The Look Returned

Le déjeurner sur l’herbe by Edouard Manet

When Le Déjeurner sur l’herbe was first exhibited it caused a scandal. This cannot just have been because there is a naked woman in the picture: the nude had been a genre for centuries when this painting was produced. Rather, there is something in the attitude and look of this woman sitting casually between two dressed men. She seems to challenge us, catch our gaze and return it. I want to discuss two works that parody Le Déjeurner and play with the look that is returned to the viewer.

Le déjeurner sur l’herbe from Yves Saint Laurent campaign

First an image that switches the genders of the original painting around. In this photograph, created for an Yves Saint Laurent campaign, the men are naked and the woman wears clothes. Moreover, the model is wearing man’s clothes. As in the original painting she returns the spectator’s look, confronting her with the act of looking.

     

Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision: a sight. (Berger 47)

This quote can be taken quite literally when we consider the YSL photograph. In this photograph, as in Manet’s painting, the woman watches herself being looked at. Moreover, because the model is wearing man’s clothes, the male surveyor within is articulated on the outside. We could read this as a critique towards this mechanism that Berger describes: the model confronts us with this structure in which she has to look at herself with a male look. At the same time as this confrontation, she is very clearly made into an object by the man on her right: his look fixes her again in a position of the desired female.

Le déjeurner sur l’herbe by Yue Minjun

The second parody I want to discuss is the above painting by Yue Minjun. In this painting we see four figures with similar, stereotypical depicted Asian faces, frozen in laughter. They have taken up the positions of the figures in Manet’s painting. Although the clothing is similarly distributed as in the original, the three clothed figures wear similar outfits. On the ground, next to a Coca Cola bottle, is a picture of the original Le Déjeurner.

      All the figures have turned their faces in our direction. Although their eyes our closed their laughter seems to be aimed at the spectator. What are they laughing about? Similarly to the original, the figure on the right points to the naked figure. If we view this as an indication, the men seem to be laughing about this nakedness which is a copy of Manet’s Le Déjeurner. The naked figure is laughing himself, so rather than laughing about him the figures seems to be laughing about the idea of “the nude”. The little picture of Manet’s painting and the coke bottle point to western society. Seeing as the figures are depicted as stereotypical Asians, they seem to be laughing at the West and it’s cultural tradition. Because the figures are facing the spectator they seem to be laughing about him: the painting produces a western viewer.

Berger, John. “Chapter 3.” Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin Books, 1990. 45-64. Print.