Lullaby
What is art? How do we know, how does anyone know? Does it become art when it’s framed and hung in a museum?
Like Balthus’s Thérèse dreaming for instance.
Is that art? Or is it a voyeur peering up a teenage girl’s skirt and masturbating?
It may be art, but it for sure is an adult man posing a teenage girl in such a way that we’re staring at her crotch.
Phillip Kennicott, probably not a teenage girl, says It’s Art.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has made the right decision, to reject the demands of an online petition calling for the removal of an erotically charged work by the Polish French artist Balthus. The 1938 painting, “Thérèse Dreaming,” shows an adolescent girl sitting on a chair, with one leg raised to expose her undergarments. The petition, which has gained more than 9,000 signatures, argues that the painting “romanticizes the sexualization of a child.”
The word “sexualization” itself is too polite, too valorizing, too romanticized. It’s creepy peering up the skirt of an underage girl, is what it is, and making an ArtWork out of that so that we can all feel enlightened for looking at it and not screeching in disgust.
There is a difficult and emotional conversation to be had about Balthus’s works, which frequently depicted adolescent or pubescent girls in a sexualized way. No serious exhibition of Balthus, who died in 2001, can avoid confronting those issues.
BUT. You know there’s a but. Of course there’s a but. We can’t possibly just decide that making Art out of creepy perving on underage girls might be surplus to our aesthetic requirements. Nosir. We have to Confront the Issue, but only in such a way that no difference is made.
We must deal with sexual harassment and sexual abuse without losing all that was gained during the sexual liberation of the last century.
And if that means underage girls become fodder for men’s masturbation fantasies, it’s totally worth it because SEXUAL LIBERATION by god.
The danger in the wings is a new Puritanism that would only increase the shame surrounding sexuality (a convenient weapon wielded by abusers) while undoing the painful, 20th-century process of deregulating sexuality from religion and heterosexual male power.
And there should be no shame in this very natural desire men have to look up the skirts of teenage girls, it’s a healthy natural joyous urge, the display of which is part of the process of deregulating sexuality from heterosexual male power.
Or not. Whatever. Who knows. Just don’t take away the paintings of girls letting us peer up their skirts, that’s all.
Heterosexual male power seems remarkably intact after this, demonstrating a heckuva lot more autonomy and authority than Thérèse is allowed.
It’s definitely art. But maybe you could argue that it is bad art.
I’m not really happy with the idea of gallery’s curatorship being subject to public petitions, though. Perhaps pieces like this could be displayed in a restricted 18+ area.
Here’s my question: Couldn’t they find a WOMAN art & architecture critic to write about this issue? Someone who, you know, might have some direct insight into the relevant issues — like what it’s like to be sexualized by older and more powerful figures of the opposite sex as an early adolescent, and what it’s like to live in a culture where one is the constant, inescapable target of such premature sexualization? I’m not denying the possibility that a man can be thoughtful about such things, but if Phillip Kennicott has given any serious thought to such matters, he certainly doesn’t demonstrate it here.
(Also, could a name and job title reek more thoroughly of a life of white upper-class privilege than Phillip Kennicott, Art and Architecture Critic? One wants a character from Downton Abbey to wander onto the scene and say, “Oh do shut up, Kenneth dear!”)
Not much was gained for women in the sexual revolution, it should of meant more liberal attitudes towards sex for both men and women. It just means men being more open about their needs and easier access to women. (See the recent gushing’s in the media about Hugh Hefner’s contributions to the male only sexual revolution).
Its the same when advertisers use ‘sex sells’ to excuse yet another half dressed women in any kind of advert. Sex isn’t something between a man and women, it’s just something men do to women or can access if they ‘buy our product’.
Phillip Kennicott can intellectualise it all he wants, it’s a teenage girl unaware that she’s showing her knickers. It’s the same old sexual objectification of women and girls passed off as art.
It’s not just “passed off as art”, it is art. I honestly don’t understand the tactical benefit of denying it is art. Is it to justify removing it from art galleries?
