Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking

Product Information

To most people it will not come as a surprise that historically, most famous artists were men, that women were not allowed to study the fine arts, and that the few female artists that existed received little if any attention. The well-known exceptions are Artemisia Gentileschi and Berthe Morisot. It has mostly been men who decide the restrictive roles women are assigned, confining them to be Venus, bride, wife, mother, child, or monster. Interpretations of classical art would be so much stronger if debate had previously been encouraged rather than dismissed. Debate about interpretations of classical art should be advocated not only in art history classes, offering a modern interpretation and view of the subject alongside viewing through the lens of the place and time during which it was created. The premise was exciting but the actual story felt so nonsensical. The story was told through alternating chapters of Henry and Miranda’s perspective. But Miranda is chasing her Father’s story so it felt so disjointed. The plot itself felt worthless. I’ve finished the book and I still don’t even know what it’s about. It felt so needlessly abstract that it was just hard to digest. In Chapter 4, Medusa, Lilith, Circe, and other 𝗠𝗼𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘂𝘀 women make appearances as well as 𝐾𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐸𝑣𝑒’s Villanelle, moving on to the reclamation of female power and sexuality with Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s 𝑊𝐴𝑃.

Book review of “Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with

This is a highly opinionated book. It examines how the female body has been portrayed over the centuries using themes like Venus (the seductive look), Motherhood (puritanical and housekeeping), Maidens (but this was more on rape), and Monstrous women (those who stray out of the norm – witches).I couldn’t believe that it was the year 2022, and people were still vilifying aging in women and getting adulation for it.

Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking

For those interested there is the “National Museum of Women in the Arts” dedicated solely to female artists in Washington DC. The “Venus “ archetype that sexualizes and objectifies women and sets the Eurocentric , unattainable beauty standards for women. Interestingly, in the movie X, there is also this pairing of the old murderous, sex-crazed fiend and the alluring and youthful woman, and …they are played by the SAME ACTRESS. It’s hard to not see it as a resurrection of the damaging Hans Baldung Grien painting.) I want to re-emphasize that the author raises a number of very valid issues. When reading I could not help thinking of the Confederate monuments that glorify those who wanted to preserve slavery – and are now in the process, in some States in the U.S., of being removed.A timely, succinct, aesthetic inquiry into debates about sexuality, objectification, and representation. There were, however, “certain moments and certain places” in which conditions were more favourable to female artists, and the show aims to offer “a series of windows through which we can see a mutual understanding and a camaraderie between artists, gallery owners and patrons”. If an artist is truly great they will get there, if given the right platform. You’ve just got to put energy into it” Alison Jacques This exhibition speaks positively of that other half of art history,” said the exhibition’s curator, the art historian and critic Rocío de la Villa.

WOMEN IN THE PICTURE | Kirkus Reviews

While traditional explanations are fine, a more socially enlightened explanation and interpretation should be available alongside it, so that particularly impressionable school children understand the art from within the time it was created and are conscious of historically antiquated values, while considering today’s society.Later, Malleus Maleficarum influenced the German artist Hans Baldung Grien, whose grotesque wood prints of withes became wildly popular . Chapter one explores the archetypal Venus of Western art, starting with the 𝑹𝒐𝒌𝒆𝒃𝒚 𝑽𝒆𝒏𝒖𝒔, through Botticellis’s 𝑩𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒉 𝒐𝒇 𝑽𝒆𝒏𝒖𝒔, to 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑽𝒐𝒚𝒂𝒈𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝑽𝒆𝒏𝒖𝒔 and examples of misogynoir (Kim Kardashian’s Paper magazine cover) and Gillette's “𝐼’𝑚 𝑌𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑉𝑒𝑛𝑢𝑠” commercials. Cultural archetypes have long been used to subjugate women, binding them within the restrictive roles of Venus, bride, wife, mother, and monster. These portrayals echo throughout the paintings and sculptures of western art—Titian, Botticelli, and Giambologna—and more contemporaneously in fashion photographs, ads, and across social media. By society empowering men to represent women, women imbibe a distorted vision of themselves and their bodies, coming up against notions of impossible beauty, idealized passivity and violence, and horrifying Medusas. This book is a blast, informative and fascinating, and introduced me to a collection of classic paintings and modern artworks that I had never heard about, but now definitely want to see in person. I recommend it to for art-historians familiar with (certain) paintings and people dipping their toes in.

women: Madrid show puts forgotten artists in the picture Hidden women: Madrid show puts forgotten artists in the picture

This part didn't answer my questions and was repetitive, but here I was not the target audience anyway. Essential reading ... gripping, inspirational, beautifully written and highly thought-provoking' Dr Helen Gørrill, author of Women Can't Paint The second chapter looks at mothers and the construction of motherhood through appearance (a mother who looks beautiful is a good mother). Not to mention iconic imagery of the ‘Madonna and Child’ and depictions of the Virgin Mary being in only two instances: the piety of Jesus’ birth and the grief of his death. This chapter also looks at the ‘angel of the house’ in which mothers care for everyone but themselves unless paid or enslaved workers take over the role. Mothers are then un-autonomous machines with no sexual availability as it highlights women as organic (unlike the inorganic venus) unless fetishised (e.g MILF's). My assumption is that today, works of art influenced by culture and works of art influencing culture are not easily distinguishable. That's why discussions of sexism in modern art and media and pop culture, and blaming Renaissance artworks - which are mostly reflections of their own time and culture - without considering politics, economics and other intersectional topics, were not convincing.

And the “Maiden and Dead Damsels” archetype that aesthetizes the suffering of women and perpetuates the ideal of “ purity”. I was horrified not because of the violence and gore, but because its subject matter: the villainizing of woman’s aging body and elderly woman’s sexual desire, which was at the core of the film.