Few periods in art history have been the subject of as much scrutiny as the one from 1789 to 1914. From the expiring Rococo to the stoic morality of Neoclassicism, to the fantasies of Orientalism and the strictures of Realism, to the innovations of impressionism and the reactions of neo-impressionism, this era was as rife with aesthetic as political revolution.
This course will focus on one genre through which painters of the long nineteenth century often made their most ambitious appeal for attention and renown: the nude. We will journey from David’s heroes to Ingres’s imagined harems. We will consider Manet’s perplexing Olympia as well as Degas’s contentious women washing. We will examine Caillebotte’s men, Gauguin’s women (or often, girls), and Cézanne’s famously strange bathers.
Along the way we will become intimately familiar with the work of some of history’s best-known painters, the challenges they faced in forging a modern nude, and the social and sexual politics at stake.
This course is part of the Oxford University Summer School for Adults (OUSSA) programme.