Only in the same way that an award winning portrait photographer then shoots a spread for a porn mag. It doesn’t take away his talent but the Image and the message it sends to the viewer about the ‘object’ being viewed overrides that.
So you are arguing that something that sexually objectifies the female body is porn, that porn cannot be art, and that this painting is porn, so it cannot be art? I think I disagree. I don’t think something that sexually objectifies the female body is necessarily porn. I think a LOT of art (and poetry and literature and advertising and music videos etc) features the sexual objectification of female bodies. I think we should have a conversation about sexism and misogyny in art and the art world, but I don’t think we need to deny that art is art in order to do so. The Guerilla Girls are group of artist activists who have been campaigning against sexism and misogyny in art and the art world for years: https://www.guerrillagirls.com/
I wasn’t comparing the the painting to porn (however most porn objectifies women and girls as does this painting)
I’m not denying it’s art but at the end of the day the no doubt talented artist painted a girl showing her knickers and called it Thérèse Dreaming so other men could gawp at it and pretend it was all very proper.
I probably should have said ‘lads mag’ instead of ‘porn mag’ in comment #7. Not all porn objectifies women ( although i think most of it does) My point was the same talent needed to photo the objectification of a woman doesn’t mean it should be regarded the same as the award winning portrait
The people in New York need to get out more. I’ve been in galleries that make this painting look like it’s from achildren’s book.
Can’t they just put it in a room with PG-18 and additional warnings?
Likewise, I’ve never seen or heard of this painting. Has anyone involved thought about the Streisand Effect?
tiko72, I agree that the subject of the art might affect our judgment of its quality.
It might be a factor of the perspective of the image but the proportion of head-size to shoulder or torso-size puts the subject of the picture at about 4 years old.
I know that the pose is very unlike a 4-year-old … but y’know ….
This was painted in 1938 wasn’t it? Didn’t the sexual revolution start in 1964? I mean, if the art was in some way tied to the sexual revolution that kind of needs explaining beyond just name dropping the period doesn’t it?
And besides that, outside of the art world this kind of reminds me of Robert Mugabe.
Okay recently Mugabe resigned. By this point Mugabe, within Zimbabwe, had become African Voldemort, people didn’t want to say his name, because people who talked about his regime ended up getting tortured, or just vanished.
Instead Zimbabweans called him “Our father” and Grace “Our mother”.
Now you don’t get to that point without your government being all kinds of shitty. In his first term of office he massacred thousands of people, in what was really a small scale genocide. Of course the Western world reacted, by knighting him. He was a freedom fighter after all.
The traits that made him unfit to rule were obvious from very early on, but his was the movement that brought freedom, and over time he brought more and more oppression. When he lost the 2008 elections, his government was kept in power by mine. Why?
Because Mugabe was a symbol of resistance to Western imperialism to the rest of Africa, to allow his people to actually vote him out would seem disloyal to, what to a lot of people, was a hero. He brought liberation!
Nevermind that the result of this liberation was a country that used to be a net exporter of grain was now suffering massive famines, that the maize being sent to Zimbabwe to try and fight that famine was then being rerouted to the export market, and that the major reason why the UK stopped providing funding for land redistribution was the land was being redistributed to Mugabe’s cronies, he brought liberation!
And so what if actual Zimbabweans hated him so much that uttering his name had become a taboo? So what if that “liberation” meant millions fleeing the country? So what if the people themselves, even with the brutality that was revealed in the early years of Mugabe’s reign, actually voted for the other guy?
So I look at this artwork, I look at the argument that we mustn’t throw out sexual liberation and all of that, and what goes through my head is, “Isn’t freedom the ability to throw out whatever shit we don’t like?”
Isn’t freedom the ability to look at that artwork, and say, “You know what, no looking up a little girl’s dress is not something I see much merit in doing.”
I mean sure maybe the artwork was important in some way, maybe it sparked some sort of heroic fight for something, maybe there is a lot to it in context that we as modern audiences are missing, maybe.
