Talk:L'Origine du monde

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Whereabouts[edit]

According to an article written by Linda Nochlin in 1985, the whereabouts of this painting is unknown, although it is listed in this entry as being at the Musee d'Orsay. The d'Orsay's website does not list it in its collection. See: Linda Nochlin, "Courbet's L'origine du monde: The Origin without an Original" in October volume 37 (1985) pp. 77-86

I'm almost certain I saw it in d'Orsay and I imagine a google search would give much support to this. Theshibboleth 06:00, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It is at Orsay. I took photographs of the painting, I am just waiting to have a proper scanner to upload them. Rama 06:30, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Besides, the location of the painting is stated both on the info table and at the end of the article. Rama 06:33, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism[edit]

There is vandalism on this page currently... some moderator please revert.Asteron ノレツァ 15:58, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

  • Nevermind... just wasnt expecting the graphicness of the painting.Asteron ノレツァ 16:01, Jan 21, 2005 (UTC)

You don't need to leave a message for 'some moderator' to revert a page. See how to revert a page to an earlier version. As for thinking the image had been vandalised, did you even look at the text of the article?! — Trilobite (Talk) 20:08, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Featured article[edit]

How can I proposed this to become a featured article? It's quite good.--Sonjaaa 18:10, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

See on WP:FA. Good luck ! Rama 21:15, 7 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Anatomy[edit]

Why is there no mention of the dubious anatomy going on here? It's also repoduced in a sketch by Balthus. --Humphrey20020 05:32, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Because methinks there is nothing wrong with the anatomy: the cleft we are privileged to view is that which is formed by the fatty pads of gluteus, and overlaps the delicate areas of your concern. I have reverted to previous entry. Would that research were always so interesting. JNW 18:29, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Point taken... maybe one shouldn't always trust the comments in books. It may also be a matter of how far legs are spread. --Humphrey20020 20:54, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Having spent a lot of time drawing and paintng the human form, I can say the anatomy in this picture shows much less than a careful examination of the subject. There is much wrong with the anatomy, which may or may not be to the article's point. If Courbet is to be figured as a partisan of Truth in Art, methinks it may, indeed, matter. ---- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.90.112.141 (talk) 07:05, 25 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Eroticism[edit]

I found this line: "The framing of the nude body, with head, arms and lower legs outside of view, emphasizes the eroticism of the work." to be repulsive.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that some people find headless people in passive poses that might as well be the positioning of a corpse to be more erotic than full, living human beings, but not all of us do. The fact is that when medical communities wanted to show a body for purposes of illuminating some aspect or disease of that body, they routinely cropped out the head or blacked out the eyes (reminiscent of the sheet over this model's eyes) specifically because a headless torso was supposed to be less erotic than an actual human being.

I get it. It's a documented fact that some human males stick their penises in melons or sexually assault animals. I'm not saying that it's impossible to find this painting erotic, and I'm not *even* saying that a person cannot possibly find the painting *more* erotic specifically because the head and feet were cropped out of the image. I'm sure it's possible to find anything erotic - with 7 billion people out there, everything is someone's kink. [And I'm definitely not saying that anyone who does find the painting more erotic because the model is headless is automatically someone who would sexually interact with melons or animals - I'm using extremes to stress the point that lacking hands or a head isn't normally associated with what we might normally call "sexy".]

But do we really want the article to state, as declarative, universal fact, that women are more sexy when they don't have arms, feet, or even a head?

What would be the reasonable way to edit this article so that we can acknowledge that some people might find headless torsos to be extra sexy, while also communicating that this does not automatically or necessarily "emphasize the eroticism of the work" --)-> (talk) 20:09, 1 March 2018 (UTC) I'm trying to sign here, but not sure how. My log-in name is "Cripdyke".[reply]

Cripdyke: The current wording which you find repulsive was added from a Parisian IP address in April of 2009. This is approximately the same time that a Master's Dissertation by the Scottish artist and photographer Caroline Douglas was published (Glasgow School of Art, 2009-10). The dissertation is entitled "Complicit in Looking: A Critical Analysis of the Viewer as Voyeur in the Reception of Contemporary Photography." In it, she writes about L'Origine du monde: "The framing of the nude body, with head, arms and lower legs outside of view, not only emphasizes the eroticism of the work but decapitates the female to be a nameless abdomen, reduced to, or contained within, a very controlled tight and claustrophobic framing. This presents an ideal scopic object left to the power of the gaze." She goes on to write in a footnote: "Indeed, this framing is typical of pornographic imagery. By omitting the human's head, a body is made anonymous, thus widening the possibilities for the projection of fantasies." Perhaps by expanding on the current text and citing Douglas, your concerns will be assuaged. Rrwagner59 (talk) 18:18, 8 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The 19th-century writer Maxime Du Camp also was critical of the tight framing when, after viewing the work in the home of Khalil Bey, he wrote in Les Convulsions de Paris: « Mais, par un inconcevable oubli, l’artisan qui avait copié son modèle d’après nature, avait négligé de représenter les pieds, les jambes, les cuisses, le ventre, les hanches, la poitrine, les mains, les bras, les épaules, le cou et la tête. » ("But, by an inconceivable forgetfulness, the craftsman who had copied his model from nature, had neglected to represent the feet, the legs, the thighs, the belly, the hips, the chest, the hands, the arms, the shoulders, the neck and the head.") Rrwagner59 (talk) 18:46, 23 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Until someone actually works in these sources into the text, I'm removing the contested sentence. JordiGH (talk) 19:05, 11 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense?[edit]

