"Deconstructing Manet’s Olympia: Foucault has Nothing on Me, Bee-yotch”
Obviously, in comparison to earlier nudes, the use of a prostitute shows us all that we must be sexually liberated. Manet understood that you must do it in the street. And did you see how lovingly the other woman is looking at the woman on the divan? This indicates that Manet was well ahead of his time, and understood that one day gay marriage would replace Christianity, which is supported by the lack of any religious symbols in the painting. Of course, the other woman is African, so Manet could have been a racist, but definitely not a sexist or a homophobe, unlike the warmongering, Chimp Bush, who is all three.
How did I do?
A larger question would be: Can we see the beginning of European decadence and decline in their choice of subject matter? One notices that the American artists of the same period do not limit themselves to "nekkid ladies" and seldom do they seek to shock their audience.
On post 20 or so.
Sorry, you need bigger words. To decontexualize the post-structural re-composition of the late modernist tradition....blah, blah.
Actually, I understand that the woman in Olympia is black and wearing white because she is a transition between the black background and the white foreground. But I like what the previous poster said about prostitutes often having black maids.