Male Gaze In Alice Neel's Two Girls, Spanish Harlem

Alice Neel was a painter in the early twentieth century, who was a trendsetter among women at the time. Neel worked primarily in the form of portraits, landscapes, and still-lifes but most notably portraits. There are two theories to Alice Neel’s paintings that critics alike seem to always mention or try to push as the main concept. These concepts are called the Male Gaze, and Honest Alice. The Male Gaze derives from the idea that all content that is created for women is meant to satisfy the sexual desire or even just appeal to men more sensually about women in the world.According to Oxford Dictionary, the definition of the male gaze goes as following: “The perspective of a notionally typical heterosexual man considered as embodied in the audience or intended audience for

The painting I chose is entitled “Two Girls, Spanish Harlem”. This piece is an asymmetrical piece with two young girls posing. The color palette includes warm tones with mostly reds and oranges but also has some blues. There is little to no contrast outside of the black outline that flattens the image slightly. The two girls posing are posing as if they are waiting for someone, possibly for Alice Neel to finish the painting. Visually, their clothes are the only points of contrast between the complete image with the small white that pops out along with the grey dress. The only reason why the two in the image actually pop out from the background is because of the way the artists uses the paintbrush stroke and the direction it goes