Art in its Time: Theories and Practices of Modern Aesthetics

SOME MASKS OF MODERNISM
Figure 2.2 André Derain, Bathers, 1907, © 2003 ARS, New York, ADAGP, Paris,
and DACS, London. Courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by
SCALA/Art Resource, NY.
beauty of female bodies in a landscape. Derain’s nudes are simply there for us to
look at, while Picasso’s confront us like Olympia. Derain presents us with nature;
Picasso with the city, and a commercial establishment: with modernity. At the
same time, in contrast to Manet’s paintings and pictures like the monotypes of
prostitutes Degas made in the late 1870s, we are not here shown signs of historical
specificity. Picasso’s women do not wear modern clothing or appear in a recognizable
architectural setting. “Modernity” in this work means not some present
moment, but a category of experience. Correspondingly, it is not a figure in it but
the painting that is modern.
The effect of modernity is made all the more striking by its visible contrast
with classical tradition. It includes two basic themes of European painting, both
symbolizing the presence of nature within a context of culture: the female nude
and the still life. The two women in the center have stylized faces, like two versions
of the same face. This face, though apparently based in part on archaic
Iberian sculpture, might be called a cartoon version of the face of classical
beauty; it goes with these women’s bodies, which, descended from Greek statues
of Venus, are variations on the languid bodies of the odalisque (the one on the
left is even, as Leo Steinberg has pointed out, in a reclining position, though she
has been tipped upright for us). 10 They bear the drapery of the antique nude;
10 Leo Steinberg, “The philosophical brothel,” October 44 (Spring 1988), p. 27 ff.
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