Realist Quandaries: Posing Professional and Proprietary Models in the 1860s

Abstract

In 1860s Paris, it became evident that the form of artist-model transaction that predominated within academic praxis, calling for a professional model to assume a stationary pose in the artist's studio, was inherently at odds with the Realists' commitment to representing modern life. Casting about for alternatives, Manet replaced professional with proprietary models. While this substitution seemed to embody an alternative Realist studio practice, a close reading of the development of atelier paintings by Fantin-Latour, Whistler, and Bazille demonstrates that it compelled avant-garde artists to negotiate the standards of decorum that governed gender relations in bourgeois culture.