But without that it is basically an artist perving on a little girl, and we should celebrate this why? If you have to celebrate something you don’t have liberation, you have a crowd refusing to declare the emperor naked because the guards are watching.
Maybe that is an odd way of looking at it.
When does an image/object become art?
If you are interested in a feminist discussion of this (with reference to depictions of the female body), Lynda Nead’s ‘The Female Nude; Art, Obscenity and Sexuality’ is a fascinating read.
That’s very tame by Balthus’ standards. ‘Girl and Cat’ is a similar theme but with a seemingly younger girl, awake and looking at the artist (little girl flashing knickers is a recurring theme in his works).
His ‘Guitar Lesson’ is graphic paedophilia, sado-masochism and lesbianism combined. Warning: very graphic.
https://www.wikiart.org/en/balthus/guitar-lesson-1934
He was, in my opinion, a child pornographer masquerading as an artist.
Perhaps a more apt question than “is this art?” is: “is this worth gallery wall space?” And we can answer that considering not just historical role or technical proficiency but social and moral value. Yes, there’s some danger in that – I certainly don’t want to be hiding “degenerate art” as such – but pushing the envelope of good taste ought to be repaid by making us think or opening a new perspective. Getting ephebophiles hot and bothered isn’t that sort of reward.
Putting this piece in an 18+ exhibit and calling it a day would, frankly, compound the issue of its toxicity–it would be essentially agreeing with the notion that it’s okay for (male) adults to sexualize (female) children.
What this reminds me of is nothing so much as the Confederate statue debate, where the defenders of the deplorable ignore the fact that part of the effect of art comes from context. And the solution is the same–re-contextualize the art in question.
For Confederate statues, stick them in a museum with placards that honestly address both the vile nature of the subjects, but also the ugly racist sentiments and anti-civil rights backlash that led to the ‘art’ being made in the first place.
In the case of paintings like this, the piece should only be shown in a responsible manner–one that explains how the artist’s work fed into the exploitation of women and girls. It should absolutely NOT be just stuck up on a wall for the viewer to interpret as they will (the standard approach for most museums and galleries). No one should be shown this portrait without someone conveying the message, “This was created via the deliberate exploitation of a young girl by an old creep, who viewed his model as a piece of property. It’s very creation was an act of sexual abuse, and the fact that it spent so many decades as an influential piece of art demonstrates how commonplace such abuse truly is in our society.” THAT would be ‘confronting the issue’.
Its Norman Rockwell, when compared to ‘The Guitar Lesson.’ We can’t unring the bell where sexualization of underage girls is concerned. This work cannot be seen without some amount of cringing. But…what exactly defines the creepyness of it in a way that can be used to set policies?
All those cherubs and putti all over European art? they are not neutral and ‘normal’ either.
The cat’s head is directly under the little girl’s white gusset, as it laps up (white) milk. That creeps me right the fuck out.
Jeezus… that Guitar Lesson was something I most certainly didn’t need to see early in the morning…
John the Drunkard, the rationalisation for putti and cherubs is that they are ageless beings rather than children per se. It’s not so much that they aren’t neutral but simply not natural. They are symbolic of something but I can’t remember what and can’t be bothered to check just yet.
Blood Knight, sorry about that, but I did try to warn you. Bloody horrific, isn’t it?.
One thing that strikes me about this painting is that he could have painted almost exactly the same scene very effectively without showing the underpants; a young girl dreaming could be an attractive piece and not sexualize the piece, simply be sitting her in a different position.
And I can’t stop thinking about the girl who served as the model…
beauvoir’s baby @ 2 and 6 –
But the post starts with questions – What is art? How do we know, how does anyone know? Does it become art when it’s framed and hung in a museum?
It doesn’t seem particularly helpful to respond with “It’s definitely art” full stop. Why is it? How do you know it is? How do you know it definitely is? Why so emphatic, and why ignore the questions?
Also, note that I didn’t take a position on whether the Met should heed the petition or not. I too have qualms about that. I don’t want to take a position on it, because I’m torn. But that wasn’t what the post was about.
