Representing Women

On page 219 of Representing Women there is a reproduction of Georges Seurat’s Poseuse (1886‐1888), which shows three young women hanging around in the artist’s studio in various states of undress. You might expect a feminist to take a dim view of a work like this; Linda Nochlin argues that the artist’s treatment of the subject actually tends to criticise and subvert “the objectifying regime of the male gaze”, by “calling both its naturalness and unhistoric approach into question”. She finds it hard to believe that Seurat took the Three Graces or Judgment of Paris theme wholly seriously: “not enough...