Rolla, Henri Gervex The paid love has occupied a central part of the daily life of Parisians at the end of the nineteenth century - and is the key to understanding the art of that time. Today we often think of stereotypes about impressionism and other trends in French painting before and around a collection of sunflowers and haystacks, babies and ballerinas that look good on postcards or on the wall in the dormitory.
But the French painting of Modernism is far less soothing. Paris in the late 19th century is a city in a serious social transition and the art of the era depicts much more than natural scenery. It shows the new urban world, in all its complexity, without worrying about anything - even from the public houses of Pigalle. Prostitutes have been a key subject for artists in Paris and are involved in perhaps the two most revolutionary paintings of the era.
Manne's "Olimpia" revealed and Picasso's deafened ladies "Avignon ladies" portray sex workers. Prostitution, now hidden in the shadows, was a fact of modernity for these artists. And while they took inspiration from the priestesses of the night, at that time the distance from the studio to the bordo was not so great.
We now think of prostitutes as one of the most unacceptable levels in the social order; which is a matter of disgust if he speaks at all. But in Paris by the end of the nineteenth century prostitution was a central part of everyday life, a private deal with public mediators. Prostitution has been strictly regulated during Napoleon III, and it continues until the twentieth century. Talking is illegal, women have to register with the police, work in a public house and pay taxes. Public homes are banned in France in , but sex trade remains legitimate, though the country is engaging in an angry debate about whether to criminalize sex buying, as in Sweden.
Rousse, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Regulators and police inspectors from the so-called "wrestling" departments could be extremely unstable, and newspapers often reported unhappy women choosing suicide before humiliation in the prefecture.
