hanging on the studio wall opposite the Grande Jatt, the spectator is not allowed Artin America 75 Sn% ‘Poseuses, ensemble, 188, oll on cancar, 151:by 19% Inches. Bergpruen Collection on loan tothe Netfonal Gallery, London to make out the precise identity of these images. Peer as I might—and I had binocu lars with me at the Barnes Collection—these mages resisted identification with maddening obstinacy. I could only speculate as to what they might be until I found external assis- tance in the form of a description of Seurat’s studio on the Boulevard de Clichy writen by his admirer Gustave Kahn, Kahn's description of the studio represented in the Poseuses is amazingly accurate and tells us what the works on the wall might be ‘There was searcely anything in it except a Hitl inon bed, tho red divan the angle of which appears to the lef of the great canvas, the tiny eastiron stove which is visible tothe right, and everywhere, drawings and canvases: hung ot the white wal there were his own drawings which Seat had made atthe Beole des Reau-vts, warks by (ys, by Gulllamia, several Forains, al even x poster by Chérc, so diferent from oar painter and yet so admired by bien, There wus finally, covering a whole side ofthe studi, the Crane lte... Obviously Seurat wished to revord the con tents of his studio without making explicit the works of art it contained, aside from the domi nating Grande Jatte, And of course the group of pictures hanging on the wall provides a reiterated abstract compositional balance of varied square and rectangular shapes for the March 1904 langer geometric form ofthe painting dominat ing the left-hand side of the work, Space and the manipulation of spatial iu sion play an important role in the emphasis on artifice and system so central to the Poseuses; contradictory clues to space and flatness ate carefully juxtaposed. This is more visible in the less three-dimensional, more abstract smaller version, where the vertical, shaded line on the wall to the right at first seems to indicate the corer of the room, eon- traditing the perspectival cues presented by the floor and the frame of the Grande Jatt, ‘wich indicate that the two walls moot behind the standing mode. Then you realize that you can—indeed you must—read this superfe ous ‘corner’ asa two-dimensional enframement of the seated profile figure, pre sumably created by the removal of a lange painting from the wal behind her. But despite what we know, or rationalize, about this ele ment, a strange sense of eontradietion and doubloness nevertheless lingers on, forcing us into active perception rather than passive observation of the visual evidence. he artifiees of femininity are everywhere in the Poseuses, establishing at once its location in the contemporary world of com- modities and Seurat’s familiarity with the Poseuses offers no titillating incident, no prurience, no hint of delicious victimization. These thin, unseductive bodies are shown matter-of-factly stripped for work. niceties of fashion, Modernity in this sense ray be said to be figured as up-to-dateness, an allusion to the newly available world of ‘women's accessories produoed by mass fabr- cation and offered by Parisian department stores. Seurat sometimes seems to be obsessed by clothes. He often gives aban- doned garments a surprising, even disturbing vitality. All three of the poseuses, it should be noted, pose in or on their own undergarments, defined by pink ribbons on the chemise that serves as abase for the center figure, blue rib- bon on that beneath the right-hand one, Clothing still fes figure in, or in connec tion with, Seurat's earliest works, from the time of Une Baignade, Asniéres (1883-84) through that of the Grande Jatte (1885-86). ‘This preoccupation continues during the per- od he was working on the Poseuses itself (See, for example, Stilt Life with Hat and Umbrelia, ca. 1887), and an exaggerated emphasis on elements of costume continues in the two major paintings of modern life that follow: the Poudreuse (Jeune femme se poudrant) and Chakut (both 1889-90). The Poudreuse, with its ruffles, bracelet, earrings and emphatically constrictive corset, thema. tizes the act of feminine self-decoration and, tore slyly perhaps, the transformative craft of the artist himself, within setting of supreme and spindly artificiality. In Chau, especially the finished version in the Kréller-Miiller ‘Museum, the insistent and repetitive contours of bows on shoes, tals on coats and ribbons at shoulders—all fying oddly upward—make strange these familiar elements of sartorial decoration and impart a freakish, almost hy terial vitality to the nightclub scene.® In the Poseuses the shapes and forms of inanimate clothing, deployed in exaggerated ‘curves and sharp diagonals, are far more alive than the statically positioned models them- selves, This reversal, a pathetic fallacy of sorts, anticipates the Surrealist predilection for animating the familiar appurtenances of daily life and fetishizing objects associated with women’s bodies, like gloves, hats and stockings. Here, two hats seem to "put their heads together” in surreptitious gossip onthe Jef; a pair of abandoned shoes seems to await continued on page 121Body Politics continued from page 76 its owner diconsolataly inthe conor fr pound, and» copped love makes an arch contortion to the right. Individual figures also instate ambiguity by ‘occupying an equivocal position between the ttadilonal icon of high and th banal umalances of eerydty modo Msc clear, for example, that Seurat meant the left- hand model as an homage—or a parodic Feference—io ingres's famous, mysterious, Backeview nude of 1807, the Valpingon Bather, Ingres's Orientalist sphinx, however, is clearly understood to be doing nothing at all but creating a sense of erotic mystfication within her harem setting; inthe case of Seura’s model, one may well ask Jost what this poseuse is doing to while away the time. She is, after all, figured as an ordinary mod- fern woman, siting with her chemise draped About he hauches, wang to pose. Oe can ces Imagine thats stl or sing, ike te figures in Seurat's ere dravings the 1882-83 conté crayon portrait of his moth- er orth stdy for tte kntng woman fom the Grande Jatte, and that the bag hanging ‘on the wall is her workbag. in the preliminary painted sketch forthe left-hand paseuse, no inthe Musée Orsay, ‘the image is far more abstract; in this respect, it resembles the Valpingon Basher. But in all other respects, the painted sketch is far dis- tant from Ingress painting and from the +high-art tradition generally. The little sketch (9% by 6% inches) is a miracle of diaphanous impalpability, of floating atomic particles of cobr, perceptual atoms that a onc decon- Struct the ea massa the body ot merge to ‘suggest form and volume, The work embodie & ttally modern conception of form, net the onde that lt naturtclyrepreseats contemporary ie, bt in that it inseibes new Scintifeieas about the nature of el, per ception and the signs of visibility itself.'* As Robert Herbert has astutelyabsere, color, previously rletted~in theory at letst-—t0 the tal, secondary o even “rain” sie of artsmaking, now becomes. primary, fsnenabe tothe systematic rigor associated with the most advanced opal discoveries made by the scientists of the time.” In adc thon, Strats deployment of elo demands « new activism on tte att af the spectator. Seurat looks to modern selene tojusiy reir insrption af the rlsof eolr the ce ttive protest, an inception demanclng a ew Kind of response. Hee, ii Color, ot Tather ts particles, which fs ative, caling forth a corresponding activism on th part of the percting subject Wiehe physi ps ture ofthis poseuse may be stati, the percep- tual field is extraordinarily dynamic and depends upon the viewer for its onganization and intelligibility. Nothing could be more dif ferent from Ingres's traditional notion of form as closed, fixed and held in place by continu- ons and perfected contour. the central figure of the frontal, standing model may be based on the classical Yenus Pudica or Venus of Modesty in its gen- eral posture, with hands in front of and shielding the pubic region. But there is litle that is either classical or overtly modest about the deportment or proportions of the figure. In fact, in the preliminary conté crayon draw ing for the work in the Metropolitan Museum, Poseuse deface, both the defiantly symmetr- cal, ant-classical pose and the adolescent {immaturity ofthe body bring to mind the gen- eral conformation of Degas's slightly earliet—and shocking—Little Dancer of Fourteen (1878-80). Ifthe central figure in the final version of the Poseuses is more ‘mature, the pose more reminiscent of classi- cal contrapposto, nevertheless the ‘unidealized naturalism ofthe figure and the self eonsclous awareness it conveys of posing, or even, in a bored way, collaborating in the creative process, removes the figure from the realm of tradition to that of modern con- seiousness.