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| MANET'S CATS 2 |
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From The Painter of (post)Modern Cats
This paper is about cats; the pursuit of cats; of pursuing cats and being pursued by cats; hunter and hunted at the same time. This inability to distinguish between roles is part of the cat's role in this paper. Another part of the cat's role is as an absence; an absence in this paper; an absence moving about this paper like a ghost of a presence.
This paper is also about another ghost, Edouard Manet. So I could call it a paper about cats and Manet. But can we (the "we" I refer to is those of "us" who would write about either cats or Manet, and then claim to write about cats and Manet) be comfortable with "a paper about cats and Manet"? Can we (and I now speak of "we" as being those of "us" who would be foolish enough to reflect upon the possibility of such a paper, if such a paper could ever exist, if ghosts could ever exist) critically justify "a paper about cats and Manet"? This is a question about the possibility of mapping a discourse on cats onto a discourse on Manet; a question surrounding the possibility of such a mapping. Where would such a mapping lead to? Would we get lost on the way to our destination? How is our destination to be determined? Would it ever be terminal, or would it never be reached; could it ever be reached? Can "our" destination exist? When do "we" (de)part?
Perhaps now, as I shift this cat-echistic narrative to the notion of consent in such an undertaking. Under whose consent does such a violation of the past take place? Does the cat give consent? Despite the struggles of those who would study the language of cats, we are no closer to cat diplomacy. Does Manet give consent to this violation of his œuvre, his body of work, his body? Where does the consent come from so that there may be a sexual-intellectual-inter-dis-course about Manet's body, around Manet's body, without Manet's presence, inside Manet's absence?
Perhaps we attempt acts of sexual-intellectual domination; acts of mastery which reveal that we have merely served someone else, our attempts at mastery exposing the illusions of both master and servant, revealing a state of general servitude. Like Oedipus, we discover that our actions have served some other plan, which serves some other plan, which serves some other plan, etc., as we unknowingly fall ever further into the abyss, headlong towards cat-astrophe. Perhaps only after an act of mastery is it realized that it was an act of servitude; that servitude was always the primary state. Even in the primary narcissistic state we find that the child was not master, and had only served the (m)other's need, that the child was always dependent on, and never dominant over its world. Is this the illusion the cat (ex)poses? Is the cat's gaze the gaze seen in Manet's work? Does the gaze in Nana, Olympia, Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère expose this reversal of mastery, this lack of mastery? Is the female gaze the domesticating domesticated gaze, mastering the male gaze, while, at the same time, displacing the male gaze and displacing itself?…
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Returning to the cat in Manet, how does the cat effect Manet's identity as the seed of Modernism, the cat-alyst of Modernism? Does the cat expose Manet's seed as always already having been affected, as always already having been spent? Did Manet's seed ever inseminate Modernism, or has Manet's seed always already been disseminated? How does the cat affect, defect, and infect Manet's relation to Modernism and postmodernism? Does the cat in Manet, the cat inside Manet, inseminate Manet, the cat lover, making him give birth to kittens, who long to be the lion, the king of the jungle, an illusion perpetuated by endless litters, littering history with their claims to mastery? Is Postmodernism such a kitten? Is this what the cat in Manet, the cat invaginated within Manet, is trying to tell as it kicks, struggling to escape, struggling to be born? These questions will be about this paper, just as this paper will be about these questions.
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If the cat's place in Manet's œuvre cannot be determined (here I conceive of Manet's œuvre in the general sense; his art, his life, his writings, everything about him, around him, all the writing on him, inscribed on his body, inscribed in his absence) then I wish to take account of the cat as a cat-egory in his œuvre (here I limit myself to Manet's œuvre in terms of Manet's known artistic production; his paintings, etchings, watercolors, drawings, sketches; in other words, a traditional sense of the artist's œuvre). The cat's position in Manet's œuvre is unusual. Among paintings, the dog holds a position of greater prominence, if one were to judge prominence on the basis of quantity of appearances. The dog even receives exclusive attention, becoming the main text of a painting. The cat, however, appears infrequently in Manet's paintings, and when it does, the cat appears only as an aside. Perhaps I could say that it appears as a footnote. The cat functions as an exclamation point in Olympia. It functions as both a joke and a signature in Jeune femme couchée en costume espagnol. The cat serves as a quotation in Le Déjeuner dans l'atelier. The cat always serves a supplementary role. Never does the cat serve as a main text in Manet's paintings. I could, however, question if there ever was a main text in Manet's œuvre (in both the general and traditional sense). Manet is what the cat is; the cat is what Manet's works are; a series of footnotes, punctuation marks, quotations, signatures, private jokes, leaving an incomplete text always in need of further supplementation; a lack always needing fulfillment and never receiving it.