I added a fact tag to the part about a permanent guard being placed to watch reactions. It sounds fake and I can't recall seeing any guard even in the room with the painting the times I've been to the Musee d'Orsay. Does anyone have a citation for it? I'll remove the part if no one sources it soon. Jayran 06:53, 6 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If I'm not mistaken, I think that was in reference to when it was first viewed by the public.
by Wild Mountain Thyme 07:14, 5 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's totally incorrect. No one guards the painting and there no guards in the room, the painting being exposerd with others. I'm just back from Orsay. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.169.124.130 (talk) 19:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Title of Piece[edit]

Is the painting's title a reference to the fact that it presents the place from which all men and women have come? -MBlume 05:24, 9 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The word "monde" in French can mean "people" or "a crowd", as in "Il y a beaucoup de monde ici". So I rather think that the artist may have had something like that in mind. Kelisi (talk) 13:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, no, no, and no ! Indeed, "monde" in French is sometimes used to mean "crowd" (although this use is constrained to specific expressions), but as far as the title of Courbet's painting is concerned, "monde" means "world" (which is the original meaning of that word via tha Latin "mundi"). I'm a native French speaker, and nobody whose first language is French would ever think that "origine du monde" could refer to anything but the origins of the World. The painting itself is quite clear. Finally, using "monde" to mean "crowd" or "people" is an instance of lower French ("langage commun"). Most of the times, it comes prefixed with "du" in the quantitative sense of "some". In the title of the painting, "du" is the contraction for "de le" which introduces a genitive. Anyway. All this to say that there's no ambiguity in translating the title of the painting in English : "the origin of the World". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.46.113.190 (talk) 08:19, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the Latin word for world is mundus. The form mundi is genitive singular ("world's") or nominative plural ("worlds"). I did say "may have"; I was only speculating. Et en tout cas, d'où vient cette idée que les artistes n'emploient jamais le langage commun? Kelisi (talk) 10:07, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The title of the piece deserves a section. Surely there must be interpretations. 189.146.11.107 (talk) 12:23, 11 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is no doubt at all that part of the appeal of this tremendous work is that it shows the origin of all humanity. Also, there may be a pun on "mont" or mountain, as this area is often referred to as the mount or mound of Venus. Notthere (talk) 06:04, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am not a native speaker of French, unlike 75.46.113.190, whose interpretation of the piece (above) deserves respect, and normally I would defer to it but—as others above have noted, monde can refer to people, as in the phrase tout le monde, and I cannot understand how the title cannot have secondary, maybe even primary reference to this meaning of le monde—the vagina as literally ground zero for mankind's conception and emergence. How do you explain the title if you construe le monde as a reference to the world as habitat—everything animate and inanimate that "the world" in this (all-too) inclusive sense means? Prohairesius (talk) 23:06, 2 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The phrase "tout le monde" is best translated as "the whole world", as in the English phrase "The whole world had their eyes on ---". The term "world" is NOT a synonym for "people" in this context. Rather, it is an example of synecdoche, where the whole is used to refer to its parts -- in this case, "the world" being used to refer to "the people of the world". The same is true in French. However, given people's confusion, it might be worth having a reliably sourced section on analysis of the title.129.199.224.149 (talk) 16:23, 14 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Did Courbet title the painting himself? Did Lacan? -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.90.112.141 (talk) 07:07, 25 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Backstory about students[edit]

I saw the painting at Orsay a few years back and remember a story we were told (the validity of which I cannot establish): the original painting was so provocative that some of Courbet's students were forced to paint over it to make it more acceptable for display. Possibly just a fairy-tale, but worth mentioning if someone finds it to be true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.53.183 (talk) 20:38, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Freedom in Art[edit]

Is an artist free to paint a picture which is immoral — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rasoolpuri (talk • contribs) 10:37, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Doctor Goebbels, an artist may paint whatever he likes, whatever narrowminded people might think of it.Kelisi (talk) 07:11, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And immorality is in the eye of the beholder. Or religion. In some religions this is a holy picture, depicting as it does the sacred gateway from the previous world to this world. Where God touches our world, where souls come forth to prepare for the next world. I'm sure the ancient Egyptians would have loved this picture and its title. The Ankh, symbol for eternal life, is a symbolic representation of the womb and birth canal, the uterus and vagina. The ancient Egyptians may have even considered this a sacred picture. Your mom looks like this dude, get over it. 75.62.132.92 (talk) 15:07, 6 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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Filmography[edit]

Paintings can have filmographies? - dcljr (talk) 13:30, 20 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

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Hair color of commentators[edit]

Although Jacky Colliss Harvey does indeed have red hair, she is also the author of Red: A History of the Redhead, so I wonder whether it's appropriate to introduce her as "redhead Jacky Colliss Harvey" in a discussion of paintings. Roger.Lustig (talk) 16:02, 7 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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