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Painted Love: Prostitution and French Art of the Impressionist Era
Prostitution was widespread in nineteenth-century Paris, and as French streets filled with prostitutes, French art and literature of the period paralleled this development. In this engrossing book, Hollis Clayson explains why. She provides the first description and analysis of French artistic interest in women prostitutes, examining how the subject was treated in the art of the 1870s and 1880s by such avant-garde painters as Cezanne, Degas, Manet, and Renoir, as well as by academic and low-brow painters who were their contemporaries.
Clayson illuminates not only the imagery of prostitution—with its contradictory connotations of disgust and fascination-but also issues and problems relevant to women and men in patriarchal society. She discuses the conspicuous sexual commerce during this era and the resulting public panic about the deterioration of social life and mores. She describes the system that evolved of regulating prostitutes and the subsequent rise of clandestine prostitutes who escaped police regulation and who were condemned both for blurring social boundaries and for spreading sexual licentiousness in their moral and social superiors. Clayson argues that the subject of covert prostitution was especially attractive to vanguard painters because it embodied key notions of it exemplified the commercialization and the ambiguity of modern life.
Clayson illuminates not only the imagery of prostitution—with its contradictory connotations of disgust and fascination-but also issues and problems relevant to women and men in patriarchal society. She discuses the conspicuous sexual commerce during this era and the resulting public panic about the deterioration of social life and mores. She describes the system that evolved of regulating prostitutes and the subsequent rise of clandestine prostitutes who escaped police regulation and who were condemned both for blurring social boundaries and for spreading sexual licentiousness in their moral and social superiors. Clayson argues that the subject of covert prostitution was especially attractive to vanguard painters because it embodied key notions of it exemplified the commercialization and the ambiguity of modern life.
- GenresArtNonfictionArt History
232 pages, Hardcover
First published December 25, 1991
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 31, 2021
very useful for my dissertation
December 5, 2011
Clayson's analysis is a well-articulated survey of the social factors that contributed to and popularized avant-garde subject matter in Impressionist paintings. Rather than focusing on a particular artist (usually Manet vs. Degas), Clayson followed themes such as the ever-present yet illusive physiogonomy of a "loose woman" during the mid- to late 19th century. Don't be fooled by the size: this is not a coffee table book unless you also have a dictionary lying about; however, it is an excellent read for anyone pursuing the subject of clandestine social relations of the demi-monde.
November 4, 2012
Must read for Impressionist art lovers and fans.
January 28, 2014
paris by night http://www.getty.edu/publications/vir...
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews