Art Criticism - The State University of New York

sexually to man and beast. In Illustration for ADM, Rops depicts a naked
young woman with her seat pressed against a monkey's cage. With a smile on
her face, she is passively allowing the animal to penetrate her from behind. For
Rops, her position is key in establishing woman as a member of the lower order
of beings. Not only does she consort with animals, she engages in the primitive,
instinctual sex of the animal kingdom. This allows Rops to judge her as
base, immoral and insatiable. He goes even further in suggesting, through the
smile on her face, that perhaps the ape is not her last resort but a perverse
choice. Bram Dijkstra explains further in "Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of
Feminine Evil in Fin De Siecle Culture":
In any event, it is clear that by 1900 writers and painters, scientists
and critics, the learned and modish alike, had been indoctrinated to
regard all women who no longer conformed to the image of the
household nun as vicious, bestial creatures, representative of a preevolutionary,
instinctual past, who preferred the company of animals
over that ofthe civilized male, creatures who were, in fact, the
personification of witchery and evil, who attended sabbaths and
dangerous rituals astride goats. II
Salome, in contrast, remains virginal and so escapes similar judgment.
This is not to say that the sexually 'experienced woman' is cause for Beardsley's
moral judgment. For instance, Beardsley's The Toilet of Lampito finds her
turned away from the viewer, engaged in personal activities which may be read
as masturbation. Says Zatlin of a similar print: "If she is nude, she averts her
eyes from the viewer, and her gesture is allusive rather than unmistakable.
These women are involved with themselves, but they do not open their vaginas
for male inspection. Their state of undress or nudity does not obscenely
accentuate their breasts, and they do not actively invite the viewer to become
aroused. They do offer the spectator the opportunity to envision woman as
full human beings, capable at the very least of sexual parity."12 This parity
includes self-pleasure. The Beardsleyan woman does not depend on man for
pleasure, nor is her personal pleasure available to him visually.
In what should not be construed as a defense of Rops and Huysmans,
it is important to mention that they did not exist in the same political climate as
Beardsley. During his lifetime, the role of women in society changed drastically.
Securing the right to a better education, women carved places for themselves
in the workplaces that were previously reserved for men. For the first
time, a woman was able to be seen alone, outside the home, and not be mistaken
for a prostitute. Beardsley was witness to countless changes such as
these. Even so, his illustrations for Salome reinforce the notion that woman is
evil, regardless of the chastity or wantonness of that evil. Despite the differvol.
17, no. ] 53