What about Courbet’s Origin of the World? by Jacalyn Carley

Origin of the World, by Gustav Courbet (France), 1866.

What about Courbet’s Origin of the World?

What a place.
What a face in the crowd.
What theatre, so many entrances and exits.
What an idyllic landscape, rolling hills and all that.
What a place of worship.
What an offense to good taste.
What, a virgin?
What about sex?
What’s the title again?
What about the scientist’s dilemma: like beginnings and endings, chickens and eggs?
What great source material for a Bible study class.
What about sex?
What a serious discussion they had before she let Courbet set up shop between her legs.
What I would have given to have been there.
What happened in 1866 that inspired model and artist to create this work?
What could have better sufficed to forward the confabulation of the times on absolutes?
What is left to the imagination is far greater than what one supposes at first glance.
What’s wrong in this picture?
What’s not to like about it?
What about sex?
What about posing that question to the model?
What we know is that some say her head was cut off and later found, others say not true.
What is this painting doing here, displayed where so many innocents pass by every day?
What a place of honor.
What about sex?
What a success.

Jacalyn Carley

Jacalyn Carley is a writer living in Berlin. She has published four books (only available in German translation), a number of poems and short fiction, and is currently dedicated to writing about and drawing the human figure. She is On-site Director for Sarah Lawrence College 'Summer Arts in Berlin' study abroad program.  More about her: jacalyn-carley.com