| The Turkish Bath | |
|---|---|
| French:Le Bain turc | |
 | |
| Artist | Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres |
| Year | 1852–59, modified in 1862 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas glued to wood |
| Dimensions | 108 cm × 110 cm (42 1/2 in × 43 5/16 in) |
| Location | Musée du Louvre,Paris |
| Accession | R.F. 1934 |
The Turkish Bath (Le Bain turc) is anoil painting byJean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, initially completed between 1852 and 1859, but modified in 1862.[1] The painting depicts a group of nude women at a pool in aharem.[1] It has anerotic style that evokes both theNear East and earlier western styles associated withmythological subject matter. The painting expands on a number of motifs that Ingres had explored in earlier paintings,[1] in particularThe Valpinçon Bather (1808) andLaGrande odalisque (1814) and is an example of Romanticism.
The work is signed and dated 1862, when Ingres was around 82 years old.[2] He altered the original rectangular format and changed the painting to atondo. A photograph of its original state, taken byCharles Marville, survives.[3]
The painting is known for its subtle colourisation, especially the very pale skin of the women resting in the privacy of a bathing area. The figures are arranged in a very harmonious, circular manner, forming a "great curvaceous fugue" that heightens the eroticism of the painting.[4] Its charge is in part achieved through the use of motifs that include the implied haze of Oriental perfume, and the inclusion of vases, running water, fruit and jewels, as well as a palette that ranges from pale white to pink, ivory, light greys and a variety of browns.[5]
The choice to convert the painting to a tondo both centralises the composition and adds a voyeuristic element to the composition as the viewer observes the naked women through the oculus. This effect is highlighted as we know Ingres never travelled beyond Europe so his romantic vision of the Bathers is totally idealised.[6]
Ingres relished the irony of producing an erotic work in his old age, painting an inscription of his age (AETATIS LXXXII, "at age 82") on the work—in 1867 he told others that he still retained "all the fire of a man of thirty years".[7][8] He did not paint this work from live models, but fromcroquis and several of his earlier paintings, reusing "bather" and "odalisque" figures he had drawn or painted as single figures on beds or beside a bath.
The figure fromThe Valpinçon Bather appears almost identically as the central element of the later composition, but now plays a long necked lute, likely aSaz orBağlama. The woman in the background with her arm extended and holding a cup resembles the sitter in his portrait ofMadame Moitessier (1856). The face of the woman with her arms raised above her head in the near right is similar to acroquis (1818) of the artist's wife, Delphine Ramel,[3] though her right shoulder is lowered while her right arm is raised. The other bodies are juxtaposed in various unlit areas behind them. They include figures whose poses Ingres borrowed from engravings in a 17th-century book,Histoire générale des Turcs.[9]
Ingres drew from a wide variety of painterly sources, including 19th-century academic art,Neoclassicism and lateMannerism.[citation needed] The colourisation is one of "chastising coolness", while figures merge into each other in a manner that evokes sexuality, but ultimately is intended to show Ingres's skill at defying rational perspective.[3]
Ingres was influenced by the contemporary fashion forOrientalism, relaunched by Napoleon'sinvasion of Egypt. On leaving for Italy in 1806, he copied into his notebooks a text extolling "the baths of the seraglio of Mohammed", in which can be read a description of a harem where one "goes into a room surrounded by sofas [...] and it is there that many women destined for this use attend the sultana in the bath, wiping her handsome body and rubbing the softest perfumes into her skin; it is there that she must then take a voluptuous rest".[7][10]
In 1825, he copied a passage fromLetters from the Orient byLady Mary Wortley Montagu, who had accompanied her British diplomat husband to theOttoman Empire in 1716. Her letters had been re-published eight times in France alone between 1763 and 1857,[citation needed] adding to the Orientalist craze. The passage Ingres copied was entitled "Description of the women's bath atAdrianople" and reads: "I believe there were two hundred women there in all. Beautiful naked women in various poses... some conversing, others at their work, others drinking coffee or tasting asorbet, and many stretched out nonchalantly, whilst their slaves (generally ravishing girls of 17 or 18 years) plaited their hair in fantastical shapes."[7][11] Literary criticRuth Yeazell opines that the environment ofThe Turkish Bath bears little resemblance to the public bathing described by Lady Montagu.[12]
In contrast toEugène Delacroix, who visited an Algerian harem, Ingres never travelled to Africa or the Middle East, and the courtesans shown are more Caucasian and European than Middle Eastern or African in appearance.[13] For Ingres the oriental theme was above all a pretext for portraying the female nude in a passive and sexual context. Exotic elements are few and far between in the image: musical instruments, acenser and a few ornaments.