So I didn’t ask the questions to gain a “tactical benefit.” They’re real questions.
And they’re far from new, of course. It’s an obvious question, how and why and whether acquisition by a museum equals absolute and permanent affirmation that the acquired work most definitely Is Art.
Galloise Blonde @ 21 – Ohhh so it is. I missed that. I wondered about the lapping cat but overlooked the positioning.
I’m reminded of the strangest segment of the Antiques Roadshow that I’ve seen to date.
A middle-aged man had an oil painting of a young ballerina in profile, sitting topless unlacing her shoes. The expert (Rupert Maas) had said that it was a well-painted picture but didn’t recognise the artist’s name. The owner told him that his father painted it. Maas asked if he knew who the sitter was; it was the owner’s sister (a bit weird, I thought, not only for a man to paint his semi-naked daughter, but for her brother to own the picture). Then it took a rather sinister turn. Not only did the man remember seeing his sister sitting for their father, he didn’t seem to find it odd that it was painted when she was fourteen years old!
Addendum to my #27; I thought of finding a youtube clip of the programme but there’s not a chance on God’s green and pleasant that I’m putting ‘topless’ and ’14 year-old’ in my search engine!
I came across this information from a 2013 Balthus exhibit at the Met. It provides some context I found helpful, in addition to comments from AoS. I do wish wish the exploitation angle were explored more.
Sackbut, not sure what I said but pleased I could help.
I would define art as: anything created (or any aspect of a created thing) which serves a solitary function of giving people the experience of viewing it.
This may seem too broad (or too low a bar to set); but it’s really no different from how I’d define music. If I play a few arbitrary notes on a piano to hear what those notes sound like (in that order with that timing); yes, I have made music. It is almost certainly going to be very bad music… but it can only be called “shitty music” if categorized as music to begin with. So too, if I scribble a bunch of doodles during a boring meeting, those doodles are “art” (albeit, bad art).
By this definition, “Is it art?” would be the wrong question when it comes to “Thérèse”. Whether asked of “Thérèse”, my doodles, or the Mona Lisa, the answer is simply “Yes.” Of course it is. It certainly isn’t a hamburger, ocean, or coffee pot. ‘Art’ is simply the kind of thing that these things are.
While we use hyperbole to express dislike for a song by claiming, e.g. “This isn’t music; it’s just noise!”, it’s still understood that we are evaluating the song as a [detestably bad] musical work. In that light, I can appreciate the sentiment one my be trying to express with the statement “Thérèse” isn’t art”…. but I think it really muddies the discussion if one actually attempts to define the word “art” to be a category of things which includes some paintings but not others.
For the question, “What art should be hung in a public museum?” I think a much more productive discussion starts with, “Why do we build museums? What is the goal? How do they contribute to the betterment of society?” and then address, “Does the artwork in question advance that goal?”.
In that light, I think there exists a *very* compelling case that no society would be bettered by the inclusion of Thérèse in an public museum (unless it’s a history museum under the banner,”Sexual Predation in the Mid-20th Century”) .
Ophelia, I’d say it’s a paradigm case of art. It’s hardly a controversial case like Duchamp’s “Urinal”. We can try and articulate the features we think make it art if we want, but it’s not going to be easy. Art might be best understood as some kind of family resemblance concept. Here are some features I think relevant but not necessary: it is a unique object, it is a highly skilled painting, it is recognised as art by art experts.
I just think we don’t need to open up this can of worms to mount a case against displaying the painting, or at least displaying it without some kind discussion included with it. If the painting is itself a product of pedophilic abuse, then that seems to me a good case against it. If we wouldn’t display, say, a sculpture made from the bones of murdered people, why should we display a painting made from pedophilic abuse?
#28 SAGAN. Funny I would feel like the universe would condemn me to eternal fire if I even thought about 14 year old and topless in the same google proposition.
Kevin, unless one is searching for a rag-top car, (or a specific Antiques Roadshow clip to illustrate a point) no right-thinking person should be thinking of searching that phrase.