Femme fatale in art: From male fantasy to female emancipation

In the history of art and literature in Germany, the Lureley is the ideal, desirable and dream woman. She was an especial focus of early-mid 19th century German Romanticism, with Carl Joseph Begas painting his lush, lute-playing "Lureley" in 1835, a few years after Heinrich Heine published his famous poem, "The Lorelei," the story of a seducing, enchanting mermaid.

Artist Rossetti painted his mistress Annie Miller as the epitome of the Pre-Raphaelite woman. He modeled her on Helen of Troy, the mythical most beautiful woman in the world. The fall of Troy was a popular theme in English literature at the time, which Rossetti drew on in this allegory of the destructive power of love.

The Pre-Raphaelites created increasingly eroticized depictions of women, portraying them as both an ideal and a vision of fear, all the while maintaining a Victorian ideal of white femininity and beauty. British artist John William Waterhous's painting of "Circe offering the cup to Ulysses" links the sorceress' power to her enchanting yet threateningly seductive nature.

Symbolist artist Franz von Stuck, who co-founded the Munich Secession movement in the 1890s, painted this oil on canvas in 1904. The painting shows the mythical Sphinx — that once had the head of a human and the body of a lion — adopt a wholly feminine pose.

Impressionist art was also dedicated to the idea of the femme fatale. German artist Lovis Corinth's stage-like depiction shows a dramatically made-up Salome with bare breasts bending over the head of John the Baptist.

US artist Sylvia Sleigh painted "Lilith" as a component of "The Sister Chapel", a collaborative installation of three contrasting women. This controversial image sees a male and female body superimposed to become one, with Sleigh working to blur the genders and emphasize similarities between sexual binaries.

Feminist art since the 1960s has deconstructed and critiqued the femme fatale image to create new narratives around femininity and sexuality. Photographic self-portraits became a common medium to reframe women as subjects, including this ironic work by Austrian artist Birgit Jürgenssen in which she superimposes her own face onto a Polaroid photo of a cat.

Brooklyn-based artist Mickalene Thomas created a textile from a collage of photos and drawings that she spent six months developing for a project. Utilizing domestic household decor, including wallpaper from the 1970s, Thomas presents complex layers of modern feminine identity. "Femme Fatale: Gaze – Power – Gender" runs through April 10, 2023 at the Hamburger Kunsthalle.