dhroberts wrote:
The model is Nicole Vaunt.
It is difficult to ascertain if the photographer is making an homage or attempting to create a new controversy with the work. The lack of trappings that would have been easily added, could add to the controversy.
The African American model holding flowers and black cat arching it's back, especially the missing black cat arching it's back and hissing are critical to the Edouard Manet painting. The black cat is a powerful and associated symbol to a women who is parthenos.
The term Olympia is a high class variant of, as in fille de jure (young or unmarried "women of the pleasure"). Also the term a 'fillet'* with it's varied meanings (the black thin ribbon tied about the neck in the Olympia painting model.
The white open toed every day shoes as opposed to the 'Oriental' house slippers could be an upgrade from the 1860's to our modern times as modern women foot wear.
So, the two parts that are rather of controversy in this 'Homage' are the flower and the bracelet. First then is the flower, white, that of a symbol of purity, and not the color red which was a common signal to clients that the fille was in her period (menstruating) and so unavailable (like the use of women's neck scarfs pre and post World War II when the scarf was worn over the left side, the heart side saying they were 'taken' as unavailable as opposed to on the right side drape saying they were available sexually). So why the use of white/virginal?
Then there is the bracelet. This is clearly where the problem with this work lies. The history in painting for the bracelet shadows back to Titan. See the work Venus of Urbino. There you will see the bracelet. Titan had a gift from the social structure of Church and State. The bracelet was first given by Titan to his wife, then taken back and given to his second wife whom was depicted nude in a Titan painting. Finally, his third wife had possession of the bracelet until Titans death, it was removed from her by the 'powers to be' and became an object of great significant. It symbolized marriage and desire and fidelity to a great man who could afford to own this relic from Titan. The bracelet is were the controversy of the Olympia resides for the arts of Manet's time. Those who viewed the Olympia at the Salon of Paris were acutely aware of this bracelet and its meaning. To see it displayed on the arm of a prostitute was total and completely immoral.
Several years earlier Manet painted Luncheon on the grass. The women depicted with the two artist males in the painting are their wives, yes nude, the one bathing her genitals in the water is Manet's wife. This is a common and domestic scene of no real importance. The controversy was the red dot in the tree above slightly to the left of center. It is a cardinal, symbolizing the Cardinal of the Catholic Church as voyeur of the bawdy scene that is not bawdy unless corrupted by the act of the cardinal making the act unclean between husband and wife. This work proceeds the Olympia and the order of appearance is important to grasp the outrage of the visitor viewers at the Paris Salon.
We are left with questions as to the what and where for of titling this photographic work for our time. My own sense is that the title requires altering to better represent the mind and ideas of the artist in our modern times. Is it to be a mere shadow to Manet or can it clearly become a point in history that draws on the great and seminal work of the past leading viewers into new territory of defining sexuality and the position of feminine power.
'fillet'*: a band or ribbon worn around the head, especially for binding the hair or
a fleshy boneless piece of meat from near the loins or the ribs of an animal