Annika Young, Special to The Denisonian
Almost 10 years ago Dr. Allison Leigh gave a lecture on a painting titled “The Source” by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.
After her lecture was over a student approached her at the podium and asked whether she ever got tired of looking at images of naked women. Leigh initially didn’t have an answer. She mulled over the question and over time, she came to see the question as exposing something important about art history itself.
“[The student’s] perception based on that day’s lecture, and the other art history classes she’d taken, was that the work of the art historian consists largely of looking at pictures of naked women,” Leigh explained. “…she seemed to be wondering if looking at such relentless, erotic objectification ever bothered me as a woman.”
She realized that the repeated exposure to the female body in art can make its objectification seem normal or invisible.
Leigh received her Ph.D. in Art History from Rutgers University and works as an Associate Professor of Art History at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. On Sept. 29, Leigh held a talk at Denison University’s Museum on her new book “The Misogynists: A Reckoning with Modern Art.” The lecture examined misogyny in modern art and the ways museums and art historians have viewed art and the artists.
“Sexism is what serves as the binding force connecting great artists across time,” Leigh said.
The book is organized by artists and their impact on modern art and how they used women’s bodies for their art. Dr. Leigh walked through the book section by section starting with Eugène Delacroix, then Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, and Pablo Picasso.
Leigh said that many modern artists are celebrated for their work which used women’s bodies as experimentation, and portrayed the cultural idea of women’s inferiority, sexuality and submission.
“Women were continually the thing that could be most profitably manipulated, distorted, or dematerialized.”
Leigh isn’t simply saying these artists made nude paintings. Her argument concerns how women are represented and what cultural assumptions those representations reinforce.
Leigh explained Degas’ depictions of dancers, laundresses, bathers and brothel workers. She argued that these works portray women in dehumanizing or voyeuristic ways, yet museums and art historians frequently emphasized their aesthetic qualities.
“Les Demoiselles d’Avignon,” a painting by Picasso, had the original title of “Le Bordel d’Avignon” which translates to The Brothel of Avignon. The painting shows five nude women painted in Picasso’s classic cubism style with sharp and angular depictions of these women.
Leigh explained how this work is now frequently described as one of the most influential paintings of the 20th century, yet many fail to acknowledge the objectification of these women who are portrayed as sex workers.
Leigh addressed the counterargument: “Are you canceling these artists?” She stated that she highly anticipated the question, and explained that she is not advocating removing these artists from museums or stopping people from studying them. Instead, she wants viewers to confront the misogyny alongside the artistic significance.
She said that the issue is when museums present works as masterpieces while leaving out their historical context.
“I am not proposing that we no longer exhibit, look at or teach any of the artworks made by these painters,” Leigh said. “…I think we must be grappling with what is at stake if we continue to turn a blind eye to the role that sexism plays in art.”
She suggested that museums could provide more information about the real people depicted in the artworks instead of just presenting them as anonymous subjects. One example is Degas’ “Little Dancer.” This work depicts a real 14-year-old girl, Marie Van Goethem, who was a student of the Paris Opera Ballet dance school. Many people are unaware of her background because many museums and art critics focus more on the negative public reaction Degas first received because this work is thought of as ugly.
“The next time you’re in a museum, consider how the women on the walls and pedestals appear,” Leigh said.
Leigh did not necessarily say that the way to counteract the misogyny was to stop looking at this canonical art, but to look differently.
“There’s no question that art can produce powerful aesthetic dynamics, and it can be quite seductive. But it can also be totally repulsive. It’s up to you to decide,” Leigh said.
Leigh’s lecture asked students not to stop looking at famous works, but to look with more questions about who is represented and whose perspective has shaped the way the work is remembered.