Artists' models in literature

The realist authors of nineteenth-century France consistently represent the Jewish woman as the epitome of beauty and intelligence. While glorifying her image, this representation betrays a complex system of social and gender bias. By examining selected works of Balzac, the freres Goncourt, and Maupassant, a nuanced transformation can be traced in the representation of the Jewish woman. As a literary figure negotiating a social system that emphasizes her religious identity, she is celebrated, vilified, and ultimately transformed into a heroine by virtue of her courage rather than her physical attributes.

The art novel or roman sur les arts is a major trend of nineteenth-century novels: the Goncourts' Manette Salomon (1867) and Zola's L'oeuvre (1886) in French literature, Poe's "The Oval Portrait" (1850) and James's "The Madonna of the Future" (1875) in American literature, emphasize the figure of the artist painter and attendant aesthetic problem. The texts explore the painter's relationship to his art and to his model, unfolding along dual trajectories of plot and subplot, or creative struggles with the canvas and amorous entanglements with the model and especially her representation in painting. To disarticulate the triangular relationship between artist, model, and work of art is to show that the governing elements of this triad is the gaze. The painter's gaze at the model and her double, that is her representation on canvas, is the guiding line for his ability to create. Analysis of the relations between the female model and her aesthetic counterpart reveals how femininity and art are perceived in the art novel.