Francois Boucher, Marquise de Pompadour, 1758, oil on canvas, Fogg Art Museum, Massachusetts5/8/2017 Madame de Pompadour: The Crafting of an Identity Pompadour was the chief mistress of Louis XV. However, she was much more than her title, the Marquise. She was a voice for the 18th century French arts, specifically a dominating influence on the aristocratic, cosmetic, Rococo style, as well as a patroness of the arts who worked closely with one artist, Francois Boucher. Madame Pompadour used cosmetics as a way of making herself up physically at her toilette to aid in constructing an identity encompassing class, gender, and artistic sensibilities. (1) The painting of Marquise de Pompadour by Boucher in 1758 emphasizes the idea that portraiture aids self representation. This portrait represents the culturally constructed eighteenth century idea that the artwork itself was a form of makeup, creating and constructing a self representation through art. The paint used by Boucher can be equated with the cosmetics used by Pompadour, metaphorically speaking. For example, the painter’s brush can be viewed as analogous to the brush with which rouge is applied at the toilette. The choice of how to present herself for this portrait, in this case, through the conceptual and pictorial practice of making herself up at the toilette, helped Pompadour to craft the image or identity she wished others to see. (2) The oil on canvas painting Marquise de Pompadour by Francois Boucher from 1758 is currently located in Harvard’s Fogg Museum in Cambridge. The painting depicts Madame de Pompadour at her toilette participating in a ritual that was more than simply a beautifying ritual. It was a symbolic practice that tied together court politics and social identity. (3) On the surface, the painting is to honor Pompadour’s beauty. The portrait depicts the Marquise seated before a dressing table. On the dressing table are various items associated with the toilette, specifically, a silky blue ribbon, a sprawl of spring flowers, and a gold powder box topped with a fluffy white puff. Pompadour is positioned facing outward directly at the audience. Her head is slightly tilted to the right. One hand holds the small box of rouge while the other delicately handles the cosmetic brush, already dipped in the rouge. On her wrist, she wears a bracelet dedicated to the King, displaying Louis XV’s profile. She is wearing a loose fitting white negligee secured at her throat with a soft pink ribbon. Her gown is revealing as the negligee parts to show the low cut bodice, trimmed with flowing lace and bows galore. Her skin is youthfully beautiful, her eyes are large and sparkling, her porcelain-like oval face is white from the powder in the box on her dressing table. A blue bouquet of small flowers decorates her powdered hair. (4) Her hair is tied back in an updo to accentuate her dramatized features. Her nose and chin are small and pinched, her eyes are unrealistically large like a puppy dog, and her skin is smooth like porcelain. “Boucher’s picture, which ostensibly records Madame de Pompadour’s beauty, was in reality a celebration of past glory.” (5) At the time of the painting, Pompadour was 37 and had several health conditions that made her lose weight and caused her skin to wrinkle and maker her overall appearance worn. To hide this decay, she applied layers of dense coats of red and white paint. (6) An image that is very similar to the portrait of Madame de Pompadour at her toilette is an earlier portrait of Pompadour, Madame de Pompadour, 1756, also painted by Boucher. This painting resides in Munich, Germany at the Alte Pinakothek Art Museum. This portrait depicts Madame de Pompadour sitting on a sofa, in a relaxed position. She is holding an open book. Pompadour wears a deep green silky dress decorated with pink roses. Around her neck is a pink bow choker and pink bows line the sleeves and bodice of her dress. Around her wrists are white, gleaming pearls. Her hair is fashioned in an updo with flowers similar to the portrait of Pompadour at her toilette. On her bedside table there is a feather quill pen and an envelope, suggesting that Pompadour wrote letters. The book in her hand demonstrates her passion for literature. In the background lies a bookcase filled with books. Books are also found in the foreground on the floor. At her feet are Pompadour’s prints engravings, one that is after an etching by Boucher. At the bottom of this engraving, “Boucher and Pompadour, sc” are inscribed. This refers to her activity as a patron of the arts, as well as a maker of images, an artist in her own right. (7) Boucher was Pompadour’s preferred portraitist. With his help, she was able to cultivate the desired look and the persona she wished to create. She wanted to be seen as an aristocrat with diverse taste in literature, aesthetic sensibilities, and refined musical taste. She wanted to depict certain lived images, images showing her engaged in certain representative activities she would have performed as a significant member of the King's court. (8) “Boucher was criticized at the time for his artistic rejuvenation of Madame