DEVIATION, (RE)INVENTION OR INHERITING THE RECLINING: FRENCH ODALISQUES IN MODERN ART OF THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY

Abstract

This thesis is concerned with an intersection between gender, Orientalism (and its parallel art movement of Primitivism) and early 20th century Modern Art. Drawing a connection between Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954), Jacqueline Marval (1866 – 1932), and Marie Laurencin (1883 – 1956) and their Odalisques, I would argue that the two paradigms of Orientalism and Primitivism provided different modes and spaces for the different genders. While the male artists as exemplified by Matisse were concerned with the issues of artistic inheritance, breaking away from age-old Orientalist art traditions in order to (re)negotiate their positions as modern artists, the female artists usually only loosely referred to such ideological conventions in their works. Although rigorous references to the Orientalist traditions were not in Marval’s and Laurencin’s works, their works attempted to address the very questions of gender and the lack we see in Orientalist art which have been heavily steeped in the privileging of male artists, patrons and critics. The themes of Orientalism and Primitivism gave them the space to redefine women’s role and the perception of femininity and embrace the “othered” in its multiplicities (i.e. women and even prostitutes) and the fact that this was set in urbanising France reflects at once their anxieties, compromises and solutions.