NECESSARY NUDES:ḤADĀTHAANDMUʿĀṢIRAIN THE LIVES OF MODERN LEBANESE

Abstract

In his studio in Beirut in 1929, the young artist Moustapha Farroukh (1901–57) envisioned a composition to change his society. He hoped his oil painting would incite broad support among his fellow Lebanese for a revolution in conventional gender relations and women's participation in the urban social order. He titled the pictureThe Two Prisonersand based it on a European convention for representing the East: the Nude odalisque (Figure 1). The resulting painting exemplifies the complex role Arab intellectuals of the early 20th century played in the formation of modern art and universal modernity. Leading artists in Mandate-era Beirut felt compelled to paint Nudes and display them as part of a culturing process they calledtathqīf(disciplining or enculturing). To a large extent,tathqīfconsisted of recategorizing norms for interaction and self-scrutiny. Joseph Massad has revealed that one crucial component oftathqīfwas the repudiation of behaviors and desires associated with the Arab Past, such as male homosexuality. An equally important component was the cultivation of “modern,” “masculine” heterosexual eroticism and a dutiful feminine compliance associated withḥadātha(novelty) andmuʿāṣira(contemporaneity). This was accomplished through the use of a genre that was deliberately new and alien in both its material media and its impact on makers and viewers.