Suzanne Valadon and the Active Nude

This thesis explores how French Modernist artist and prior model Suzanne Valadon disrupted the traditional, phallocentric expectations surrounding the nude genre during the twentieth century. Theorizing on the relationship between the erotic, female nude, and the gaze, it can be concluded that the historic, repetitive visual correlation between women’s nude bodies and eroticism entangles the two concepts so tightly that women’s nude bodies became inherently erotic. The male gaze upon women’s bodies has restricted and policed their identity, since male artists inscribed their bodies as erotic symbols existing for male pleasure and conquest, particularly through the nude genre.This visual media reinforced patriarchal gender roles that empower men at the expense of women and their bodies. Suzanne Valadon's art, influenced by her unique sociopolitical standpoint in a patriarchal world, restored women’s knowledge around their embodied experiences in cultural dialogues and artistic spaces.