PODCAST. Let’s talk about sex 1/6: brothels of Toulouse-Lautrec, “erotic” ceramics from Peru… When sex invites itself into art
As part of our summer series on sexuality, erotic-artistic stroll between Albi and Auch, to encounter works of art where sex is central: the brothels of Toulouse-Lautrec and pre-Columbian cultured ceramics Mochica.
On cozy red velvet sofas, they are there. Prepared. Waiting, in the “Salon de la rue des Moulins” which gives its name to the painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). These prostitutes are the masterpiece of the eponymous museum in Albi. It is here, in this former bishop’s palace that has become a museum, that our summery and naughty walk begins, encountering works in which sexuality is the central theme. Here, an entire room containing around twenty preparatory sketches and paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec is dedicated to brothels.
It was from 1890, when he was already in his thirties, that the artist concentrated on the theme of prostitution, very fashionable at the time. “He himself was a regular customer and he went so far as to settle in a nearby house in Paris to grasp the reality and the truth”, notes Florence Saragoza, Curator of the museum. “Toulouse-Lautrec represents very little of the sexual act and the services in closed houses. He is more interested in the daily lives of these women.” With a quasi-documentary vision, he paints in particular the laundryman and the keepers of the brothel, arguments, moments of card games, dinners between the residents and the mothers-madams and even scenes of tenderness in bed between women. .
By clicking on the player below, listen to our podcast :
So many moments of life and authenticity, far from the vulgar imagery found at the time in certain artists. “Here and there, we detect the whiteness of the skin with the contrast of the black stockings, the roundness of a shoulder, a strap which slips on the arm, we see throats more than breasts: it is always an involuntary eroticism “, Analyzes the curator. Perfect example: “Woman pulling her stocking”, another masterpiece (sketch) by Toulouse-Lautrec. Among the scenes captured on the spot: the medical inspection of the “girls of joy”. common practice in large houses to reduce the risk of transmission of venereal diseases to wealthy clients.
What is striking is the lack of judgment of the painter, despite being very marked by his aristocratic education. “Himself being of peculiar appearance, short in stature”, 1.52 m, and “suffering from physical deformity linked to a congenital disease, was to be judged a great deal.” However, “he found himself not judging women who did not judge him”, adds Florence Saragoza. He even admires their outspokenness, their naturalness and their bodies freed from corsets.
But in the end, what do we know exactly about the sex life of Toulouse-Lautrec? His biographer Thadée Natanson says he was very fond of anecdotes about the particular requests of certain sadomasochistic clients. He was also very fond of red-haired women and a busy sex life. Probably not always the conquests he should have had, however… He never married and ended his life sick. “He did not escape syphilis, it is undoubtedly one of the causes of a very rough end of life physically for him with alcoholism and sight problems which really made him suffer”, concluded Florence Zaragoza.
A “cosmological” vase in the shape of a penis
Other times, other customs. Our artistico-erotic journey ends here for Albi and now takes the road to Auch, in the Gers, and its Museum of the Americas, some 150 km away. We know it too little, but this place hosts the second largest collection of pre-Columbian art (prior to the arrival of the Conquistadors in America) in France after the musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris. On the first floor, a collection of very crude terracotta is on view, in particular a series of ritual and funerary vases from the Mochica culture. Now extinct, it was dominant in Peru between 100-150 and 800-850 AD.
The first vase, very realistic, one to surprise. It represents a hollow character, probably a high dignitary, endowed with an enormous and prominent penis, pierced at the level of the glans. “It’s a libation penis, explains Fabien Ferrer-Joly, curator of the Museum of the Americas. A sacred liquid was put inside which was poured or drunk through sex during rituals, reproducing the act of fellatio.” Probably with blood, semen or a holy drink. Throughout the rooms, we also discover scenes of masturbation and even anal copulation, between a man and a woman, who is holding a newborn baby in her arms and seems to be breastfeeding him.
Drink seminal fluid and blood
“The representation was much more unbridled in America at that time than in the West, where we felt the weight of the sin of the Christian religion and the monotheisms which made sexuality a strong prohibition”, notes Fabien Ferrer-Joly. Even if sexuality of course had its codes and rules also in the New World. “But you have to put yourself in the perspective of these societies where the profane does not exist: everything is sacred. We are in a Mochica ideology which is transmitted mainly through ceramics. It takes advantage of sexuality to express complex symbolic operations and refer to the cosmology, the story of the creation of the world, of Peru”, adds the curator.
The Mochica did not leave any text or writing with alphabets, so it is difficult to accurately interpret their artifacts. These rituals were probably used to transfer energy between the different worlds. “Many of the non-procreative scenes introduce skeletons or animals and are actually very much related to fertility, harmony and communication between the three worlds: the celestial world, the underworld and the middle world, our terrestrial world .” And can specify: “These objects offend the sensibilities of the public, yet we have never had any concerns because they are contextualized and received as ritual objects with a symbolic function.”
By clicking on the player below, listen to the other podcasts in our “Let’s talk about sex” series: