Griselda Pollock's Essay By Charles Baudelaire

1346 Words6 Pages
The world in the late 19th century was a time where standards were set by men for men, and directed completely towards only masculine standards. Limited were the women of this era; leaving female artists unaccounted for, the work produced by women constrained due to restrictions regarding subject matter and views, and lifestyle so drastically differing socially, individually, and economically between men and women. Pollock begins with the discussion of the concept of spaces, then moving forward to modernity and the public position or lack thereof, of women using an essay written by Charles Baudelaire. Griselda Pollock shows this fervor while stating her points in the article – giving the article this life to it not only through being detailed,…show more content…
So it was not that there were no women artists, it was not that those who were acknowledged were second-rate – it was solely the fact that there was this skewed image and asymmetry in history itself (56). Using this, Pollock goes on to talk about her argument using the concepts of space in the…show more content…
Before Griselda Pollock speaks about the essay itself, she mentions women as an object which is absolutely relatable in our times today. This is not a new and upcoming problem in society today, this has very well been made a problem from the very start. “…women do not look. They are positioned as the object of the flâneur’s gaze” (71). Pollock states that women were never the normal occupants of the public realm, they did not have the rights the men did when it came to the public and we really see this in the essay Charles Baudelaire published. That artist explains his journey across Paris, where the women appear to be there as just visible objects – to fill the spaces of modernity. There is a hierarchy when it comes to this artist’s journey, he starts his journey at the theatre, watching the young and fashionable women of society, following the elegant families, to the backstage where the dancers reside, to the cafes where the mistresses lurk, to the folies where the courtesan stays, finally to the brothels where the young and successful prostitutes to the poor slaves lurk (72-73). When reading this excerpt, we find two key reasons why Pollock used this essay for her

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