At the time of writing, the nation has become housebound. With coronavirus infiltrating every part of our lives, it is a time of stress, anxiety and uncertainty for many. Social media is overflowing with tips to destress at the minute from exercising to connecting with others to something as simple as taking a bath. In modern society, the bath is seen as a place to relax and self-reflect, however, in the history of art this has not always been the case. Images of nude, female bathers have been a common subject matter for centuries, often placing women as the object of the male gaze. From Titian’s Diana and Actaeon to Cezanne’s Bathers, nude women have often been portrayed bathing in groups, sometimes in an almost orgiastic way, whilst the spectator takes the role of voyeur. A painting that truly encompasses this idea is Ingres’ The Turkish Bath from 1859.
The Turkish Bath shows the voyeuristic nature of the artist and its translation into painting. Ingres was eighty years old when he painted The Turkish Bath, which I find unsettling in itself, however, his status as a leading academician meant he had no need to justify his intentions for this painting. Inspired by the letters of Lady Montagu, The Turkish Bath depicts a room full of nude women who have returned from the pool. Its high erotic charge culminates with the two figures on the right as one caressed the breast of another. Others play with each other’s hair or lie outstretched, displaying their form. The compression of all these women within the frame exemplifies the eroticism further. Moreover, the women have been idealised to become the perfect spectacle for the artist as well as the male spectators who would have viewed the painting in this period. These idealised women make no eye contact with the viewer, further adding to the sensuality of the scene and relating back to the subtle eroticism that has fuelled female nudes as far back as the Crouching Venus from the 1st/2nd AD. In the Roman era, it was forbidden to look at a goddess so this sculpture with Venus’ head turned invites the male gaze as the deity would be unaware of her observer. The same notion applies in The Turkish Bath. The viewer looks onto a sensual and orgiastic scene where the women that partake are unaware of their onlooker. In line with Laura Mulvey’s thoughts on the nude in Western art, the women in The Turkish Bath are ‘a site for the exercise of male fantasy’.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867), The Turkish Bath, 1859, oil on canvas
Photograph source: © 2007 Musée du Louvre / Angèle Dequier
Contrasting this, less than a century later women were beginning to depict themselves in the bath from their point of view. The surrealist artist Ithell Colquhoun painted Scylla in 1938, showing her body as the female monster from Greek mythology. Colquhoun’s body has become a landscape, her knees shown as rock formations and her pubic hair replaced by seaweed. The incoming boat behind her thighs signifies sexual penetration. Colquhoun shows her body as irresistible yet fatal by linking it to the ancient monster.
Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988), Scylla, 1938, oil paint on board.
Photograph source: © Samaritans, © Noise Abatement Society & © Spire Healthcare
Another female artist who has been tied to the surrealist movement is Frida Kahlo however she did not see herself in this way. She states, ‘I never painted dreams, I painted my own reality’. One of the paintings that led people to categorise her as surrealist was What the Water Gave Me painted in 1938. Underneath the water, we see the artists outstretched legs with her feet breaking the surface suggesting that this painting is a form of self-portrait. Rising from the water are a number of elements such as a skyscraper erupting from a volcano, a self-portrait of her parents, a corpse with a noose around its neck, two female lovers on a sponge and one of Frida’s Tehuana dresses. In conversation with Julien Levy, who first exhibited this work, Kahlo says this was ‘an image of passing time, reflecting childhood games in the bathtub and the sadness of what had happened in the course of my life’. Kahlo’s bus accident at the age of 18, the love for Diego Rivera that overwhelmed her and her battles with addiction were just a few of the traumas the artist endured and What the Water Gave Me reflects these sufferings. Here, Kahlo lies in the bath contemplating herself and her experiences rather than being shown as an object of desire. In fact, through the painting Kahlo distinctly opposes this notion by showing her sexuality as she sees it, rather than render it to please the viewer.
Frida Kahlo, What the Water Gave Me, (1938), oil on canvas.
Photograph source: https://scalar.usc.edu/
Perhaps this argument is obvious. The evolution of the feminist movement has allowed for female points of view to be expressed and has strongly criticised the notion of women as an object of male desire (although we still have a long way to go). However, I believe the contrast of these paintings shows this development at its fullest. Viewing paintings with the bath as a subject has turned from an act of voyeurism from the male eye to a means of self-reflection through the female eye.
Bibliography
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