Scandals in art occur when members of the public are shocked or offended by a work of art at the time of its first exhibition or publication, (e.g. visual art, literature, scenic design or music).
The provocativeness of the scandal may relate to a controversial subject or style, being context-sensitive, according to the personality of the artist, along with transient political, religious, social, and moral factors. The Gleaners by Jean-François Millet seems innocuous today, but the large size of a painting, generally reserved for religious and mythological subjects, depicting the rural poor was seen by the upper class as an endorsement of the type of grievances that had erupted in the revolutionary violence of 1848, just 9 years earlier.
In contrast, the 90 cans of Artist's Shit (Italian: Merda d'artista, 1961), each labeled as containing 30 grams of feces of the artist Piero Manzoni, were regarded as social commentary rather than scandal. Collectors began buying the cans and they soon fetched high prices at auction; in August 2016, at an auction in Milan, can #69 sold for €275,000, including auction fees. [1]
Venus of Urbino by Titian scandalized through its profane character. Originally, the young nude woman not identified as a goddess; rather, she was reclining in a setting that could be identified as the bedchamber of Guidobaldo della Rovere, who had commissioned the painting. She was deliberately called "Venus" by Giorgio Vasari to minimize the scandal, in the context of a decree issued by the Council of Trent, imputing to artists the responsibility for everything arising from their creative representations. [2]
During 1536–1541, the profusion of nude figures in The Last Judgment raised the ire of religious authorities. In spite of this, the work continued under Popes Paul III and Julius III, but in 1564, under the order of the Council of Trent, the genitalia were painted over by the Mannerist painter Daniele da Volterra, who became known as "Il Braghettone" ("the breeches maker"). [3]
The Feast in the House of Levi (1573) by Paolo Veronese was investigated by the Roman Inquisition, who asked, "Does it seem suitable to you, in the Last Supper of our Lord, to represent buffoons, drunken Germans, dwarfs, and other such absurdities?" [4] [5] and gave him three months to make changes. Veronese simply retitled it The Feast in the House of Levi. [6]
Many of Caravaggio's works were rejected by his patrons, judged as being too vulgar, scandalous, like the first version of Saint Matthew and the Angel (1602). The canons of the Contarelli Chapel were appalled by the dirty legs and arms, minutely reproduced from the peasant model, and the ambiguity of the angel at his side. The painting was passed over, and Caravaggio was made to do a second that conformed better to the idealized representation preferred by the churchmen, The Inspiration of Saint Matthew . [7] Caravaggio created a stir by his provocative Conversion of Saint Paul , with its prominent portrayal of the rump of the horse, who is poised to trample the saint. [8] The Death of the Virgin (1606), intended for the Carmelite church of Santa Maria della Scala in Trastevere, Rome, was rejected as blasphemous. [9]
At the Salon of 1799, Girodet exhibited a painting of Mademoiselle Lange which provoked the famous actress and merveilleuse. She wrote him a letter, "Please, Monsieur, do me the favor of withdrawing from the exhibit a portrait which, people say, does nothing for your glory, and which compromises my reputation for beauty." Furious, Girodet ripped up the original painting and made another, the Portrait of Mademoiselle Lange as Danaë , a satirical allegory in which the heads of most figures are crowned with peacock feathers, but her husband Michel-Jean Simons, a wealthy purveyor to the French army, is represented by a turkey, while golden coins fall from the sky. [10]
In Spain, La Maja desnuda , painted sometime during 1797–1800 by Francisco Goya, shows a reclining nude, with pubic hair, looking at the viewer without any sense of shame. Although hung in a private room of Manuel Godoy, it came to the attention of the Spanish Inquisition in 1808, along with other works. Godoy and his curator, Don Francisco de Garivay, were brought before a tribunal and forced to reveal the artists behind the confiscated art works which were "so indecent and prejudicial to the public good." [11]
In 1819, to a public accustomed to historical tableaux painted in the Neoclassical style, Théodore Géricault presented the brooding Raft of the Medusa depicting survivors of a shipwreck in 1816, an embarrassment to the restored Bourbon monarchy, as Louis XVIII had appointed an incompetent nobleman as the captain for political reasons. [12]
In 1824, The Massacre at Chios , a large painting by Eugène Delacroix, supported state policy by favoring the Greeks, but his depiction of suffering devoid of heroism and glory was regarded as "a massacre of art" (Antoine-Jean Gros). [13] [14]
In 1831, the lithograph Gargantua by Honoré Daumier in the satirical periodical La Caricature , depicting Louis Philippe I as Gargantua, with scatological implications, resulted in six months of imprisonment for the artist. [15]
At the Salon of 1850, the monumental painting A Burial At Ornans by Gustave Courbet was denounced for the unflattering faces of the mourners and their plainness. The "explosive reaction" brought Courbet instant fame. [16] [17]
Critics were divided in 1857 by The Gleaners painted by Jean-François Millet: some saw the gleaning women as a symbol of a popular uprising ("the scaffolds of 1793", [18] ) others complained about the realistic representation of the rural poor on a large canvas of the size reserved for religious scenes. [19]
The nudity in The Pearl and the Wave (1862) by Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry was judged too "annoying" in overly resembling an actual mortal rather than a goddess viewed from afar. [20]
Painted in 1862–1863, Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe by Édouard Manet was exhibited at the Salon des Refusés in 1863, provoking scandal for both aesthetic and moral reasons. [21]
Gustave Courbet's L'Origine du monde , painted in 1866, spent most of its time in private collections up until 1995, but continued to be polemical well into the 21st century.