de Pompadour, already apparent in the earlier Munich portrait. The critics of the Salon of 1757 asserted that this portrait made her appear too young and beautiful, and they insinuated that Boucher had tried to divert attention from her person to the abundant accessories in her boudoir, which he painted with consummate virtuosity.” (9) Both images of Pompadour were very idealized. They were a sort of performance to represent the most idealized qualities a woman of her status could present to the court and the aristocratic art world. Pompadour strived to keep her relevancy and consolidate her position after the love affair with Louis XV had ended. This was not the only reason for her desire to depict, physically, a pictorial representation of her identity. Madame de Pompadour breaks the binds of normal gender roles of the time by taking over the male gaze. (10) Pompadour’s gender construction is thus complicated. Though she was traditionally feminine in beauty, fashion, and style, and wanted to be pictured as feminine in both portraits, she took the predominantly male position in society by creating a relationship with her artist and portraitist that catered to her every desire. In both portraits she is the epitome of femininity, flowers in her hair, rosy cheeks, and dress fixed with bows and ribbons, but her actions were what was traditionally considered masculine, in that she knew what she wanted in art and she used Boucher as a tool to provide it. He was, in a sense, Pompadour’s paintbrush. It is theorized that both paintings of Pompadour involve reflected mirrored images. In the Fogg painting, there is an effect of proximity, emphasized by the size of the figure relative to the picture itself, the cropped composition, and the partial view of the tabletop. The picture creates an impossibly close vantage point for the spectator, as if the viewer is seated on the tabletop itself. The painting is a mirrored reflection of Pompadour, such that we are seeing her as she would have seen herself in the dressing table mirror. In other words, we are viewing her as she viewed herself, through her own gaze. It is Pompadour’s point of view that Boucher has represented in the painting, “that is, as his ‘ventriloquistic’ portrayal of Pompadour’s own reflection in a mirror- that vantage point need not be understood exclusively as a fiction of Boucher’s painterly imagination.” (11) The Munich portrait is seen as partially a mirrored reflection of Pompadour, which is suggested in the mirrored reflection of both her bookshelf and the back of her head. Through this mirrored perspective, the viewer is transported into the painting, into the intimacy of Pompadour’s room. Here, too, the viewer is led to share Pompadour’s own experience. Madame de Pompadour worked with Boucher to craft her social identity or public persona. She was not born into the royal court, but rose up from the bourgeoisie. Pompadour’s ceremonial performance at the toilette had her daily “surrounded like a queen” by courtiers and diplomats. (12) Many of the royal court resented her intimacy with the King, given her “ordinary” or “lesser” birth. It was also challenging for her to maintain her royal status because, with the widespread access to makeup in 18th century France, many women could imitate the high class toilette. This created grey areas and difficulties in drawing clear cut class distinctions. (13) Madame Pompadour worked closely with her preferred portraitist, Boucher, to create the compositions and representations of her that she felt would be most flattering. To some degree, one can argue that together they manipulated the gaze of the viewer, so that the viewer would see Pompadour as she wished to be seen. Perhaps Pompadour hoped that the idealized femininity of her portraits would disarm her critics, who appear to have been threatened by her powerful role as a patron or “godmother” of the Rococo arts movement, as well as by the political power she wielded as a confidante of the King. (14) Though some may not consider Pompadour a feminist due to her frivolous costumes and extreme use of cosmetics to appear as traditionally “feminine” as possible, one can argue, alternatively, that she was a victim of her times and of elitist French society which overemphasized appearance, youthful allure, and signs of opulence, wealth, and grandeur. In fact, the degree to which Pompadour held and wielded her influence to conscript Boucher to use his paintbrush to help her craft a persona of her choosing suggests that she was an early feminist who grasped the male gaze and used it to her advantage. ________________________
This is a short morning edition NPR podcast, as well as an article on the discovery of Marquise de Pompadour’s personal portfolio with etchings inside. Susan Wager, art historian at Columbia University, and Susan Stamberg, special correspondent for NPR and broadcast journalist, discuss how Pompadour was so much more than Louis XV’s official mistress. http://www.npr.org/2016/05/10/477369874/more-than-a-mistress-madame-de-pompadour-was-a-minister-of-the-arts
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