People often ask us who the greatest Shady Lady was. And it's a hard question, because there are lots of possibilities: famous royal mistresses like Diane de Poitiers or Madame de Pompadour, famous courtesans like Marie Duplessis (the original of the Lady of the Camellias...
The feminist concept of the "male gaze" is useful in art criticism. The concept originally comes from film studies, where it is used to discuss the fact that men traditionally controlled the camera, of which women were an object. Men certainly also controlled the brush...