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(Sorry to be slow to respond; I just got back from work.)

Thanks for your long, thoughtful comment.

My critique of the painting grows out of the long history of paintings like this and how they were used. There's a ton of writing on paintings like this -- just as there were a TON of paintings like this -- which were hung in men's bedrooms/private spaces. Such paintings might now seem pretty tame but at the time they were not. According to art historians, they were painted precisely to help with male desire. (See, for example, T. J. Clark's The Painting of Modern Life, about painting in Paris in the 19th century; the book shows page after page of paintings just like the The Massage and discusses their "uses." Another commenter here mentioned John Berger's Ways of Seeing (book or video. Or watch Hannah Gadsby's amazing Nanette on Netflix.)

But even through they seem pretty tame now, such paintings still feed attitudes about women. And the attitude toward women this painting presents is all in-line (for me) with what we are seeing now in the Kavanaugh hearings, for example: The attitude toward women of this painting, like the apparent attitude of Kavanaugh and the other "Renate Alumni" guys, is that women exist for men. Women are supposed to be passive objects for male desire.

Compare this painting to Manet's Olympia, for example, which also shows a white woman and a subservient black woman. The white woman looks directly at viewers, meeting their eyes, making it hard to think of her as just an object to look at; in the painting we discuss here, by Debat-Ponsan, the white woman's face isn't even shown. Both paintings put women of color in secondary, passive positions.

One painting alone is not going to teach men to believe that women are passive objects. But it is precisely because there are THOUSANDS of paintings like this, shown over and over and in different places, that they can teach attitudes I think we don't want to have toward each other.

So I clearly disagree with you that this painting and the current male-dominated-political drama have nothing to do with each other. This painting, as part of a long tradition of representations of women in art and film, has a large part to play in how men learn to think women are their playthings.

Ooh ooh! I have some books for you, then :) I assume that you can probably find a lot of these through your school library:

• Inside Designed for Pleasure the essay "Suzuki Harunobu: The Cult and Culture of Color". (IMO, if you get nothing but this and read this essay, it'll probably write whatever you're researching for you.)
  
• Inside The Commercial and Cultural Climate of Japanese Printmaking the essays "The Cultural Milieu of Suzuki Harunobu" and "'This is What We Accomplished': An Osaka Print Collector and His Circle" (the second one isn't about Harunobu in particular but it can help you understand the dynamic of poetry circles, of which Harunobu was an active participant).
  
  I also have two catalogues of Harunobu prints, Harunobu and his age (British Museum) and Suzuki Harunobu (Philadelphia Museum of Art) (out of which the latter is the better book, when in doubt, go with the book that was more-recently published, Ukiyo-e scholarship has greatly improved over the past 40 years). I really want to find this catalogue: Suzuki Harunobu (Chiba City Museum) but haven't been able to find one yet.
  
  Hope this helps and enjoy - Harunobu is fascinating! Let me know if you have any questions.

Final illustration for "Whistle for Willie" [The University of Southern Mississippi] 1964. Collage and paint on board.

• Amazon
  
  
• Youtube rendition of Whistle for Willie
  
  
• [Ezra Jack Keats] (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ytUze3SMIE) (youtube introduction)
  
  
• The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation
  
  
• [ Ezra Jack Keats : A Virtual Exhibit](http://www.lib.usm.edu/legacy/degrum/public_html/keats/main.html
  
  
• Ezra Jack Keats (March 11, 1916 – May 6, 1983) was a children's literature author and illustrator. His first picture book, The Snowy Day, was awarded the Caldecott Medal and is considered one of the most important American books of the 20th century.
  
  Keats is best known for introducing multiculturalism into mainstream American children's literature. He was one of the first children’s book authors to use an urban setting for his stories and he developed the use of collage as a medium for illustration [wiki...]
  
  
• Ezra Jack Keats (March 11, 1916 – May 6, 1983) was a children's literature author and illustrator. His first picture book, The Snowy Day, was awarded the Caldecott Medal and is considered one of the most important American books of the 20th century. Keats is best known for introducing multiculturalism into mainstream American children's literature. He was one of the first children’s book authors to use an urban setting for his stories and he developed the use of collage as a medium for illustration. [Amazon]
  
  
  
  
• Ezra Jack Keats (March 11, 1916 – May 6, 1983) (born Jacob Ezra Katz), author of The Snowy Day, was an easel artist and one of the most important children's literature authors and illustrators of the 20th Century. Keats is best known for introducing multiculturalism into mainstream American children's literature. He was one of the first children’s book authors in the English-speaking world to use an urban setting for his stories, and he developed the use of collage as a medium for illustration. He was born March 11, 1916 in Brooklyn, New York to Benjamin Katz and Augusta Podgainy, Polish immigrants of Jewish descent. [In.com India]
  
  
• "In 1962 Ezra Jack Keats started a quiet revolution that in its own way had as much influence as some of the decade’s louder protests." ~ The New York Times (The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats) [[The Jewish Museum]] (http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/exhibitions/the-snowy-day-and-keats-exhibition)

Given your nom de plume, Vercingetorix, you have probably already seen this info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vercingetorix

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/46/Alise-Sainte-Reine_statue_Vercingetorix_par_Millet.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Statue-vercingetorix-jaude-clermont.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwTIjnIOnME - The movie is fairly cheesy (the YouTube title is weird), but it is interesting to watch.

