William Glackens’ Girl with Apple is an Odalisque painting that embodies highly recognizable European influences. Made in 1910, by an American artist, the image of a young girl laying nude on a couch is a very modernized, later period, example of Orientalism and its byproducts. Many previous Odalisque subjects had been of darker skin, portrayed in large bathhouse style rooms, surrounded by other scantily (if at all) clad women, personal assistants (or slaves), or small animals, with distinctly oriental (Ottoman/Turkish) furnishings—all of which had been used specifically to add to the “exotic” appeal.
This Odalisque, in her more modern Westernized appearance, appears to be more accessible to the audience of the time.
Glackens’ close framing of Girl with Apple, dismisses the need for these exotic backdrops employed by many other painters. By bringing the subject into the place and time of the contemporary audience, as well as placing the viewer directly into the subject’s personal space, viewers, both then and now, are directly confronted with her presence. She seems to be right there in front of us; we in the room with her. We could pluck the apple out of her hand. Is she offering it to us? The Brooklyn Museum curation notes on the painting provide this apple offering as a reason for her attribution as a modern day Eve. Is the nude trying to corrupt us?
In this painting, almost all “oriental,” or Turkish/Ottoman, stylistic influence has been washed away with a sea of European, or American, furniture and accessories. Glackens has taken away the images that prompt ideas in the viewers’ minds of what the haram represents and replaces them with Westernized stylistic elements. This illustration seems to be ignoring or rebuffing the roots that this painting tradition has with in its origins in the cultural appropriation of the Ottoman empire, later academically termed “Orientalism.” As Edward Said commented on the approach, “Orientalism [is] a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient,” which has nothing to do with respecting or correctly representing the culture of the Orient itself. By taking away these fetishized and fantasized bathhouses and “exotic” women of the “oriental other,” the artist is crafting the work to be easier to digest for the painting’s contemporary viewer. Though odalisque figures originally represented the ladies of the Turkish haram, this model is now shown as something more closely representing Western sensibilities. These Eurocentric preferences were emphasized by the model having light skin, the inclusion of known cultural metaphors (apples), along with the contemporary clothing strewn about. Though still a nude figure, she is not so far displaced to be considered “exotic.”
The alluring, innocent, yet seemingly knowing, face of the girl seems to say that this is the way ideas spread, in these times of globalization. The painting is a culmination of centuries of humans picking and choosing minute elements of what they are attracted towards, then incorporating them into their own creations or belief system. Glackens, was influenced by European painters, who were influenced by travelers and other European painters, each a step removed from the first artists to study the Ottoman life. Through his choices in model and setting, Glackens’ Girl with Apple shows the outcome (or consequences) of this full circle of theft, deconstruction, and re-personalization of another culture. Once ideas are exchanged, who do they belong to? It is up to the artist to either convey or obscure their influences—as it is a task for the audience to discover whether this has been done.
The Brooklyn Museum, in Brooklyn, NY, has a write up for the piece saying, “Glackens offered a fresh American update on the subject of the nude studio model by including a modern woman and fashionable contemporary attire.” How he updated attire, with a nude model, was through his use of props—the sofa, the one shoe, the flower embellished hat, the model’s choker. These things give “modern American updates” to what could have been considered to be a highly overdone nude studio model arrangement. By updating the piece in these ways, could Girl with Apple still be considered an Odalisque? When taken in consideration with the history of the style, the subject’s temptress-like pose, and the era it was made, this painting must be studied as influenced by the tradition.
Seeing this painting in person, at the Brooklyn Museum, in a show titled “The City and the Rise of the Modern Woman, 1900-1945,” gave me pause and demanded reflection. Upon studying Girl with Apple for a few minutes, I could not help but wonder how each of the pieces in the exhibit earned their place among the other women (subjects) of the exhibit. A hefty percentage of the pieces were nude female models as portrayed by male artists. The museum states, “Many of his models were young women earning their living in New York by entering the workforce in an expanding labor market.” Through this statement, I could begin to see how being a model could be empowering to the young women of the time. The ability to be the subject of an artist’s painting had to be of a higher status than the haram work the paintings referenced.
Influences come from far and wide. Though this painting is representative of the tradition of “Orientalism,” it is also far displaced from the origination of the Odalisque. Does this disqualify the image from its inclusion into that tradition? Are there other inspirations that could be compared? One could look at Renaissance paintings of the Greek goddesses as a comparison, or the Greek statues themselves, as well. What is the defining characteristic that separates the styles? Truth is, there is not a definitive origin of the nude lounging, but what we have is a constant ever changing amalgamation of cultures and eras, culminating in a painting that allows the viewer to see what they wish.
“Girl with Apple.” Brooklyn Museum, www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/1150.
Said, Edward. "Orientalism" https://sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/33/2014/12/Said_full.pdf