Sensual Women and Dominating Men

Gérôme's painting The Snake Charmer (1879, figure 1) presents as an image of the “Orient” created by a European artists that depicts an imaginative compositions of people and a culture from a distant land. For a European viewer these paintings became windows into the exotic, and often erotic, world of the colonies. The depictions of sensual “oriental” female subjects were especially prominent in these compositions because the figures acted as the catalyst for grabbing the attention of the European male gaze. An “oriental” landscapes and cultural qualities

Figure 1

fashioned the background for an artist’s tantalizing images that feature these mysterious, voluptuous, and foreign female figures. These representations created the idea of a foreign female identity that live to serve the pleasures of men with their exotic and erotic bodies. Gérôme was guilty of such imagery when he created his works titled The Slave Market (1860’s, figure 2) and Moorish Bath (1880’s, figure 3), which both feature a centered and nude female figure. Similarly with his painting, The Snake Charmer, Gérôme has once again depicted a culture without the necessary background information in order to create an image pleasing to a European audience. These paintings by Gérôme presents with elaborate motives where “oriental” people and their culture are exploited in the name of art.

  In order to create an exciting composition, Gérôme embellished the subject matter of his images in order to tempt viewers. As such, sexually promiscuous women were often at the center of these paintings, which furthered the stereotypical notions surrounding “Orientalism.” According to Edward Said, a Palestinian American literary theorist who helped to develop the critical field of post colonialism, these images created by the West established “a fictive reverie of the Orient that was in part defined as a hotbed of exotic sexuality.” [1] These images established the idea that nudity and sensual European looking women are a normal aspect of the “oriental” culture. This falsely advertises the “oriental” civilization to European audiences and lowers the culture and its people to a level of sinful, morally decrepit, and lustful group of individuals.

Figure 2

Throughout his career, Gérôme created several images depicting the people and landscape of the “Orient.” In The Slave Market, Gérôme has illustrated a nude female being inspected by a fully covered and cloaked man. As the title suggests, the painting shows the transaction between a slave trader and a potential owner. As the cloaked man examines the woman's mouth, she becomes the featured subject of the composition due to her central placement and the stark contrasting nature of her nude and white skin against the darkly clad male figures. This painting creates a “the fantasy of absolute possession” over the female body, which is solidified though the illustration of the nude and powerless woman against the commanding presence of the buyer. [2] This representation of women represses their status to become objects of male possession and the painting itself becomes “not portraits but fantasy.” [3]

Additionally, The Slave Market presents with two ideological assumptions concerning power. The first states male dominance over women and the second claims the superiority of white men to inferior (in this case) darker races. As Gérôme’s image presents non-white male figures partaking in human trafficking and the slave trade, a European viewer instantly compares his or her own morality against the actions of Gérôme’s figures. Europeans would never “indulge in this sort of regrettably lascivious commerce,” which functions to establish the superiority of the European race against the people of the “orient.” [4] The idea of the higher-ranking nature of the white race is further emphasized in another of Gérôme’s paintings, Moorish Bath. In this painting, the skin colors of two female figures are contrasted in order to solidify the expression of racial superiority while creating a sensual image.

Figure 3

Moorish Bath presents an intimate scene between a white, nude female figure and her dark skinned handmaid. As the girl turns her body away from the viewer, her maid presents her with a basin filled with water. The girl’s soft, ivory, and supple skin heavily contrasts against the standing figures’ muscle and strong physique, which illustrate the different lifestyle and social economic statues between the two women. The seated figure’s body shows that she has the means to live a privileged life, which includes servants, and does not have to perform physical labor. The servant must serve the white woman, which once again establishes the idea of racial dominance. To a male viewer, the image is also highly sexualized since both females are either partially or fully naked. Their intimate proximity and lack of clothing would allude to a sensual relationship between the figures. This suggestive relationship would even further tantalize males and attract their gaze since it would imply the two females were involved romantically. The interior of the bath further creates an air of the exotic and the mysterious as it strongly differs from nineteenth century European architecture.

Gérôme’s The Snake Charmer, The Slave Market, and Moorish Bath all present with similar themes that depict “Oriental” imagery. They fundamentally illustrate the culture through a European lens, show female figures either being dominated by men or interacting with other women, or cultural entertainment practices. These paintings aimed to entertain audiences though an artist’s attempt to create enticing and alluring images for their European viewers.

[1] Childs 2014, 126.

[2] Nochlin 1989, 44.

[3] Pollock 1988, 122.

[4] Nochlin 1989, 45.

Childs, Adrienne L. "Exceeding Blackness: African Women in the Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme." In Blacks and Blackness in European Art of the Long Nineteenth Century. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, (2014): 125-144.

Pollock, Griselda. "Woman as Sign: Psychoanalytic Readings." In Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism, and Histories of Art. London: Routledge, (1988): 120-154.

Nochlin, Linda. "The Imaginary Orient." In The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth-Century Art and Society. New York: Harper & Row, (1989): 33-59.