The treatment of sexuality is commonly used as a source of pleasure for the viewer when portraying the idealized woman. Women are constantly used in art for pleasure and the goddess of love, Venus, is frequently used as the perfect woman to gaze upon. Titian met the viewers’ attention when using Venus in his piece Venus of Urbino, 1538. However, another art painting attracted more attention when depicting a nude woman in a similar style of Venus, Olympia, 1863, by Edouard Manet. Manet’s use of a nude woman is considered blasphemy due to comparing a low class woman to a goddess. The viewers want to fantasize the ideal woman like Venus, but do not want to accept the reality that ideal woman are in fact false. When taking a closer look at the
…show more content…
Venus’s tilted head exposes her naked neck, her naked body lying atop on wrinkled bed sheets while tilting towards the viewer, her crossed legs, and the placement of her hand in which her fingers are curled inward constitutes to eroticism. She is known to being watched therefore she uses a flirtatious gaze upon the viewer to force eye contact. Meanwhile, Venus looks very relaxed opened and confident on the bed as if she’s been waiting or welcoming the viewer. Venus is not ashamed of being nude since she’s always being watched, hence the maids in the background. The many messages that Venus is sending out to the viewer concludes what Venus desires.
Edouard Manet took a different approach when depicting an ideal woman even though he based Olympia on Titian’s Venus of Urbino. Manet’s use of a nude woman in the same reclining pose like Venus is somewhat of a slap in the face to the art world. Simply, because Venus is highly praised in the art world and Manet’s painting it considered blasphemy. Manet even uses a title like Olympia to associate the prostitute nude woman as Greek god when in fact she is not portrayed as a goddess. He expresses in his painting that Olympia is in fact real woman and not so fantasized as the idealized woman like
Venus’s tilted head exposes her naked neck, her naked body lying atop on wrinkled bed sheets while tilting towards the viewer, her crossed legs, and the placement of her hand in which her fingers are curled inward constitutes to eroticism. She is known to being watched therefore she uses a flirtatious gaze upon the viewer to force eye contact. Meanwhile, Venus looks very relaxed opened and confident on the bed as if she’s been waiting or welcoming the viewer. Venus is not ashamed of being nude since she’s always being watched, hence the maids in the background. The many messages that Venus is sending out to the viewer concludes what Venus desires.
Edouard Manet took a different approach when depicting an ideal woman even though he based Olympia on Titian’s Venus of Urbino. Manet’s use of a nude woman in the same reclining pose like Venus is somewhat of a slap in the face to the art world. Simply, because Venus is highly praised in the art world and Manet’s painting it considered blasphemy. Manet even uses a title like Olympia to associate the prostitute nude woman as Greek god when in fact she is not portrayed as a goddess. He expresses in his painting that Olympia is in fact real woman and not so fantasized as the idealized woman like