* ‘The right-hand, profile figure, the most abstract and the most androgynous of the three models, may indeed refer back in a gener al way to the classical precedent of the Spinari, or thort-picker, in its pose, as Robert Herbert has suggested,” but she is clearly fig- ‘ured as a contemporary woman with an 1880s coiffure and a skinny body, pling on a stik- ingly green stocking. Notably androgynous in ose and figure type, the profile pasouse point- edly refers back to an adoleseent male profile figure: the boy seated on the riverbank trom Seurat’s own earlier work, Une Baignade, Aonires. This is an interesting choice of pose ‘and (ype, in thatthe act of pulling on (oF of) stockings is usually firmly located within the genre of female erotica. The stocking puller is usually unequivocally feminine, as exemplified in Courbet's White Stockings of 1861 (also in the Bares Collection), where the activity of removing the stocking provides the artist, and the viewer—understood to be male-the ‘opportunity of gimpsing forbidden bodily tere tory. Seurat, on the contrary, constructs this as a figure of the most unassailable modesty, locating it atthe opposite pole of visual repre- sentation from the deliberate prurence often associated with the theme, and in addition, playing down the femininity ofthe figure by refering it to a masculine, rather than a fer The artifices of femininity are everywhere in the Poseuses, establishing at once Seurat's familiarity with fashion and the work's place in the contemporary world of comma: nine prototype. Little satisfaction forthe desix ing male gaze is offered by this poseuse di ‘profi, which Seurat plays so skillfully agains: the erotic grain of thematic expectations. ' one of the major pictorial monuments at its time, Seurat's Paseuses is clearly relat ed to the future of the modernist enterprise. takes up where Manet left off in problematiz ing the nude in the 1860s with the Déjewner and Olympia. By the fin de sibel it became clear that the fomale nude was the proviag ‘ground for artistic ambition: it became the ‘topos that stood for art itself. Seurat certainly rose to the challenge in the Poseuses. Yet in. its polities of the body, frustrating male desire, blocking erotic fantasy or displacing it onto items of dress, and is rejection of figures. of either debasement or transcendence, time Poseuses swims against the tide of the avant- garde creation of its time. Offering an escape neither into nature, the past nor an erotics of exoticism—as in, sap, ‘Gauguin—the Paseuses sticks with the urbam workaday world, with science and the culture of commodity, in which both artist and model—and the work of art itself—partici pave: and this world is our own inheritance. ‘There is nothing easy or harmonious about: Seurat’s view of modernity and the position of ‘women’s bodies within it—on the contrary, trough the formal complexity of his work, he ‘constructs the female nude in the artist's stu dio as a socially and psychologically charged, disturbingly contradictory theme, Seurat’s intentions, ancl his achievement in the Poseuses—although far from being con- sciously feminist in any sense of that term—stand in opposition to the esthetic and political dispositions of their time, At once veiled and revealed by the tropes of work and artifice (and there is evidence that Seurat, while he was painting the work, wished to think of himself, like his models, as a wage laborer, working fora daily fee") the bodies of Seurat's Poseuses, although they can never entirely escape the objectifying regime of the male gaze, may nevertheless intervene in this, regime by calling both its naturalness and its cemtinued on page 123 Artin America |Body Politic continued from page 121 historicity into question. This seems to me to be an important accomplishment within the Politics of representation, as valid in our time as it was in Seurat's o ‘This material was frst presented as @ lecture at the Metrpottan Wusewn of Art, New York, Oct 18,1081, (om he occasion ofthe wzibition “Georges Sout 1859. 