Blog Post #4

       Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s painting ‘Woman before a mirror’ (ca. 1897) is oil on cardboard measuring 24 ½ by 18 ½ inches. I would classify this work as being abstract. The painting features elements of realistic, stylized and idealized figurative art but I think this work is more stylized. The main focal point in the painting is the backside of a woman’s body. The curves and shapes of her body are natural. She appears real until you notice her reflection in the mirror. Her face and body are distorted and simplified into shapes. The background is also distorted. You almost cannot recognize the objects in the room the woman is in.

         John Berger in Ways of Seeing challenges the male gaze and how it affects women. In most nude paintings a woman’s body is used as an object to appeal to the sexuality of men. A woman is not seen as owning her own nakedness and sexuality. This idea is present in De Toulouse-Lautrec’s painting of an unnamed, nude woman. He has taken away the features of her face, the features that give her an identity. He has also left out the features of her anatomy. Berger states “And so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman.” (1) The only identity the woman retains in the painting is that of being the ‘surveyed’. What strikes me is the detail in what the ‘surveyor’ sees and the lack of detail in what the ‘surveyed’ sees. It is almost as if the artist is saying “the way we see this woman is more important than the way she sees herself.”