Art Throb #14: Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus (1868) by Edouard Manet (1832-1883)

Edouard Manet (1832-1883), Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus (1868)

Oil on canvas, 111 x 70 cm, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Having caught my attention by being in the news (it was saved for the nation by Oxford's Ashmolean Museum, which raised £7.83 million through lottery grants and donations from the public in 2012), this painting appealed to me instantly. Having read Griselda Pollock I can't help but view it in feminist terms. While at first sight it appears to be nothing more than a tasteful depiction of a young seated woman in a white dress looking out from a balcony, there's a great deal more to it than meets the eye (or which, rather, doesn't).

This is no portrait of an anonymous woman; she is Fanny Claus, a friend of Manet's wife. A concert violinist, she was a member of the first all-women's string quartet. Born in 1846 she would have been 22 here, only to die eight years later of tuberculosis at the age of 30. Looking at the painting, I'm reminded of Tori Amos' song Parasol, which was inspired by George Seurat's Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grand Jetee (1884), and which contains the lyric, "If I'm the seated woman with the parasol, I will be safe in my frame". The literal, physical space of any painting is defined by its frame, but this painting contains many additional framing devices within it. Vertical in construction, our gaze is led upwards to her face, which is the most clearly defined aspect of the painting. Everything else is vague and unfinished – her hands, the shutters, the person beside her. We are separated from her, yet complete access is given to her face. But even then we are prevented from making contact. As a named person, she is at once a woman and everywoman. Looking out from the balcony, her gaze evades the viewer. The balcony appears to be at ground level – the viewer can imagine the position of the painter and place him/ herself at that spot, but we are denied eye contact (or as Lacan would assert, self-validation – but that's a whole other reading).

We are therefore voyeurs, looking at something for which we have no permission. Yet this is not a portrait of a woman in her bedroom or at her toilette, portraits which, in the words of Griselda Pollock had "voyeuristic potential". We are not Peeping Toms, yet because of her averted gaze, that is what we are reduced to. In her book Vision and Difference, Pollock writes about artworks depicting women that were created by men in terms of spaces and visual fields. These spaces include interiors (bedrooms, bathrooms, dining rooms) and exteriors (balconies, gardens and verandahs). All are highly defined, resticted spaces, private, domestic areas. Pollock states that these areas do not represent the territories of the men who painted them, who would have frequented bars, cafes, private clubs, the world of work or the streets themselves - as in the case of the flaneur, who would have made the streets his home.

This painting is one whose location is almost problematic - the woman is seated outside and can be viewed clearly by the public. Her gaze too suggests she is looking out into the public domain – in fact, she is knowingly looking out into a public space. Fanny Claus is outside; however, she is strongly associated with the interior domestic space – one imagines the green shutters behind her would be open, for example. In addition, she is seated on a chair that is from within the private, domestic field. Neither is she alone – a vague figure stands beside her, a woman holding a parasol, acting as an auxiliary 'framing' device (if a man were present one feels he would have been depicted in his entirety). The balcony therefore counts as private. Like a frame, it is a place of safety for a woman (Juliet's balcony springs to mind – a private space she was permitted to go alone for soliloquizing).

To emphasise the fact that she is on private ground, the painting contains multiple framing and separation devices, barriers to the public domain. The green fencing of the balcony is a visible barrier to that domain, as is the arm of the woman stood to her left, and the handle of her parasol. The whiteness of her clothing, her averted gaze, the green fence and her upright posture set at an oblique angle – everything about this woman says, "Do not touch".

Yet there remains a lingering ambivalence. For all the painting's shelter and restraint, the expression of contained excitement on the woman's face is undeniable. The oblique angle of her posture and gaze suggests a wish to break out – she is not neatly contained. Does the fact that the green fence is painted over with the white of the woman's dress mean an attempt to break through? Or is it just that the painting is unfinished? The question of the gaze is double-edged: Griselda Pollock states that "This is, in a sense, the subject of the painting – the problem of women out in public being vulnerable to a compromising gaze." (V & D, p.109). Fanny Claus is in sight of a chaperone and therefore safe, but also prey to unwelcome viewers.

Édouard Manet, The Balcony (1868)
 Oil on canvas, 170 cm × 124 cm
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus is a preparatory study, a precursor to Manet's The Balcony, which adds an additional twist. I'm not clear on whether Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus was intended to be finished as a piece in itself, or whether it is best viewed in relation to The Balcony. Semi-relaxed in a comfortable posture (although the chair seems too small for her), her posture in the former portrait is reminiscent of that of an artist's model: perhaps all Manet wished to achieve in this piece was a feel for his subject and an idea of how to guage the space on his canvas (it appears that Fanny Claus is a stand-in for the seated woman in The Balcony). Maybe she is not looking out at anything at all, just a vague point in the middle distance. In this painting she is centrally placed in the frame; she defines the space around her. However, in The Balcony she is pushed backwards behind more barriers, albeit this time standing stiffly and formally, and positioned next to a man - slightly in front of him. She has become, to paraphrase Tori Amos' words, a "woman with a parasol" – the closed parasol forming an additional barrier to the outside world, as does the fan of the woman next to her (another real person - the acclaimed Impressionist artist Berthe Morrisot).

In terms of territorial spaces, the world of the public/ work = men, while the private, domestic sphere = woman. For men, private spaces were places of recovery, but also restraint. For women, going out in public alone meant loss of virtue and disgrace. Women who shared public spaces with men unaccompainied would have been prostitutes, entertainers – women of ill repute and loose morals. These paintings now show how far we've come.