180," curated by bert I Herbert |The ruler etn in th Borge Cleon om oe ‘othe Natal Gallery, London, pant in clon cans and measures 154 by 19% inches (395 by 49 em). The luge wes in the election of te Barnes Rourdton, 168648, measre bot 7y 10 fet (81% by 121K nce ‘0¢ 2078 ty 308 en). The ratonship Between thet ee. ic, but [fad convincing Frangalse thatthe smaller version may bave heen “an atenpt 1 sae dilewies that Surat encoun. ter wile be was fig th rg version, pol the sumer of 887 rather ana prliminary Sh ‘ay ator te ise work srg Srara, 1859-1801, (Ror L Herts, New Yr, Metropolitan Museum of ‘At 191, 252, Here eed as Sear, 19) 2 Fora falar discuss fhe saa ak the ta {usaf ha malo versus te foe nade the a practice ofthe late Ith and eae 8h atures so Carl Okan, “Proflig Hamer: Ign's dees Receing the Ambassadors of Agememnon, Art Bulletin, Sune 1068, pp. 250-74, and Algal code, “Mae Trobe: & (its in Ropseration Art History, dune 108, p.298- a1 8, But ee rocont lotus by Zohn Goodman, Whey Days an other setlars fora e-erauation and rite pretation of the foe of both Ramaphobia and (over) ‘homosexual ie in th emphasis on ad eonsrson of the malo nude during the Neo-Claleal period. On the der hand the wok of dasep da Ribera, who was the subject of an exhibition at New York's Metrepoitan Musou 100, sugests Ua ert aso heme may nt be th eof masiline dsite a al tater that suing and musty ber’ pati Ce male ne constant dona bea of represents tin, wile the fares eumply absent. Hwee, pain inlet al rae hn sexual die ne a ete nat enti in Riera’ ooue, although bord tar the vo may anes, be Uncrain 4 Thor iti awe ee a whi ois ene into ‘he stor of bah verso th harms x ples of {he psstsion oft stl plays hee rae ‘an spybot one abarst Hans Mager ve thesia wrsion ote Poser he fae of 10 ae tlio eso the commodification of sealed vague and the {ners presen al po empress fn heart make. Tepe et, ied nen fun ea str rl a, Fall “Dire: On Representation al Sealy” Mt "he New Ms Nw Yok A th “aes atalgus the tue Crag Gs sys as aks as Poses: (Pref Sl Vrs 075° tha "aks wo sen nti ding with fener dferener psa rai "ao esos tantra fino he ee nae ine stn are mk vow wh spony cede "hgh the att sino gay cond ad esi” (Cs IMB) Nie thi oly a of rosso sa ey tho pti than large sion, ts ‘ene rman atte, Cat Hay Kosky, ud ty Sis, who hoped he wold uke i ito Ih Tt Man, ba phe ek i Sl ay at lcd the pnting on rors and ened iin the ‘at nouea der of ls house deste by Henry van de ‘Vole, another arch admirer of Neo Impressionism. Seo AL lamachar, Die Wa Beury van de Vad, Antwerp, Mercator, 1867, p16 for a repraucton ofthe Passes sa fete of Kessles door. Says Haracher af he ‘Poses in this sting“ hed oi as role up ina ‘lerstame (Carahnacg) which van de Velde exressy sige for ta purse gust hs wil under presse fhm Kesler." (p88). Tho panting was ony partly rekased fo archisearal capt in 126 wen Alert ‘Barnes bnught and dep pelts ofthe oppor {9 to cbse It lly y plac wel abe ep elon 2 din Le wal ot his mario, wher remained, nome rable fr other ening unt the rece travel Show of “Great French Palntings from the Barnes Foundation” 5. This sure was a sujet that presoupied Surat He ‘tated it eter nes and fm several antage pois ‘hough! his ear in Une Parad; Clowns e poy, i hich te auenoe i preset in Chaat, where ssa ested; and, most conplexly, in Cirque, where the {dnc assis x dating pee, 6. See Bly Ker, A Short Hisar of Model” Arn America, May 9, pp. 156168, 183. Mari Later ofthe ‘renh depart at Iowa Suto Unley Is press vtng 2 Boole stay on te rpresenaton a the ‘dln erature an 1, Se Kahn, La vie moderne, Ap 8187p. 280. Cd in ors Dora and Jon Reval, Seura:L"Gewore pein, ogropia ot eallogue eritiue, Pats, Les Beans, 1956, p.210, 5. Or perhaps rater then the Three Gres, Seat may have meant ust think of his Pasousee as an updstod Jadgent of Pars, wth teat, positioned oti the Painting as a ter day Par, hosing whic af the thee ‘del hin any case is imposible t bie that Sura totes trations rote complet srs 1. Nt enough has bn sa sat roe of hur