Impressionist’s Gender Roles Essay

Manets Olympia (circa 1863) is a classic example of the reclining unclothed. This appears to be a private space as there is an attending cleaning woman included in the painting. In contrast to this Berthe Morisots landscape painting is a public piece, depicting people on a promenade. For Manets painting, the viewer relates in a blatant voyeuristic way, gazing upon the nude just as the nude gazes back at the viewer in a poised repose. Morisots painting is striking because she depicts women off and about, non confined to a garden persey, exclusively out in the open (two women and a nonaged female child).In both paintings, the women depicted appear to be of high class, since the woman in Manets painting has a servant and the two women in Morisots painting have parasols indicating that they have passable money for accoutrements. Manets painting is a classic gaze painting, meaning there are tones of voyeurism but that the subject gazes back at the viewer with her head held high as though she were not thus naked. In Morisots painting, there is a marked distance between the subjects and the viewer allowing the viewer more than freedom to gaze upon these women and their stares do not penetrate the canvas back toward the viewer.It is interesting to note that Manets painting depicts a nude woman who stares blatantly back at the viewer while Morisots painting depicts clothed women who do note even recognize the viewers presence into their world. Thus, the diversity between and male and female painters is taken note of in this instance The female painter does not allow her subjects to look back while the male painter has a fully nude woman strongly gaze upon the viewer.