Manisha Deuri Bharali
Professor: Swetha Antony English
13 April 2015
Female nude art in European Renaissance
There are many definitions for art; it has evolved from the pre historic time till our present timeline. Art is something which has no definite form, colour or structure. Art can be any kind depending on the artist creativity. Art as we can see are of many different forms it can be an oil painting on canvas, or a simple sketch, or may be a Biblical art, or art can be a of w perfect mathematical ratios presenting perfect body structures and many more. As Susan Rubin Suleiman says in his book, The Female body in Western Culture: ‘In the visual arts- from the prehistoric Venus of Willendorf to the countless representation of nymph,
…show more content…
Naked and nude !!!
We tend to hear these two words “naked and nude” interchangeably very frequently. So does the word depict the same meaning or are the words different in meaning? There is a huge differentiation made by different critics based on it. Technically speaking according to me it’s a simple thing which means that the human body is without clothes and covering as simple as that. But if we take it from an artist point of view a naked body is unprotected, uncomfortable, helpless, that person is vulnerable which I denote is unwilling nakedness.
Similarly nude means undressed by her own willingness. Nude is educated art. Supporting my statement I would like add up here the views of two famous critic’s Sir Kenneth Clarks and John Berger.
Kenneth Clarks reference to his book The Nude: A Study of Ideal Art which consists of six chapters, in his first chapter “The Naked and the Nude” Further in which he distinguished between representations of particular body (the naked) and art that represent an ideal body (the nude).
Clark says, “to be ‘naked’ is to be deprived of our clothes, and the word implies some of the embarrassment most of us feel in that condition. The word ‘nude,’ on the
…show more content…
A nude has to be seen as an object in order to be a nude. John Berger puts a Marxist spin on Clark’s formulation by reversing the value of the terms naked and nude. Clark valued the nude over the naked whereas Berger favoured nakedness to be ‘without disguise’, above nudity- a ‘form of dress’ that objectifies ‘women’ according to male-dominated, capitalist ‘ways of seeing’ (Berger
In Susan Bordo’s article, “Beatuy (Re)Discovers the Male Body”, she wittingly posits the industry of male modeling seen through advertisements as well as consumerism and the male body. According to Bordo, she starts off pointing out that the male body is not seen equivalent to the female body. For example, she states that the male body is a “commercial representation” (168) while the female body is “an object of mainstream consumption” (168). The Calvin Klein underwear ad, being Bordo’s first sight of an ad with a male body, points out the difference in how he is posed. Bordo views the model offering himself away to the gaze of another (170), which is usually different from the norm of how guys are portrayed.
The sculptures that were created of nude subjects were some of religious reason. Romans created their sculptures of their gods as nude in an ideal shape of beauty for Roman men and women. Though Aphrodite was the first sculpted nude woman or god to be created in the Roman era. It must be the content of which the images on the bronze doors are based on that encourages the craftsman to feature sexuality as wrong and
Julie Maroh is the talented author of Body Music. This graphic novel aims to express the realities of relationships. Maroh discusses in the introduction how stereotypes remind us how political the body and love is, also how she wants to write other realities and her own story (4). Throughout the novel there are numerous examples which could illustrate how she challenges physical, intellectual, and social stereotypes. Focusing on chapter six, “Fantasies of the Hypothetical”, will provide support that Maroh challenges the stereotypes that DeMello outlines in her chapter on “Racialized and Colonized Bodies”.
The Grande Odalisque is an oil painting from 1814 by Jean Ingres. The painting is of one of the most famous harem girls in the history of art. The girl is young, nude, and beautifully lounging in a luxurious environment with a turban on her head an a peacock feather fan in her hand. This painting is currently located at the Louvre Museum in Paris and can be found in any art history textbook. The word Odalisque in the title is a French term for a woman kept as a sex slave in a Turkish, Persian, or Arab harem.
Anne McClintock wrote her essay “Gonad the Barbarian and the Venus Flytrap: Portraying the female and male orgasm” to examine pornography and how it has changed throughout history and its effects on how women perform as sexual beings. McClintock focuses on the various roles of pornography such as its emphasis on voyeurism, pleasure, and the male ego. She wants her readers to know that women are still not represented in pornography to satisfy their own desires, but they are there to cater to men and their subconscious. I will analyze how McClintock argues that due to the history of sexism towards women, the roles that men and women have in pornography are inherently different because of the societal belief that women are only seen as objects of sexual desire and are solely there to satisfy the male audience.
