Date of Award
12-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Art
First Advisor
Trenton Olsen
Abstract
The painting Les Odalisques (1902-03) anchors the investigation of French artist Jacqueline Marval’s presence and contribution to the modernist art narrative. The painting is composed of five women who share a face and features, set in a private female space. The canvas is complete with bold strokes of color, and their skin is painted in the unrealistic tones that Fauvists will embrace, yet naturally – these women are still fully and complexly human. From a distance, they are sculptural.
This project is intended as a Club de Lecture series for adult learners of French culture and language at the Alliance Française in Philadelphia. It will explore the painting and the artist's process and engagement with the odalisque iconography closely associated with celebrated male artists. Also considered are the complexities of Marval’s womanhood in this artistic engagement, and the contemporary and posthumous receptions this painting received from her peers, critics, and historians. Through lectures, visuals, and activities designed for adult learners of art history and French culture and language, this project illuminates Jacqueline Marval’s artistic potency in her time against the subsequent negation of her contribution to modernism.
Recommended Citation
Erickson, Michelle, "Jacqueline Marval: Référence sans Révérence Art History Lecture and Activity Series" (2024). Theses. 1235.
https://digitalcommons.lindenwood.edu/theses/1235
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
