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How did Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres alter the anatomy of the figure in La Grande Odalisque?
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Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Self-portrait, oil on canvas by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, c. 1800; in the Condé Museum, Chantilly, France.
In his celebrated 1814 painting La Grande Odalisque, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres employed radical anatomical distortions that departed significantly from natural proportions.1
Critics of the time famously ridiculed these alterations, noting that the figure appeared to possess "three vertebrae too many" due to the extreme elongation of her back. Beyond this spinal lengthening, the figure is characterized by wildly expanded buttocks and a right arm that appears rubbery and boneless. These deliberate manipulations created a form that exists outside of nature, reflecting the artist's subjective, erotic imagination rather than a realistic depiction of the human body.1