Episode #41: Shock Art: Edouard

Manet's Olympia (Season 4, Episode

2)
http://www.artcuriouspodcast.com/artcuriouspodcast/41

Vocab to discuss:

 Scandalize (verb)- if you are scandalized by someones behaviour, you disapprove of it and
are shocked by it because you think it’s against moral laws.
o The whole community was scandalized by her second marriage.
o Synonyms: appal, offend, outrage, shock.
 No dice (idiom)- something that people say when you may not or cannot do something.
o I asked if we could go to the party, but mom said no dice.
 Make lemonade from those lemons. (Idiom= when life gives you lemons, make lemonade)
– expression used to inspire optimism and positive can-do attitude in the face of difficulty or
misfortune.
o Make the best out of a difficult situation.
o Turn something negative into a positive.
o Look on the bright side of life.
 Gave the life of a painter a shot- try or attempt something. Give it a go.
 Low brow subject matter (adjective)- if you say something is low brow, you mean that it is
easy to understand or appreciate rather than intellectual and is therefore perhaps inferior.
o Synonyms: unsophisticated, shallow, popular, lightweight.
 Highest echelon (noun)- a particular level or group of people within an organisation such as
an army or company.
o The upper echelons of society.
 Snubbed by the Paris Salon (snub-verb)- to insult someone by bot giving them any attention
or treating them as if they are not important.
o Lawrence attempted to draw me into conversation, but I snubbed him, and went to
another part of the room.
 Deep dive (noun)- a detailed examination of a subject.
o Walkers art takes a deep dive into issues around slavery and liberation.
o We will go into deep dives on each of these topics in my presentation.
 Olympia was a pseudonym for sex worker (noun)- a name someone uses instead of their
real name, especially on a written work.
o She writes under a pseudonym.
o George Orwell was a pseudonym- his real name was Eric Blair.
 The male gaze (noun)- suggest a sexualised way of looking at the world/things/people that
empowers men and objectifies women.
 o In the male gaze, woman is visually positioned as an ‘object’ of heterosexual male
desire.

Questions

 What kind of family background did Manet come from? Was this unusual for an artist?
 Why did people hate the painting?
o Didn’t like subject matter of a sex worker. While men at the time did have freedom
to go and enjoy parties and prostitutes, they didn’t want to have to look at this
picture with their wives.
o Normally nudes were depicted as goddesses and beautiful, lovely and soft. She has
harsh outlines, imperfect proportions and its clear she is a sex worker not a goddess.
This was thought to be offensive.
 What was surprising about Victorine, the subject of the painting?
 Why were the women in the picture so shocking to men at the time?
 How were nudes normally portrayed in art at the time? How does Olympia differ from this?

 Do you think art should be shocking?

 Do you think ideas about female beauty are still problematic today?