Lady Montagu and Leisure in the Bathhouse

“I fancy it would have very much improved his art to see so many fine women naked, in different postures, some in conversation, some working, others drinking coffee or sherbert, and many lying on their cushions, while their slaves (generally pretty girls of seventeen or eighteen) were employed braiding their hair in several pretty manners” (Montagu 102). On its face, there’s not much to differentiate Montagu’s vision of the Turkish bathhouse from the painter’s vision of it. However, what sets it apart is the focus of these two visions. In the painting, the bottom right woman is posing, as if showing off her body to an unseen lover, implied to be a man. Next to her is two women holding each other the ways lovers might, one of whom is also employing a seductive pose. It subtly puts forth a sexualized interpretation of the bathhouse, built for a man’s imagination and consumption.

In contrast however, Montagu’s image of the bathhouse is markedly different. “So many fine women naked, in different postures, … conversation, … working, … drinking coffee or sherbert” puts for a more simple image of women doing typical things of leisure and work whilst naked in a bathhouse. Other than the word “naked” there is no language to imply anything sexual or seductive. What’s also interesting is that Montagu is also putting forth a male gaze in this passage, but one that isn’t sexually consuming in nature, but rather, utilitarian. “I fancy it would have very much improved his art” is a far cry from a sexualized male gaze and is rather just another gaze within the bathhouse to contrast her own. It is a gaze she puts forward to capture the beauty of the moment she sees. Women within their own space without worry or care.

-FM Radio

A Nude Coffeehouse

In Ingres’s painting Le Bain turc, on the surface level, some can argue that he is simply recreating Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s experience in the Turkish bathhouse, however, taking with deeper dive Ingre’s painting is his own reinterpretation of the events that ensued. 

Ingres adds his unnecessary patriarchal values to the depiction of the women in the bathhouse. Unlike Lady Montagu’s visual of the bathhouse as a space of socialization for women, Ingres displays the women as characters for a sexual narrative for the male viewer. This unnecessary sexualization can be seen in comparison to Jean-Jacques-Francois Lebarbier’s painting, Bagno Turco,1785 (bottom of the post) which also depicts a Turkish bathhouse without sensuality as its main narrative. The overt sexualized bodily postures in Ingres’s painting not only reinforces the patriarchal ideal of women as vessels for sex but the thought that his (a man) understanding of Lady Montagu’s writing trumps the authorial control of her work.  

Lady Montagu very clearly is not depicting the bathhouse as some scene of erotica but as a space for women that is as versatile as the women in them. The bathhouse is a space of social decorum, where women can work, eat, relax while also nude. The nudity does not take away from the civility of the bathhouse but adds to it. The nudity allows for this space to have an atmosphere of freedom, unlike the spaces where Montagu states English women fill with the judgment of fashion through “satirical whispers”. The bathhouse as a space of work, socialization, and autonomy Lady Montagu refers to them as an equivalent to coffeehouses which in England were male-dominated spaces of work, discussion, and hubs of public (men) opinion.

 Lady Montagu’s description of the bathhouse is a description of what is feminine outside of the male gaze that upholds patriarchal values. The women who attend the bathhouse are active participants of liberty that Montagu strives for, in this private yet open space the women are self-governing which can not be said for the English spaces Montagu is familiar with.  I think being able to participate with these women without judgment Montagu views them as givers of some liberty even if it’s limited to a bathhouse. This admiration for these women as givers I believe is evident as Montagu compares the women of the bathhouse as “representing the figures of the Graces”, which are the three goddess sisters that together they gift, gaiety, abundance, and grace to humanity. 

Jean-Jacques-Francois Lebarbier’s Bagno turco, 1785

By Chelsey Olivarria

Exclusive Bathhouse

The painting of the bathhouse named “Le Bain Turk” by Ingres illustrates the visual description of what Lady Mary Montague describes when she visits the bathhouse. It orientalized the body image of women, and the women in the painting were in a state of nature expressing the controversy between the male and female perception. The painting itself consisted of multiple naked women talking to each other, there was one holding an instrument, and one of the slaves also holding an instrument (tambourine). There seems to also be another woman holding an object that releases steam towards another woman’s hair. Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres was a male, French, and neoclassical painter who was highly influenced by Roman art styles. This gives the romanticized view of the scenery described by Lady Montague. Because he is male, it is to be seen that he is using sexual objectification for the women’s exposure. For example, there is the focus of naked women and a couple of them caressing each other’s breasts. 