While reading “The Trouble with (the Term) Art,” written by Carolyn Dean in the summer of 2006, we are taken through an array of different scenarios that lead us to questions what art really is. Dean explores the idea that the word “art” is used far too often and too habitually, and that as we study the non-Western cultures we need to use much more discretion regarding what we call the different pieces of their culture. Throughout the essay, Dean supports her thesis that we too often categorize non-Western pieces as art by using different examples of how certain non-art pieces were deemed as art throughout the course of their history. Dean does this by using four key examples of how these ancient pieces are inappropriately called art to successfully support her thesis and avoid biases.
Miranda Devine’s opinion piece ‘Modest Middleton Girls Impeccable’ published in the Sunday Herald, May 8th, 2011, argues that todays society had become “pornified” and role models such as The Middleton sisters are bringing back “sexiness by implication”. A patronising tone is adopted when Devine refers to the “over-peroxide” and “over-cleavaged” appearance of Generation Y girls. But when the author talks about the Middleton's sisters, she uses juxtaposition by adopting a more sensitive tone of appreciation and respect, commenting on the modesty and classiness of Kate and Pippa. Devine attempts to get her readers, older people in particular, to re-evaluate dressing and popular fashion culture, by commenting on the desirability of a female that
This not only gives men a reason to abuse the female body image. It also creates a sense of awe for the woman as it create insecurities... When opening up the newspaper the first image you see is of a topless woman with a quote saying “DELICIOUS DANNI” (pg.3). Through the lexicon used it connotes that women are ‘pieces of meat’ therefore dehumanising the woman for a sexual object, for them just to admire. This links in with otherness as it amplifies the male expectation of women’s bodies.
Melissa Febos' essay "The Wild, Sublime Body" demonstrates the complexity of the human body and the societal norms that attempt to control it. Her argument centers around the idea that the human body is a powerful and untamed force that should be embraced, rather than repressed, and throughout the essay, she uses personal anecdotes and vivid language to persuade her readers to reconsider their relationship with their bodies. In a world that often seems obsessed with body perfection and control, Febos' essay offers a refreshing and powerful perspective on the importance of embracing our bodies as they are and not caring about the societal norms that surround them. This essay will analyze the persuasiveness of Febos' argument and explain her
While this shyness tends to be somewhat sexist in nature, insofar that men are able to show much more skin than women, no one today, regardless of biological sex, would show up to their local fitness centre completely nude to exercise. However a double standard remains in modern culture in regards to nudity. Nude figures are showcased for advertising purposes; female bodies with little clothing are often displayed on billboards and in commercials aired on television to sell products such as alcohol, clothing, and sporting entertainment. Yet women cannot go shirtless in everyday life. Particularly in the United States female breasts are considered as sexual organs (even though they are not classified scientifically as such) and many women resort to participating in natural human activities such as breast-feeding infants in public restroom stalls and other disgusting places, often for the sake of male peace of
Introduction “The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity” from Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body by Susan Bordo (1993) introduces the discourses around the female body, and the different perspectives that influence this body. She goes on to explain that the body is a medium for culture, from which contemporary societies can replicate itself. In addition, Bordo (1993) provides continuous insight on how women have changed throughout the years to be more within societies norms, and how they have transformed so much to manage their bodies to becoming desirable within the culture. Throughout this essay, I will be explaining how women have for centuries, used there bodies as a means to rebel against these norms that have been placed upon them, such as being a typical housewife. For years, women have been discriminated against and unable to speak their opinion.
An Analysis on Pornographic Experience in William S. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) was more than just a homosexual who got away with murdering his second wife, Joan Villmer, after shooting her in the head. However, William Burroughs’s misogyny, misanthropy, and drug addiction flavour the literary works that made Burroughs a significant figure in American letters in the twentieth century. Burroughs was a renowned novelist, predominant member of the Beat movement. Though presented in a different manner, Burroughs’s Naked Lunch also provides a contestatory account of the sexual and pornographic that clearly transforms hidden, private sexual action into a public, external experience that achieves the utilitarian ideal of mutual social visibility. At the time of its publication in 1959, Burroughs’s Naked Lunch was faced with censorship due to its legal designation as an obscene work.
What is Body images in the first place? Body image is a person mental description
Since the artist painted the traditional nude to visually please the viewer, he positions the body in a primarily frontal view so as to offer the best view. Additionally, traditional nudes depicted women as allegorical or mythological figures who flaunted a
Kenneth Clark has voiced his opinion that to be naked is to be in a vulnerable situation; unclothed and ashamed. His assessment of nudity is the body disrobed and embraced. Clark gathers that the nude has endured in Western art because man will always dream about the perfect female body and will seek, neverendingly, to create one to suit their need for sexual arousal. Clark believes the nude is not demeaning to women because it is an art form that depicts ideal beauty. To him, portraying the realistic or natural elements of a woman brings nothing but disappointment.