The Importance of the Nude: Vanity and La Grande Odalisque

The Importance of the Nude:

Hans Memling's Vanity and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres's La Grande Odalisque

        Female nudes have been ever-present in art history, but Vanity by Hans Memling and La Grande Odalisque by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres are two examples of how a nude is perceived differently by the subject and the viewer. Both images are of women in private moments, in which they do not see themselves as nude because they are alone, however, when the viewer ventures into the private moment, without the woman's knowledge, she is seen as nude.

Vanity by Hans Memling (German); c. 1485; oil on oak panel.
Location: Strasbourg, France; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg.

        In Vanity, the naked woman is depicted with a hand mirror. As the title seems to suggest, the painting demonstrates the vanity of the nude woman. The woman isn't naked when she is alone, but merely existing. The viewer sees her as naked and because she is seen holding a mirror, viewing her reflection, she is also being judged for her vanity. The irony is that she is not nude for her own pleasure, but she's nude for the pleasure of the viewer who is assumed to be male.

        This particular painting touches upon the concepts of the idealized female body and voyeurism. Her hair appears long and flowing, she has small, round breasts, and wide hips, creating a pear-shaped body. Furthermore, she is shown without pubic hair, making her genitalia fully visible to the viewer, and despite her full nudity, she is shown wearing shoes as she stands in a field with three dogs. The setting of the painting leads to creating a voyeuristic feeling so the painting's presumably male viewers can be intrigued by the idea of getting caught with this naked woman outside, creating more thrill for him as he gazes upon her.

La Grande Odalisque by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (French); 1814; oil.
Location: Paris, France; Musée du Louvre.

        La Grande Odalisque (meaning The Great Concubine) features a naked woman in a harem who has been exoticized with Turkish-inspired backdrop and accessories. The woman is depicted, similar to Vanity, with small, round breasts, wide hips, and a pear-shaped body. The viewer is immediately drawn in to the fantasy of this exotic beauty, but she remains demure as if she is unaware or does not mind being viewed. Only upon closer examination will one notice her left leg connects in a peculiar way, and that her right breast is not only situated unnaturally close to her arm but would also connect higher on her chest.

        Women are depicted, idealized, and objectified more than men because, traditionally, paintings have always been viewed by males—to please and flatter them. King Charles II of England once commissioned a nude portrait of his mistress Nell Gwyn, which he showed off to other men. The details that men look for in women, these idealizations which have changed over time, have been internalized by women because in earlier times a woman's worth was once based upon her appearance alone. These ideas of the perfect body persist today not just in art, but in media and popular culture. It is not uncommon, in modern times, to see these projections upon women done by women, on themselves and upon other females. The root of this behavior can be seen in piece after piece throughout art history.

Picasso's Cubism and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

Picasso's Cubism and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Pablo Picasso (Spanish); 1907; oil.

Location: New York City, United States; The Museum of Modern Art.

        When contemplating Pablo Picasso's painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, it is important to consider intent and reception within the historical context of 1907. While nudes have been painted, famously, throughout art history, it has not always been directly acknowledged where the models for such paintings come from. Earlier in art history, it was considered inappropriate for a man, even a painter, to see a nude woman and so male models would be used, resulting in manly women. Originally called The Brothel of Avignon, the title directly acknowledges that the painting depicts not just any nude women, but prostitutes—something the painting's audience seemed to focus entirely on when it premiered. Picasso's other thought was regarding size and how the art world seems to equate size with importance; Demoiselles is a large painting at 243.9x233.7 cm (roughtly 8x7½ feet).

        At the painting's debut, while most onlookers were fixated on the perceived ridiculousness of the work, some observers received Picasso's message about the title. One such person was art critic Gelett Burgess, who wondered where the women came from; Picasso's witty reply to Burgess's something like "where do you think?" The importance of the nude can be seen through movement after movement in art, albeit in different forms. Picasso's form of choice was his cubist style, something akin to a caricature. With a caricature being considered common and every day, it was ironic for Picasso to create this painting so large.  This irony is further played upon by the painting's title and content. Being received as it was proves Picasso's intention, to point out the oxymorons within the art world—proving its own unique ridiculousness.