Given the marginal role within Manet's paintings, it may seem somewhat fitting that the cat appears often in those areas of Manet's œuvre that are traditionally conceived as being marginal to his paintings. The cat appears almost three times as often as all other animals combined in Manet's drawings, watercolors, and sketches. Moreover, the cat appears in unexpected places, such as letters, alongside drawings of Manet's mother and his wife; or alongside a sketch of Bazaine devant le conseil de guerre. The cat appears on a piece of paper with Bazille's address written upon it. The cat appears in a design for a frontispiece to a series of Manet's prints. Not only does the cat appear in unexpected places, but it also appears hidden. The cat is hidden among flowers, under a chair, under a bench, behind a flower pot. Why does Manet hide the cat? Why does le fils d'Auguste hide his lack? Why does l'auguste jeune fille hide her lack? How does the history of art as presence account for this odd occurrence? It could be a simple caprice on Manet's part and on my part, but on my part, I am obliged to try and explain why the cat appears so often in Manet's drawings and sketches in comparison to the main texts. I wish to question this relation rigorously, in an attempt to maintain the standards of the Institution, while questioning these standards, pushing them, undermining them, cat-apulting them beyond the Institution. In carrying out such a project, I cannot accept answers that would explain the cat's lack, the lack of the cat in Manet's œuvre, in terms of the cat's lack of importance and in terms of the cat's impotence. This is how the cat has traditionally been treated in Manet's work. The cat has been a punctuation mark, a quotation, a signature, a joke, its importance/impotence lying in the non-serious. The cat may provide the subject matter for an etching which "has always been among the most popular in Manet's œuvre," but this again relegates the cat's importance/impotence to a category of marginalization; the popular, non-Academic, unworthy of serious examination.
Making note of the marginalization of the cat in Manet's œuvre, I wish to study the cat precisely as it has been treated; as an element that has been marginalized; marginalized because of its excessiveness, an excessiveness that exposes Manet's own lack, his own absence. Thus, I propose to study the cat as a marginal element in relation to a main text, seeing how this marginal element exceeds the main text, and seeing whether this marginal element undermines the main text, explains a process within the main text, or illustrates a problem that erects itself in the main text.
In carrying this out, I wish to treat the cat as yet another marginal element of language; a metaphor. The question then becomes what is the cat a metaphor for? There are any number of meanings that the cat could take on during the nineteenth century. Many of these meanings contradict each other. The cat was a symbol for good and for evil. The cat was a symbol for the sun and the moon. The cat was a symbol for liberty and for treachery. The cat had a strong association with sexuality, especially female sexuality, and this is how the cat often appears in the literature of France during the nineteenth century. The cat also had associations with music and singing, as well as serving as an allegory for sight. Yet these various meanings tie down the cat, while the cat's meaning may not be tied down to any narrow definition. Instead of trying to give Manet's cat a specific definable meaning that excludes the other meanings, I wish to keep the cat at the level of metaphor and see how the cat operates as a metaphor that touches upon the desire to control meaning, while not embracing that desire.
In discovering this metaphorical meaning, I turn to a few statements made during the nineteenth and early twentieth century concerning the domestic cat. Marcel Mauss says that "that the cat is the one animal to have domesticated man." The cat reverses the traditional roles of domesticator and domesticated; a relation I wish to consider as a relation between controller and controlled, dominator and dominated, master and servant. Manet's contemporary Theophile Gautier said, "The cat is willing to be your friend if you are worthy, but never will it be your slave...In its tenderness, the cat keeps its free will." The cat only puts on an illusion of being servile, never being domestic. During the nineteenth century the domestic cat was seen as always being on the edge of wildness, of always being not "domestic". Still earlier at the turn of the nineteenth century, Chateaubriand said, "The cat lives alone, it has no need of society." It is all an illusion. The domestic cat domesticates. While being a pet, it is never a slave. The cat plays roles that it doesn't have to, reversing roles, perversing them, causing problems for the traditional relation between domesticator and domesticated, controller and controlled, master and servant.
The domesticated cat becomes the domesticating domesticated cat. It puts on an illusion of being dependent upon its "master" for protection, for food. The "master" maintains this illusion of mastery, while serving the cat, becoming the cat's servant. The master can always choose not to serve the cat, but the "master" must eventually serve the "servant" or else the "servant" will leave, becoming its own master, and likewise its own servant. Thus, the cat's decision, the cat's choice, to be dependent, to serve as a pet, to give the illusion of being domesticated, depends upon the cat's ability to master its "master", to be served.
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