Edgar Degas and French Feminism, ca. 1880: “The Young Spartans,” the Brothel Monotypes, and the Bathers Revisited

Abstract

In this article, I shall consider the newly resurgent and visible feminist movement in France, ca. 1878-80, as a context for understanding the sometimes ambiguous and much debated meanings of many of Edgar Degas's works of this period, specifically the Spartan Girls Challenging Boys (which, as evidence presented here will show, must have been revised and its figures given a more contemporaneous appearance at this time), the brothel monotypes, and the bather compositions. The writings of the Italian critic, Diego Martelli, a man who was a committed feminist activist and who was closely associated with Degas in Paris during these years, will be adduced to establish the extent to which feminist issues had become an accessible and relevant part of the modern world that Degas set out to interpret.

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Norma Broude

Norma Broude has written on subjects including Degas, the Macchiaioli, Seurat, Picasso, and feminist art history. She is editor of Seurat in Perspective (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1978); co-editor, with Mary D. Garrard, of Feminism and Art History (New York, 1982); and author of The Macchiaioli: Italian Painters of the Nineteenth Century (New Haven, 1987 [Department of Art, The American University, Washington, D.C. 20016].