On the other hand, Lady Montague describes the bathhouse as the painting speaks for itself of women conversing, having slaves there, and the description of cultural objects. Her analysis of the bathhouse was described beautifully as Lady Montague gave recognition and respect towards her surroundings. Although there were some contradictory thoughts, one of her statements that stood out was when she stated, “I know no European court where the ladies would have behaved themselves in so polite a manner to a stranger…I was here convinced of the truth of a reflection I had often made, that if it was the fashion to go naked, the face would be hardly observed… (pg. 58-59)” She was so amazed at how open the environment was in the bathhouse, and she seemed to really enjoy it as if she would have wanted that for her. Furthermore, nearly towards the end of her letter, she said, “I was charmed with their civility and beauty, and should have been very glad to spend more time with them.. (pg. 60)” As mentioned before, she admires these women as she sees them as a form of art. The description of the furniture, as well as the “first sofas, were covered with cushions and rich carpets (pg. 59)” is essential to understand the wealth and royalty that goes on in Ottoman. This art came to life with the help of Ingres depicting the age of Orientalism from the eyes of the Western culture.

open their eyes.

jocelyn lemus.

Through paintings the world sees, however, rejects to decipher the true meaning behind it. As I am glaring at the painting by Ingres of a Turkish bathhouse based on Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s main idea. One can’t help, but notice the distinction between what is yelling through the strokes of paint to what is silent. Ingres’ painting throws out a more visual representation of the woman’s body. He depicts them as objects of affection by using their bodies as muses. His main aspect of the painting screams out the body, but never the mind nor the soul of a woman. For instance, glare into Ingres’ and tell me that bodies aren’t the number one thing you see. If that’s the case, then that speaks beyond his main objective towards the painting. For example, when I see this painting, I feel naked myself. These women deserve more than to be displayed erotically and sexually. As if their bodies speak beyond their mouths ever can. Not only are there groups of naked women, but also there’s this darkness that makes them look even more vulnerable. As if the future they desire doesn’t carry anything beyond the darkness. This demeans the female gender, especially since this painting was also produced by a male. The way these women display themselves speaks poorly of them, as if their nude bodies with dull skin and long hair is the only way they can speak from. So what then, cut their tongues to admire the beauty of the body that speaks more than their mouth ever could? Ingres is exposing the bodies of these women, especially since there is something else I couldn’t help to notice, which was how this paint was donated. It is infuriating to have the world see a silent and vulgar image of a woman’s body, where it weakens their voices. 

On the other hand, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu does the opposite of demeaning the image of a woman. She expands a more analytical and creative understanding through a woman’s perspective. In her own words, Montagu describes them as, “many amongst them as exactly proportioned as ever any goddess…skins shiningly white…and the most delicate shapes.” (p.102). Not only that but she also describes them as they were in “some conversation, some working,… in several pretty manners” (103). This is important because Montagu was putting her main focus on giving these women, not just a name nor a face, but a worth to their existence. She shares how they are more than just a body that is displayed, but they are strong women that work, converse and carry their own selves to where they want to go next. The bathhouse was a cozy and pleasant aspect in Montagu’s eyes. She’s pulling these women away from the gender norms and gender politics and she’s opening the eyes of those who never thought they had them opened all along. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is a married woman with children knowing how to give herself that place. 

A View of a Turkish Bathhouse Through the Eyes of Opposite Sexes

Luis Arceo

I believe the painting by Ingres of a Turkish bathhouse based on the account of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu is somewhat accurate to what was described. In her account of the bathhouse Montagu describes some 200 women and the painting does show that, though it may not be 200 it’s still enough to get the point across. As for the women they are just as Montagu describes them, “many amongst them as exactly proportioned as ever any goddess…skins shiningly white…and the most delicate shapes.” (p.102) They look like women Renaissance artists may have drawn is how she describes them. From here this is where I believe the comparisons between the two end. Once one takes time to compare and contrast the two, notable differences begin to emerge.

One of these differences is how this bathhouse is suppose to be made of marble. In her account of describing the rooms Montagu cannot stop talking about all the marble around her, like in the room, “The…room is a very large one, paved of marble,” to the sofas, “two sofas of marble, one above another,” to fountains that have marble basins, “There were four fountains of cold water…falling into marble basins.”(p.101) Clearly Ingres decided to make the focus of the painting on the women rather than the marble filled bathhouse. The women are given a nymph likeness to them as Montagu alludes to, but the addition of making some women play instruments by Ingres furthers this connection giving them more of a majestic and an erotic attribute to them, helping the viewer conceptualize the bathhouse better, at the cost of accuracy. If it were not labeled as a bathhouse I find it hard to believe anyone would describe it as one since it doesn’t look like one. Though I’ve never been to a bathhouse I’d hamper to bet that there would be water and steam filling up the room, like Montagu describes seeing in the rooms, “The two other domes [with] the hot baths,” (p.101) but rather this looks like the women are at some Roman villa partying and lounging about instead. 

