Louise Bourgeois and Femme Maison

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Louise Bourgeois 
(Image from tate.org.uk)

Bourgeois, Louise. Femme Maison Series.
1946-47, Museum of Modern Art. 
(Image from Wikipedia -Fair Use)

  
Artist Background

    Louise Bourgeois was an American-French artist born in Paris, France in 1911. Her parents sold tapestries and from a young age, she often helped in their tapestry workshop. She first began drawing by helping with the tapestries. Bourgeois was very close with her mother however her father had a continuous affair with Bourgeois' tutor, who happened to live in their house. According to her biography on The Art Story, this experience molded some of the themes in Bourgeois' later work, including themes of "family, motherhood, relationships, fidelity, abandonment, the body, and trust." She received extensive education in both Paris and later New York City. She was involved in Surrealist circles but became more greatly associated with the American Abstract Artists Group. Much of her legacy is in her practice of sculpture; her most recognizable piece is perhaps Maman, a 30 foot tall sculpture of a spider. Besides sculpture, Bourgeois produced art in all formats: painting, drawings, sculpture, installation art, prints, and more. A brief glance at her extensive work shows the themes mentioned above, often presented in strange, provocative, or surreal nature. 

Artwork Background

    The Femme Maison series was among some of the earlier pieces of Bourgeois' work. She produced the series between 1946 and 1947. It is in the form of oil and ink on linen. The title means "woman house" in French, or colloquially, housewife. Each section shows a woman morphed with a house in various ways. In all of the sections, her face is concealed. The writers of The Art Story theorize that "the series dealt with the dramatic changes in Bourgeois' private life in the early 1940's: marriage and domesticity, living in a foreign country, and mothering three children." Bourgeois stated that the woman in the piece "does not know that she is half naked, and she does not know that she is trying to hide. That is to say, she is totally self-defeating because she shows herself at the very moment that she thinks she is hiding." 

Thematic Analysis

     Though the elements and principles of design are important in this piece - as they are of any - I want to focus on contextual and thematic analysis for this piece. I first discovered this piece around 5 years ago and found it haunting, fascinating, and provocative, all at the same time. The remainder of this post will focus on my unfounded, personal interpretation of this piece, given its presentation and the little context provided above by Bourgeois herself. 
    There is a sense of dehumanization in the piece. Like Hannah Höch's Das Schöne Mädchen, the woman has no face. This belittles her to be only a body, with no recognizable characteristics and nothing making her appear feminine besides her womanly figure. Part of this is what I believe to be an objectification of the woman merged with the structure of the house. By becoming one with the house, she loses some of herself, her expression, her characteristics. However, I also feel that the projection of just her naked body, and not her face, deals with her issue of being exposed. 
    The Femme Maison is exposed in her act of becoming one with the house. Not exposed in a physical way, but in an emotional or mental way. Being exposed, in any way, is an embarrassing or discomforting experience. This woman becoming so intertwined in domestic life or domestic work has left her feeling uncomfortable, unsure, and embarrassed. I find Bourgeois' quote to be interesting; it leads me to believe that the audience of this woman's life is seeing things the woman wishes they could not. It also leads me to believe that her wish to hide is a feeling of wanting to hide from domesticity itself as domestic life is not something she wished for or wants to be seen for. And though she wishes to hide from domesticity, she cannot escape it since she has become intertwined with it and linked to it. This is why Bourgeois describes the Femme Maison as self-defeating. She is trying to negotiate her internal feelings with her external presentation and audience, but cannot reckon the two to coexist naturally. 

Reader Questions: Does Bourgeois' quote provide evidence for my analysis or is it far-fetched? What do you think Bourgeois meant in the context of what you experience when looking at Femme Maison? 
    
Other Sources Used 


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