In 1872, the painting Impression, Sunrise by Claude Monet was greeted with sarcasm for its audacity. [22]
In 1874, the atmospheric Nocturne: Blue and Gold – Old Battersea Bridge by James Abbott McNeill Whistler was described as "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face" by critic John Ruskin; Whistler sued Ruskin for libel, and the case was brought to court in 1878. [23]
The Salon des Refusés, French for "exhibition of rejects", is generally known as an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon, but the term is most famously used to refer to the Salon des Refusés of 1863.
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the Romanticism of the previous generation of visual artists. His independence set an example that was important to later artists, such as the Impressionists and the Cubists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th-century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social statements through his work.
The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement toward Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name from the village of Barbizon, France, on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, where many of the artists gathered. Most of their works were landscape painting, but several of them also painted landscapes with farmworkers, and genre scenes of village life. Some of the most prominent features of this school are its tonal qualities, color, loose brushwork, and softness of form.
L'Origine du monde is a picture painted in oil on canvas by the French artist Gustave Courbet in 1866. It is a close-up view of the vulva and abdomen of a naked woman, lying on a bed with legs spread.
The Painter's Studio is an 1855 oil-on-canvas painting by Gustave Courbet. It is located in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France.
Julien Vallou de Villeneuve was a French painter, lithographer and photographer.
Ornans is a commune in the Doubs department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in eastern France. On 1 January 2016 the former commune Bonnevaux-le-Prieuré was merged into Ornans.
A Burial at Ornans is a painting of 1849–50 by Gustave Courbet. It is widely regarded as a major turning point in 19th-century French art. The painting records a funeral in Courbet's birthplace, the small town of Ornans. It treats an ordinary, provincial funeral with frank realism, and on the grand scale traditionally reserved for the heroic or religious scenes of history painting. Its exhibition at the 1850–51 Paris Salon created an "explosive reaction" and brought Courbet instant fame. It is currently displayed at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France
Le Suicidé is a small oil painting by Édouard Manet completed between 1877 and 1881. The painting has been little studied within Manet's oeuvre, as art historians have had difficulty finding a place for the work within the development of Manet's art.
Le ruisseau noir (The Black Stream) (also known in En. as Stream in a Ravine) is an oil-on-canvas landscape painted in 1865 by the French artist Gustave Courbet. It is currently held and exhibited at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
La Femme au perroquet is an oil painting on canvas by French artist Gustave Courbet. It was the first nude by the artist to be accepted by the Paris Salon in 1866 after a previous entry in 1864 was rejected as indecent. It is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York city.
The Angelus is an oil painting by French painter Jean-François Millet, completed between 1857 and 1859.
The Musée Courbet or Courbet Museum is a museum dedicated to the French painter Gustave Courbet. It is located in Ornans in the Doubs-Franche-Comté area of France.
Realism was an artistic movement that emerged in France in the 1840s, around the 1848 Revolution. Realists rejected Romanticism, which had dominated French literature and art since the early 19th century. Realism revolted against the exotic subject matter and the exaggerated emotionalism and drama of the Romantic movement. Instead, it sought to portray real and typical contemporary people and situations with truth and accuracy, and not avoiding unpleasant or sordid aspects of life. The movement aimed to focus on unidealized subjects and events that were previously rejected in art work. Realist works depicted people of all classes in situations that arise in ordinary life, and often reflected the changes brought by the Industrial and Commercial Revolutions. Realism was primarily concerned with how things appeared to the eye, rather than containing ideal representations of the world. The popularity of such "realistic" works grew with the introduction of photography—a new visual source that created a desire for people to produce representations which look objectively real.
The Bathers is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Gustave Courbet, first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1853, where it caused a major scandal. It was unanimously attacked by art critics for the large nude woman at its centre and the sketchy landscape background, both against official artistic canons. It was bought for 3000 francs by Courbet's future friend Alfred Bruyas, an art collector – this acquisition allowed the artist to become financially and artistically independent. It is signed and dated in the bottom right hand corner on a small rock. It has been in the musée Fabre in Montpellier since 1868.
The Bacchante is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Gustave Courbet, produced between 1844 and 1847. The painting's title relates the work to images of Bacchantes from Greco-Roman mythology and to Renaissance paintings and sculptures on that subject.
After Dinner at Ornans is an oil-on-canvas painting by the French Realist artist Gustave Courbet, painted in winter 1848–1849 in Ornans. It is now in the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille. Its dimensions are 195 by 257 cm.
Young Ladies of the Village or The Village Maids is an 1852 oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Gustave Courbet, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York. It is signed bottom left "G. Courbet".
The Source is a 1862 oil painting on canvas by the French realist painter Gustave Courbet. The painting shows a nude woman standing outside in nature, in a body of water.
The Source of the Loue is the name of several mid-19th century paintings by French artist Gustave Courbet. Done in oil on canvas, the paintings depict the river Loue in eastern France.