a3 df iy, acetic earcaze in Sera achievement as & al, ba san important actor in his expres ely ‘feu inthe Poudre, ks pen he ges ‘he Parad defi important in may of bec er, evs bch cal Daten the conse satie ‘arieporry pe and aes 9: Por an og a ening ars of hse rated ‘ual poten inthe 19 cent, ee Jonathan Crary, Tek of the tse: On Vision and Modernity 2 ‘he Nnutoeth Century, Cambie, Mac, ET Pres 100 10 See Prange Cchin in Sewra, 100.275, far exa- ie fr rae to “he cose ruin of mute dis" that Seucat fl appropriate tothe treater of sh inthe lange versin of the oscars, ie otk Abi Solomon Godoau and Grant Rater of Fastnan Rouse, Roches, or thelr ep In fing ad obaning photo ‘raph rateral alae fo the Passes {Richard Thro, Sora, Or, Pin, 105,62, 1.23. Thorson hice ros his sugestion in hi eae Fenris ofthe Pos iss on. 146 12: Cetin in Sera 19, 27 13. Mane was pep he ist psn to nist on thet ferent gen of earemporanei—grec as {arial elor—and the green of ate. In was He ‘The Bakeony os he Consrary, te gen fe me tlmork or of the bench on which a figore is sting stabs he colo asa Bal sybetc a ytetly Imodon he, as pps othe more vee ad sila ons of aso ae. 1H Gio in Dra a Read, Surat p 25 15 This ses hysteria inne of dere data ecomes ret ore pronauneed in Seuat's unis Fra ware ing, pasages of whieh bear an ase resemblance to erin aspects ofthe ar ofthe insane ‘This seemingly conpulse oervortng found may in the foreground af he pining the fue of ie spect tare nthe kon re mee ae dserptiny tito, This varaton les pe fo think that Sea's Suggesting no escape into nature or the past, and no sensual exoticism, Poseuses stands in emphatic opposition to the esthetic and political disposition of its time. ‘occasional decorative exaggeration i the product not ‘shoals (er 0 evdenoe tat he sud fam om bat ral theres of talon might even yf al—adherence to his comply sstenatized method « plotarial expression. At Michael Zimmermann pte | ‘Sear’ rath a he cll was increase enced by ideas aboot paycho-phsis as transite} {Chars} Henry. He knew how he had to analyse th calours, wha expres ect the eoburs an aes wou Inne, a how one ment abou isolating plete a ha ‘manus unit rom is suoundegs. Accarding to Teo de Wyeva, he even oma a oaegue n which pares Tar tional elt vas stored to eer ear” (Micha inmermann, Sarat andthe Art Theory of i Te Antwerp, Fos Meret, 1991.) Zianerann’s bak fnvahal for ts detailed exliaton of Henry's payee ‘madmatcal este as wal a fr is examination fy Inga of Rens theories on Sera. Znmenarn as lakes sriusly the socal and pala ambience of th ars and devotes an ent capi a Sourat and Ni ‘anarchist Hends (Chap. 2 Pat VI). nts contin ‘ne might loo tack oth ranpant ysematzaton arc Trae "mecods" of eatin peal and socal foplan rovenets. Pour, including Cares Purr his, vere parity proe 1 is ebcsin with tem. Por tzamples of such systom-obsessed socal saviors, ee ‘Champ, Ler Exenriques, Pas, 152. 16, See Jonathan rary, “Seurat’s Modernity in Een Wardwell Loo, Seurat at Gravelines: The Last Tandsapes,odianapols Museum of Artin cooperation th rnin Unter Pres, 100, p68 TT. So Hober Herb in Sara, 18, espacial pp. 5, {or summary ofthe transformation of color fom the “fein” poston of inion to the “naselie™ one of seience in the tory and practice of Seurat and Neo press gery. 18, The matty ad rduotve vera ofthe cent ‘ol isthe Pee debt In in ad graphite mae o ‘srt Pl Adam's aril lou Surat in La vie mod ferme th 1488 Here, the art Suggests the rst a he ig the mast esr trgnents—par of he com Tora an art the fe and cxving back wth he ie the tatoos asia to the eght—and teh gue the psiliome so assole with Ns se, a Spring of dots. Soe Seura, 196, Ca. No. 102 ara reproduction. The deawing was probably made ater a ml eon he Pose ie. 19. See Sora, 10.28. 20. Soe Thoms p. 5, fo Seas denitain with he ‘eels th oss in tr beig a wegeeares"h ebruary 1850 Octave Maus, wh know ofan intrest el er wrt oak th pangs rc. earl repbd that he woul hans fora year’s wrk at see rane ayy casa high price fr 2 tare paiting.Seuat could ‘Mor this ith is pate means ut he was hari ‘uch he ste asa fale mot wad ar dpe ap st is workable ais imal ‘Author Linda Nochlin is Lila Achason Wallace Professor laf Modern Art at Now Fork Univesity Institute of Binet, Ne York it Artin Ameria