The book of the same title by Morgan Llywelyn is better: https://www.amazon.com/Druids-Morgan-Llywelyn/dp/0688088198/

<br />
The Celts - BBC Series Ep 1 - In the Beginning<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AU1dKfMIEUQ<br />
<br />
In the debut episode of the series, the program looks at how the Celts were the first European people north of the Alps to rise from anonymity. This program looks at who the Celts were, where they came from and what made their culture so distinctive.  [This goes into DNA, particularly as Bryan Sykes envisioned the Celts.  Some people who study DNA discount Sykes.]<br />
<br />
For 800 years, a proud, vibrant, richly imaginative warrior people swept ruthlessly across Europe. The ancient Greeks called them &quot;Keltoi&quot; and honored them as one of the great barbarian races. Follow their fascinating story from their earliest roots 2,500 years ago through the flowering of their unique culture and their enduring heritage today, enhanced with stunning reconstructions of iron-age villages, dramatizations of major historical events and visits to modern Celtic lands.<br />
<br />
The Celts were the first European people north of the Alps to rise from anonymity. This program looks at who the Celts were, where they came from and what made their culture so distinctive.<br />
<br />
The Celts - BBC Series Ep 2 - Heroes in Defeat<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVovskAh5QA<br />
<br />
In the third [sic - second] episode of the series, the program examines the heyday of the Celts, the La Tene era. It was tribal, and women were often the leaders: warriors, bards, druids, artists and craftsmen. Their little known settlements as well as their massive hill forts tell of inhabitants who traded within and beyond Europe. But then the Celts clashed with the Romans and highly developed culture fell apart.<br />
<br />
The Celts - BBC Series Ep 3 - Sacred Groves<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsHghGwdWNg<br />
<br />
In the third episode of the series, This episode discusses Celtic mythology, legend, and belief, namely the pagan religion, Druidism, and then the introduction of Christian faith to the Irish and Scots.<br />
 <br />
The Celts - BBC Series Ep 4 - From Camelot to Christ<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfY4-2zKY-g<br />
<br />
In the third [sic: fourth] episode of the series, the program looks at the slow collapse of the Roman Empire saw the arrival of new cultures which threatened the Celts. The program claims that the British king, Vortigern, invited the Anglo Saxons into Britain to help fight the Picts but they betrayed his trust and gradually took over the island.<br />
 <br />
The Celts - BBC Series Ep 5 - Legend and Reality<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_l5yFlEYds<br />
<br />
In the fifth episode of the series, the program looks at the 8th century onwards when the Celts were hammered by invasions by the Vikings and then the Normans. Following the Reformation in the 16th century, Celtic communities in Wales, Ireland and Brittany were marginalised in the push for political and religious unity in England and France.<br />
 <br />
The Celts - BBC Series Ep 6 - A Dead Song?<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wl7X4A_mNeU<br />
<br />
In the sixth episode of the series, this program examines the emergence, history, meaning and threats to the Celtic identity. Today the struggle to define an identity continues. This final segment is a discussion on the degree to which modern people may view themselves as Celts, with examples of modern Celtic-inspired practices like military discipline and warfare, the Welsh Eisteddfod, modern Irish music and art, and the efforts of the Bretons and Cape Bretoners to preserve their native languages in the face of societal assimilation by their ruling nations.<br />
 <br />
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<br />
<br />
Neil Oliver has a thick Scottish burr to his voice, so sometimes he's a bit difficult to understand until one gets used to the cadences with which he speaks.<br />
The Celts Blood Iron And Sacrifice With Alice Roberts And Neil Oliver - Episode 1 of 3<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA-itb5NwDU<br />
<br />
The Celts: Blood, Iron And Sacrifice with Alice Roberts And Neil Oliver - Episode 2 of 3<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGI6gud8MUo<br />
<br />
The Celts: Blood, Iron And Sacrifice With Alice Roberts And Neil Oliver - Episode 3 of 3<br />
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhkuLeobhXo<br />

>Interesting, any literature on this part of his life you'd recommend?

Yes, Andrew Graham-Dixon's A Life Sacred and Profane is a great read.

A few years ago I read this amazing book about Diane Arbus called Revelations. It was great because it discussed (with a multitude of photographs) her process and the day to day things that transpired. Often it would have an entire contact sheet of the images made, with a famous photo (like this one) right there. Like them or not, she really worked hard to get them. One day I have to buy that book. Its kind of expensive though. Relevant link if anyone is interested: http://www.amazon.com/Diane-Arbus-Revelations/dp/0375506209/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1375458513&sr=1-1&keywords=revelations+diane+arbus

I really enjoyed The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland. Here is the Amazon page with the summary.

The Art Spirit by Robert Henri. Amazingly articulate for an artist.

Letters to a Young Poet was ineffably helpful in learning to hold loneliness/solitude as something valuable. One of the most insightful books I have read. And it is extremely short.

There was an Art Detectives episode featuring what they believe is a test portrait of this work. I found it pretty neat.

Here is the US Amazon Prime link to the show. It's listed as Episode 1 of Season 3 (Devon) but the video linked on the page is switched with Episode 2.

I just finished a book on Motherwell . Anyone who is interested in abstract expressionism should consider picking it up.

The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss.

Examples.

I encountered it in Ways of Seeing, but I don't think they originated it.