Powers of Gender in Artworks
Gender became highly important issue for the modern society. Many discussions were started in attempts to prove one group is better than another at least in some issues like physical power, cognitive functions or ability to run a company. While discussions around this issue became more acute nowadays because of the vindication of the rights of women and other movements, old artworks show the topic goes back generations. There are many works that give men and women direct gender roles; some of them highlight consequences this separation creates. “Powers of Gender” or “Gender Roles and their Influence” would be a good theme for an art exhibition.
Venus and Adonis is a good choice for a centerpiece of such exhibition. The artwork, oil on canvas painted by Tiziano Vecellio around the middle of the 16th century, represents a mythological plot of love between goddess Venus and mortal man Adonis. Tiziano or Titian depicted a scene where the woman tried to talk her beloved man out of hunting. But her attempts were useless; Adonis went hunting and was killed by a wild boar, according to the description given by the J. Paul Getty Museum. The man is a central figure of the painting; Adonis’s face is the first thing most viewers mention when they see the work. His figure is highlighted by the red outfit. Adonis’s eyes shift viewers’ attention to Venus; the naked woman, who tries to hold her partner from an incautious step. Despite she is a goddess, Venus was
The authors in this week 's reading displayed an interestingly skillful use of logos, pathos, and ethos to help persuade the reader to share the writer 's viewpoint on gender equality. In certain works, a specific type of rhetorical appeal prevails over the others. A great example of this is Judith Sargent Murray 's "On the Equality of the Sexes." In this work, she primarily utilizes logos to support her main point that males are not mentally superior to women. Once again, logos is an appeal to logic, in which the author attempts to persuade the audience with evidence and valid reasoning.
In the painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes, from 1612, shows the perspective of a woman artist, in a male dominated society, and her method of showing women as heroes. Likewise, the fact that she may have been targeted by men, who deemed her below them, and that she suffered rape and embarrassing trial, resulted in an aggressive depiction towards the man. Before and after this period, women struggled to receive fair treatment and opportunities to excel in the Arts, but she was able to succeed lacking those opportunities offered to men. Future generations of women, now, could reference a role model other than men, and influence a new dimension of art.
In a time where social strictures denied most women a future in the field of visual arts, Harriet Hosmer defied all social convention with her large scale success in neoclassical sculpting. At a young age, Hosmer had already developed a striking reputation, one that qualified her to study abroad in Rome under the tutelage of renowned sculptor John Gibson. As if this opportunity wasn’t rare enough for women artists in her day, Hosmer’s outstanding potential earned her the luxury of studying from live models.6 The respect she gained from taking this unconventional route to her success is one that entirely transformed society’s perception of women. Not only did her unique story serve as a catalyst in the progression of gender equality, but she also hid symbolic messages within each of her sculptures to find a way to penetrate her beliefs of equality through to any soul.3 As the National Museum of Women in the Arts perfectly captures, “[s]he preferred Neoclassical idealism to more naturalistic trends and rendered mythological and historical figures, such as Oenone, Beatrice Cenci, and Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, with nobility and grandeur.
It is important to know why a piece is primarily created as well as the messages behind them. Reclaiming Female Agency is all about why something is initially created and the reason behind the artist’s style. For them it is just as important to the piece being named for the artist. Broude and Garrard along with all the artist they used to feel that if the artist was raised by an artist or had great tragedies happen to them as important to what they created and why. One artist’s story that stuck with me was Artemisia Gentileschi and what was also said about women killing men and others by Garrard.
Introductory Paragraph Context: For centuries, women have been unjustly considered inferior to men and have had to cope with many inequities. While they have gradually gained more rights, the Industrial Revolutions have created new ways for men to exploit women and have made women even more dependent on their husbands. Thesis: This poem accurately describes the gender roles for European men and women in the late 19th Century. The poem reflects gender roles for men and women pertaining to their jobs, education and domesticity and how women were treated as inferiors to men regarding to these topics. 2.
Heather Owen Professor Lori Morrow Hum 2113 14-02-2018 The Venus of Willendorf For my first web search essay I chose to write about the Venus of Willendorf. The reasoning behind why I chose to write about this topic is because I feel like it is a sculpture that speaks volumes to the culture and time and what was thought of women in the Paleolithic time. I used to the website www.khanacademy.org to help guide me in writing this essay.