Picturing the Turkish Bathhouse Scene

For next Thursday (2/10), compare Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s experience in the Turkish bathhouse (pages 101-103) to the later visual representation of this scene by the French painter Ingres (see painting below).  Is this the same picture Montagu has in mind or is she offering an alternative view?  Explain your answer through a focused close reading of both the textual passage and the painting, emphasizing important similarities and differences.

Please categorize your post under “Ottoman Muslim Women” and don’t forget to create interesting and specific tags. The blog post is due by next Thursday (2/10) 8:30am. PLEASE REMEMBER TO WRITE YOUR FULL NAME!

To help you with this post, here are 5 close reading guidelines you should follow:

1. Note key words or phrases that repeat in that passage.

2. Look for irony, paradox, ambiguity, and tension.

3. Note those words or phrases that seem odd or out-of-place.

4. Note any important symbols, motifs, and themes.

5.  Is there anything missing from the text that should be there?

Orientalism in the Account of Lady Mary: the Glory of Prostitution

In response to the September 18, 2013 post entitled “Symbiosis: Trading Children for a Life of Ease,” the student raised an issue about Lady Mary in Turkish Embassy Letters  in regard to her encounters with women in the “bright and mysterious Turkish landscape and society.”  The author claims that Lady Mary “deeply envies” the Turkish women’s status quo as “glorified” and “prostitutes.” Such a view indicates the transverse effect of Orientalism that ripples from Lady Mary’s marriage itself to the student blog post.

Lady Mary isn’t jealous or envious of Turkish women, but is decidedly biased. Lady Mary’s biography tells us of her bad-business marriage. This background thus informs us of Lady Mary’s outlook on society, on gender, and class. Lady Mary herself is affected in such a way by her husband’s elite status that she enters the conversation about women’s role in society and reflects in her own participation with and observations of the Turkish women an element of Orientalism.

If the student in 2013 is making the claim that Lady Mary herself is accusing the foreign women’s marriage practice as merely a glorified form of prostitution, then that student is now responsible for such implications. However, the post offers no further critique in exploring what the author believes is a European repulsion against Turkish gender norms. If the student is so quick to vindicate Lady Mary’s opinion against foreign women, then what explanation is there for the political, economic, and cultural fallout that entails such a derogatory outlook? The original question prompted the student to answer why Lady Mary “admires” the Turkish women, yet the student responded with an overwhelming disdain for Lady Mary’s contemptuous words. If we are unable to ascertain the truth about Lady Mary’s othering of the Turkish women, then how is the student able to assert the contradictory viewpoint that Lady Mary not only “deeply envies” the Turkish women but also “venerates the ease at which these wealthy women languish” without informing the reader of the significance of Lady Mary’s own discriminations?

Similarities and Differences between Lady Mary’s Turkish Bathhouse Scene and Ingres’ Painting

French painter Ingres visual representation of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s experience in the Turkish bathhouse is for the most part a generally accurate depiction of what the Lady described. The women, “some in conversation, some working, others drinking coffee or sherbet, and many negligently lying on their cushions while their slaves…were employed in braiding their hair in several pretty manners” (103) can be seen doing so in the painting Ingres provides. In the background of the image, women chatter amongst themselves, in the foreground lays various food items, and all about the painting are women strewn across cushions, lounging, with their hair being made up. He captures that same sylph-like and nonchalant nature Lady Mary articulates in her passage: “they walked, and moved with the same majestic grace which Milton describes of our General Mother” (202), as well as the immortal, goddess qualities they emit: “proportioned as ever any goddess was drawn by the pencil of Guido or Titian…skins shiningly white, only adorned by their beautiful hair divided into many tresses…perfectly representing the figures of the Graces” (202). In this specific passage, Lady Mary is superfluous in her praise of the women, referring to them as “graces”, “goddess[es]”, and “perfect” and Ingres does well to stay true to the text.