Literary Connections: German Expressionism

“Sally Bowles” by Christopher Isherwood and Kirchner's German Expressionism

        Christopher Isherwood's “Sally Bowles” paints the story of a nineteen year old actress from England living in Berlin in 1930. A cabaret singer hoping to find fame, Sally also makes lovers of older, wealthy men. While Sally did not have a particularly womanly figure, she wore crimson lipstick, heavy eye makeup, eyebrow penciling and powdered her face to compensate. The narrator comments that he sees Sally wearing black most of the time, which blends in with her dark hair; he also remarks on the detail of her green-painted fingernails. If she sounds familiar, it's because Sally also appears in Cabaret.


         Ernst Kirchner belonged to the group of German Expressionists known as Die Brücke (The Bridge). The group focused on expressing concentrated emotion through their use of color, which tended to be unnatural, lending itself to a more abstract feel. In addition to emotion, the group often painted with sexual themes.


         The ties between this German Expressionist movement and Sally can be seen through both Kirchner and Isherwood's deliberate use of color, and through the sexualization of a young woman, still with a boyish body. In Kirchner's paintings Marzella (1909-10) and Artistin Marcella (1910), a young woman is painted in two different ways.

Marzella by Ernst Kirchner (German); 1909-1910; oil.
Location: Stockholm, Sweden; Moderna Museet.

        In Marzella, the viewer is confronted with a nude young woman, sitting with her arms resting atop her crossed legs. The girl has a white bow in her dark, side-parted hair, dark, well-defined eyebrows, darkly outlined eyes and crimson lips. One can imagine this naked boyish figure to be parallel to Sally, as a sexualized young girl hiding behind her makeup, attempting to appear older. While the girl's skin is a nude, peachy color, it also appears drab with olive and gray tones, effectively removing the force of life from her skin. The girls face, just like Sally's, is lighter than the rest of her body, drawing attention to the girl's dark raccoon-like eyes. The lines of the painting range from horizontal and vertical to diagonal and round, anchoring the painting with a diagonally placed but horizontally-oriented cushion upon which the girl sits; these varying directionalities lend a sense of disorder or anguish, a key emotion in German Expressionism.

Artistin Marcella by Ernst Kirchner (German); 1910; oil.
Location: Berlin, Germany; Brücke Museum.

        In Kirchner's Artistin Marcella, another young woman is portrayed, but this time in a different way. The girl half-laying on a hunter green sofa has one foot on the floor and the other opposite her body on the cushion, her thighs still in contact. She rests her upper body on one arm, outstretched to the cushion, and the other arm propped across her body on the sofa arm, with her chin in her hand, hiding her mouth. The girl wears a dress striped in two shades of green, blue and black striped socks and red slippers. The walls and floor in the room are green and there are differently colored bottles behind the girl, in a doorway leading to a blue room. A white cat lays curled up next to her on the sofa. Both paintings feature multi-directional lines, but the girl in this painting is not overtly sexualized as before. Instead, the girl appears to be in thought, with a bromidic expression. The girls skin appears dark, but lively and more natural than the previous painting, and the girl wears no obvious makeup.

        In relating both paintings directly to the character of Sally Bowles, it is possible to conceive that the second painting is Sally before she embarks on her journey to reach fame in Berlin, perhaps at her parents' English home, daydreaming. The first painting, more jarring as the girl stares right into the viewer's eyes, could be seen as Sally as the reader knows her—a sexualized girl, attempting to gain a certain lifestyle and wealth through pleasing men—with colors depicting disharmony, having a certain contamination in the tones.  Both girls, much like Sally, seem to be looking for something more than the heartache they are familiar with.