Made from parian marble sculpted separately before being fixed with vertical legs, this piece of art is usually thought to portray Aphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess of physical love and beauty. Venus de Milo is a statue of a naked woman with no arms, restoration experts have said that the statues arms and original base or plinth have been lost almost since the work arrived in Paris in 1820. It has been said that this was partly due to an error of identification because when the statue was originally reassembled, the other pieces that came of the left hand and arm were not believed to belong to it because of their overall rough appearance. This goddess is often shown with mystery, her attitude always tends to be unknown. However to this day, many experts are confident that these additional pieces were part of the original work of art despite the variation in the final product since it was often common to spend less time and effort to the parts believed to be less visible of a sculpture, Many sculpture reconstruction experts guess that the separately carved right arm of the Venus de Milo laid across her torso with her right hand rested on her raised left knee, hence her clasping the clothing covering
In past years, women have always been considered to be less than man when it comes to working and having the same abilities. For women, different opportunities were uncommon and they usually were not allowed to work on a man’s job. This was considered to be the long-term effects of gender inequalities, which also included discriminations and differences in job payments, opportunities to study, or even to publish written works or artworks made by women. In past times, women had to hide their names whenever they wanted to have their artwork shown. Generally, women were not allowed to be recognized or known for something that used to be in a man’s world.
Femininity has always been directly related to masculinity. Whether they are building off of each other or tearing each other down, they are usually being compared in some way. Usually, the argument is over which has more power. Writings in these time periods were usually oriented around the masculine construct. However, there are a few distinct works that break the norms and give us insight on how femininity was constructed in those time periods.
It witnessed a tremendous change in the ideal female body image, which also changed from one decade to another. In The twentieth century, women started gaining more rights and expressing themselves more, witnessing a rise in women’s movements and newly formed organizations, a new generation of female artists, photographers, and writers. Females were emerging out of the set boundaries that the society had set for them and joined the workforce, contributing a lot to society. This offset feminine freedom was reflected through the way women represented themselves.
Jones describes the techniques Manet adopted, which is juxtaposing light colours from dark colours and eliminating the half tones in his artworks. He then changes his focus to Olympia’s gaze, critically commenting that “ her big black pupils are uneven in size, this asymmetry is enhanced by the decoration in her hair and the turn of her head.” And that her gaze is “the hardest to take in”. Similarly to Goldstein’s analysis on the artwork, Jones provides a comparison between Titian’s “Venus of Urbino” to the recontextualized “Olympia” in saying that Manet replaces details that "the loyal sleeping dog in the Titian painting becomes Olympia’s startled cat; Venus’s braids become Olympia’s tied hair”. He then critically states that “everything in Titian is soft, everything in Olympia’s world is hard and
In this picture, Sherman brought the stereotype of women roles in daily life, and the woman in this picture provided a role of independent and confident. Sherman overturned the position of men and women through these paintings, which can improve women’s position in our society and also can prove that gender equity problem is changing, women are having profound influence in our society.
Ancient plays throughout different cultures in history contained all male cast, failing to even cast women as they were deemed inferior. Tradition held that the culture in western societies restricted women’s roles. Even as female characters were indeed written in certain plays, the role were portrayed by a male. They regarded women being able to portray these roles as dangerous and that having men play them “neutralized” the danger it possessed. The Greek’s and the Roman’s both held these views making it impossible for women to be on stage.
This also ties into the fact that bodies are natural things, and we should not be afraid of them. This painting was practically all occupied organic space, except for manmade buildings that are actually colored light brown to blend in. The mood of this painting is serene and natural, because of the calm expression on Venus’s face and all the nature around her. The focal point of this picture, Venus’s face and upper body capture the viewer to really examine the painting and think about what it is trying to convey to
1.2 Background Females are an integral part of human civilization. No society or country can ever progress without an active participation of female in its general development. The status of female in society is directly linked with social and cultural traditions, stages of economic development achieved, educational levels, attitude of the society towards women, social and religious taboos, women's own awareness and political attainments. Through the centuries, the image and the role of female have been observed and studied in various ways, and the acquired knowledge has been recorded in literature, works of art, religious texts, mythology and codes of social behaviour.