FRANCE-ART/PROSTITUTION Paris exhibition celebrates 19th century artists' fascination with ladies of the night

Record ID: 135810

  • Title: FRANCE-ART/PROSTITUTION Paris exhibition celebrates 19th century artists' fascination with ladies of the night
  • Date: 16th October 2015
  • Summary: PHOTO OF PROSTITUTES IN A BROTHEL
  • Embargoed: 31st October 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: France
  • Country: France
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA5BG6TA6CNZ5V3OPNKHF1SKC
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: PLEASE NOTE: RESENDING VIDEO TO INCLUDE NUDITY WARNING ON SLATE
    PLEASE NOTE: EDIT CONTAINS NUDITY IN SHOT 15
    A major exhibition at Paris' Musee d'Orsay called "Splendour and Misery: Pictures of Prostitution" explores artists' fascination with the rise of prostitution in the 19th century.
    The exhibition features the work of major French and international painters including Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Jean Beraud.
    Curator Isolde Pludermacher says that artists who chose to focus on prostitution in the 19th century were eager to break with traditionalism, often dominated by the bourgeoisie.
    "The artists that chose deliberately to represent modern prostitution have a transgressive will to break with the codes of the genre and frighten the bourgeois," Pludermacher said.
    She added that many artists liked to portray scenes of women in Paris cafes during the "absinthe hour", between 5 and 7 in the evening, saying it was not considered proper at the time for women to go to cafes alone.
    Artists were particularly fascinated by the "ambiguity" of women in cafes, which can be seen in paintings like Degas's "L'Absinthe" or Edward Manet's "La Prune".
    The world of brothels also served as powerful inspiration for painters.
    "It is the places of prostitution - places of amusement and social life, brothels but also cafes, cabarets - that have a very strong visual interest. In particular, the matter of lighting, gas and then electric lighting, mirrors, these women are dressed in a very scandalous way, with very lively colours, they wear their makeup in a very different way than bourgeois women would," said Pludermacher.
    "Splendour and Misery: Pictures of Prostitution" is presented as the first major show on the subject of prostitution and along with paintings and statues it also features late-19th early-20th century photographs showing prostitutes with clients and scenes in brothels.
    "Photography through its crudeness, through its reality... also the fact that with the birth of photography also came the birth of pornographic photography. Photography is here (in the exhibition) to reminds the reality of this phenomenon of prostitution and not give visitors too much of an romanticized view of the subject," Pludermacher said.
    Since its opening on September 22, an average of 5,000 visitors per day attend the exhibition, which runs through January 17.
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