In the context of this artwork, analyze the Provocative work of the History.
During the 19th century, the display of the nude body underwent a revolution whose main activists were Courbet and Manet. Courbet rejected academic painting and its smooth, idealised nudes, but he also directly recriminated the hypocritical social conventions of the Second Empire, where eroticism and even pornography were acceptable in mythological or oneiric paintings.
Courbet later insisted he never lied in his paintings, and his realism pushed the limits of what was considered presentable. With L'Origine du monde, he has made even more explicit the eroticism of Manet's Olympia. Maxime Du Camp, in a harsh tirade, reported his visit to the work's purchaser, and his sight of a painting "giving realism's last word".
By the very nature of its realistic, graphic nudity, the painting still has the power to shock and triggers censorship.
Although moral standards and resulting taboos regarding the artistic display of nudity have changed since Courbet, owing especially to photography and cinema, the painting remained provocative. Its arrival at the Musée d'Orsay caused high excitement. According to postcard sales, in 2007 L'Origine du monde was the second most popular painting in the Musée d'Orsay, after Renoir's Bal du moulin de la Galette.Some critics maintain that the body depicted is not (as has been argued) a lively erotic portrayal of a female but of a corpse: "L'Origine does not represent a full female body but rather a slice of one, cut off by the frame [...]. The pallidness of the skin and the mortuary gauze surrounding the body suggest death."
eroticism Renoir's mythological cinema Second Empire oneiric Manet pornography Musée d'Orsay photography Olympia realism Bal du moulin de la Galette fr Maxime Du Camp