This is not to say that Ingres’ visual representation of the bathhouse scene was without flaw though. What seems to have been lost, is the “marble sofas, but so hot with steams of sulfur” (201), the “fountains of cold water…falling first into marble basis, and then running on the floor in little channels” (201) and the “hot baths, one of which had cocks of cold water turning into it” (201). This is all very curious that Ingres would choose to omit these items from the bathhouse, but these faults can be overlooked considering Lady Mary herself chose to give more attention to the ladies in the bathhouse rather than the bathhouse itself (in terms of sheer material, there is less written about the setting than the women in the setting). Another apparent omission of the artist, was the figure of the narrator herself, who, very obstinately had her skirt opened. This is very interesting, because the artist detracts from perhaps one of the overarching points Lady Mary is making in her letter to the unnamed Lady. In writing about the freedom and grace of these unabashed, naked Turkish women, Lady Mary is strategically critiquing the confines of Western ideals to be covered up. Lady Mary lauds the women for their immortal beauty in nakedness and juxtaposes that with her own covered up self: “I was at last forced to open my skirt and show them my stays, which satisfied them very well, for I saw they believed I was so locked up in that machine that it was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they attributed to my husband” (203). Lady Mary is subtle, but the point is still made apparent. Apparently, though, the artist Ingres was unable to read between the lines, exempting the contrast, and instead depicting what the Western world would have preferred: exotic images of Turkish women in a bathhouse.

The Turkish Bathhouse

“Le Bain Turk” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

 

“Le Bain Turk,” as painted by French painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, drew inspirations from Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s letter to a Lady in 1717 where she describes her experiences in a women’s Turkish bathhouse. The painting displays subtle influences from orientalism and is a synthesis, of and cohesive development of all of Ingres’ past works. His visual representation of the work is a bit more eroticized and over-sexualized and one of the main elements of the painting is focused on the two women near the bottom right of the painting, where one is caressing the breast of the other.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s description of the women in the Turkish bathhouse is more productive. She seems, for the most part, to admire the women and be genuinely charmed by their hospitality and beauty, but does contradict herself in some scenes. “To tell you the truth, I had wickedness enough to wish secretly that Mr. Gervase could have been there invisible. I fancy it would have very much improved his art to see so many fine women naked, in different postures ….” (Montagu 102-103) In this quote, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu seems to be objectifying the women into mere objects for art. Where in the next quote, it seems as if Lady Mary Wortley Montagu becomes the object of the Turkish women’s attention. Or be it that she is presenting herself as an object for first refusing to remove her clothes. “The Lady that seemed the most considerable amongst them entreated me to sit by her and would fain have undressed me for the bath. I excused myself with some difficulty, they being all so earnest in persuading me. I was at last forced to open my skirt and shew them my stays, which satisfied them very well, for I saw they believed I was so locked up in that machine that it was not in my own power to open it, which contrivance they attributed to my Husband” (Montagu 103). There is some irony in these two quotes that happens when Lady Mary Wortley Montagu who is objectifying the Turkish women, becomes the object herself. There is also irony in the fact that though she is fighting against the idea to liberate the Turkish women from the “irrational” standards of Islam, yet she is the one who is restrained from removing her clothes because she is her husband’s property.

 

 

 

Lady Montagu vs. Ingres: Representation of the Turkish Bathhouse

“Le Bain turc”, a visual image painted by French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, is seemingly a romanticized depiction of a common scene found in a Turkish woman’s bathhouse. In this particular image, there is a rather large group of nude women lounged around carelessly in the bathhouse. Despite the similarities, this image does not seem to mirror the picture that Lady Montagu paints with words of her own in her 27th written letter. Seemingly, with her experiences she offers an alternative atmosphere – for that is the apparent difference between Ingres’ painting and Lady Montagu’s experience in which we read about in her narrative The Turkish Embassy Letters.

In the visual representation of the scene by Ingres, some women are sitting and conversing with one another while others are lost in trances on their own. The atmosphere embodied is one of relaxation and calmness – almost romantic. This image is romanticized primarily due to the positions and poses held by each individual. One woman in the back has her arms thrown up in the air with her breasts jutted out, and posed gracefully as if performing in a ballet. Each individual holds such grace and present an image of what a female is supposed to appear as – soft and feminine, even seductive!

Lady Montagu’s account of her experience in the Turkish bathhouse depicts the women to hold such strength. “There was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture amongst them. They walked, and moved with the same majestic grace.” The narrator makes the comparison of the women to goddesses. And with the term ‘goddesses’ comes the heavy connotation of beauty and strength. There is no romanticism, nor seduction in the visual that Lady Montagu paints for her readers.

Something that does strike as an obvious similarity between the literature text and the panting is the pride that these women take in their lack in decency. Despite the romantic atmosphere found in Ingres’ painting, the lack of sexual tension is something to be found in both images used for comparison – moreso in Lady Montagu’s narrative than in the French painitng. Lady Montagu states that all women “all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed.” And in his painting, Ingres clearly offers a room of ‘stark naked’ women. It is apparent that the base for the painting may have certainly come from Lady Montagu’s narrative literature. Thus the painting and the written scene offer a lot to discuss for comparison purposes.

Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley (2012-09-20). The Turkish Embassy Letters (Kindle Location 1759). Broadview Press. Kindle Edition.