The painter's first buyer was a relation ofNapoleon III, but he handed it back some days later, his wife having found it "unsuitable" ("peu convenable").[7] It was purchased in 1865 byKhalil Bey, a former Turkish diplomat who added it to his collection of erotic paintings.[14]
Edgar Degas demanded thatThe Turkish Bath be shown at theExposition Universelle (1855), in the wake of which came contrasting reactions:Paul Claudel, for example, compared it to a "cake full of maggots".[7] At the start of the 20th century, patrons wished to offerThe Turkish Bath to the Louvre, but the museum's council refused it twice.[15] After the national collections ofMunich offered to buy it, the Louvre finally accepted it in 1911,[15] thanks to a gift by theSociété des amis du Louvre, to whom the patronMaurice Fenaille made a three-year interest-free loan of 150,000 Francs for the purpose.[citation needed]
The Turkish Bath has inspired many modern artists. It can be seen inFélix Vallotton's 1907 paintingLe Bain turc, inPablo Picasso'sLes demoiselles d'Avignon or inTamara de Lempicka'sFemmes au bain (1922).[16] Its influence became even more noticeable from the 1960s onwards through numerousappropriations. Among the most explicit references to Ingres's Turkish Bath areMartial Raysse'sMade in Japan, a Turkish and Implausible Painting (1965),Robert Rauschenberg'sRevolver I (1967),Harry Nadler'sLe Bain turc (1968) and, in the pop style,Robert Ballagh'sThe Turkish Bath after Ingres (1970).[16]
It precisely is because so many artists have referred to it that Ingres'sTurkish Bath caught the attention of the painterHerman Braun-Vega, who considers Ingres a pivotal figure between classical and modern painting.[17]Le bain turc à New York is a series of 15 variations on Ingres'sTurkish Bath created in 1972 by Braun-Vega for exhibition at the Lerner-Heller Gallery in New York.[18] Braun-Vega moves Ingres's painting into modern contexts, depicting Ingres's bathers in scenes of everyday life in New York, on the streets, on the beach, or surrounding them with contemporary elements such as milk cartons and newspapers, creating a dialogue between past and present that is part of his exploration of the legacy of the great classics of painting in modern art.[19] The notion of heritage is also central to the paintingCaramba! in which Braun-Vega claims to be the heir of Velazquez, Goya, Rembrandt, Ingres, Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso, Ingres being represented by the Turkish Bath.[20] When Braun-Vega does not use Ingres's tondo to express his artistic filiation, he can use it, for example, to express social criticism. Thus, inLe Bain à Barranco (Ingres), classical figures ofThe Turkish Bath are confronted with indigenous Peruvians, highlighting cultural and economic disparities.[21] Other Braun-Vega paintings also refer toThe Turkish bath, includingLa papaye au bain (Picasso, Ingres, El Greco),[22]Le Bain à Cantolao ou 8,7 = rideau (Ingres),[22]Etat critique (Ingres, Picasso),[23]L'artiste et ses modeles (Ingres),[24]Matisse maîtrise couleurs et lumières avec ses ciseaux.[25]
In 1973, Welsh-born American feminist artistSylvia Sleigh painted a riposte to the male gaze of Ingres with a painting of the same name. But herThe Turkish Bath is gender-reversed, depicting male nudes – some in similar positions to those of the women in the Ingres original.[26]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)Braun has concluded that Ingres is, in a sense, the principal figure behind contemporary art, a pivotal figure who marks the break with the old, established language of art and heralds the period of invention that has continued to our own day. Le Bain Turc first attracted his attention precisely because so many other artists has made reference to it
At Lerner-Heller, painter Herman Braun showed a series of works exploring the art historical idea that "modern art is a direct and lineal descendant of all so-called classic art that preceded it." Braun explored this concept with a group of paintings, painted constructions and sketches all based, to varying degrees, on Ingres' famous Turkish Bath. In Braun's 15 incarnations of the latter the viewer saw Ingres' voluptuous female bathers at the beach, on the streets of New York [...], and in some Surreally updated versions of their natural Turkish bath habitat, complete with pop/style cartons of milk and yesterday's newspaper.
Caramba!, tableau de groupe, réunion de famille. Dans le fond à droite, expliqua-t-il, à côté de la porte, un pan de mur recouvert d'un papier peint de Matisse, sur lequel on peut voir accroché Le Bain Turc d'Ingres.
Ingres et Coca-Cola représentent tous deux, pour Braun-Vega, des « colonisations culturelles » : il laisse entendre quelle est celle, à tout prendre, qui aurait ses préférences. Mais les choses sont ainsi (es así) et il n'y a pas à y revenir. En tant qu'artiste, il « métisse » les deux colonisations culturelles pour en donner une version synthétique personnelle : une nouvelle culture en somme.
