The Impressionist artist, Edgar Degas created a series of pastel drawings of naked women washing and drying themselves in late 19th century Paris.

‘The nude has always been represented in poses which persuppose an audience. But my women are simple, honest creatures who are concerned with nothing beyond their physical occupations...it is as if you were looking through a keyhole at their innocence.’ Degas.

These works by Degas were both applauded and criticised at the time for the originality of the ‘ungainly positions’ the women were depicted, the painter’s perspective of the works, as if the viewer was looming over the women. this praise stemmed from an apparent inventiveness for the time in terms of their perspective, looking more like camera shots than classically composed figures posing in easily understood and conscious portraiture. In these paintings, there is a sense that the women’s pre-occupied bodies were being zoomed into without their knowledge. Degas never painted these women’s faces. His skill was applauded.

‘Women can never forgive me; they hate me, they feel that I am disarming them. I show them their coquetry.’ - Degas

Paint by numbers are self-contained painting kits designed to facilitate a pre-designed image. They generally include brushes, tubs of paint with numbered labels, and a canvas printed with borders and numbers. The user selects the color corresponding to one of the numbers then uses it to fill in a delineated section of the canvas, in a manner similar to a coloring book.

The act of ordering My submissive men to complete a paint by number kit for Me is a way for them to have an experience of art without being the artist, a relaxing activity for adults that bears no demands for creativity but instead relaxation. This is not unlike a john visiting a sex worker or a tourist visiting a city - a consumable experience of leisure that takes no responsability for the culture, politics or wellbeing of the place or the person you pay to visit.

It is widely understood that the women who posed for Degas were sex workers. Washing is one of the unseen labours of the sex work profession and women’s work, regardless of their labour, is often to clean up after men.

I have tried to discover the exact amount of works by Degas of women washing themselves but I cannot find a number, it is however - a lot. Does this classify as an obsession?

There is a bland innocuousness to these images of womens faceless, naked bodies being spied upon, the ordinariness of their naked bodies now fades into art history. And I suppose that is what is most insidious about abuse-its banality.

Who watches the watcher?

Reba Maybury, 2025