This essay will compare and contrast two works of art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art that raise the question of the role in gender in art. The first is Edgar Degas’s, A Woman Seated Beside a Vase of Flowers painted in 1865, an oil on canvas. The second is Berthe Morisot’s, Young Woman Seated on a Sofa painted around 1879, also an oil on canvas. Both of these artworks have similarities in subject matter and composition; they both contain a seated woman and flowers. Their differences, however, make the two paintings seem like they are hardly about the same subject at all. The differences between Degas’s A Woman Seated Beside a Vase of Flowers and Morisot’s Young Woman Seated on a Sofa are indicative of not just how different Impressionists portrayed the same subject different ways, but more importantly, how the artist’s gender affects the portrayal of woman in their paintings, that male artists had a tendency to show woman in ways that suggested decoration, instead of actual entities in the world they occupied.
One of the first thing that one notices in looking at these paintings is the differences in application of paint, that Degas’s painting appears to be carefully controlled as opposed to Morisot’s which seems more spontaneous. In Degas’s painting the brushstrokes are controlled and deliberate, particularly in concern to the flowers in the vase. Degas has clearly put a large amount of effort in making the blooms look as detailed as possible, both in form and texture. Even in places where the brushstrokes have a “sketchy” quality to them (most notably in the woman’s outfit) the sketchiness is one of deliberate contour lines. Morisot’s painting, on the other hand, the brushstrokes are far looser, and they more closely repres...
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...k. She exists to balance the composition, the colors of her clothes balance the cloth on the table, and the color of her hat balances the flowers. Her presence blocks the door behind her, allowing Degas to add a window without having to worry about the viewer’s eye lingering away from the flowers. She is too distant for the viewer to have any hope of an interaction. This can lead to a viewer perceiving her as an afterthought, so completely inconsequential her existence in the painting seems. Meanwhile, Morisot’s painting not only has the woman interact with us, but also gives her control over the viewer’s presence by the use of the fan. While there certainly are decorative elements to her (the pale blue of her dress balances the blue of the door behind her) but that is clearly not her only role in the composition. In this circumstance, that makes all the difference.
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1654?) was one of the most important women artists before the modern period and certainly one of the most famous female painters from the seventeenth century. Gentileschi’s paintings regularly featured women as the protagonists acting in a manner equal to men. In fact, forty nine of her paintings fall into this category. She was raped at the age of 18 and the subsequent events lent her a certain amount of notoriety. These factors have led many to interpret her artwork as an expression of her role as a female victim looking for revenge through her art. Instead, a closer examination of Gentileschi’s life and her artwork exposes the artist as an individual with personal strength and incredible talent who painted subjects similar to or the same as those of her male counterparts, instead of staying within the guiding principles of what was acceptable “feminine” art.
Contextual Theory: This painting depicts a portrait of life during the late 1800’s. The women’s clothing and hair style represent that era. Gorgeous landscape and a leisurely moment are captured by the artist in this work of
The painting depicts a mother and her four children, who are all leaning on her as she looks down solemnly, her tired, despondent expression suggests she felt trapped in her roles as being a mother and a wife. The woman and her children are clearly the focal point of the artwork as the bright colours used to paint them stand out impeccably against the dull, lifeless colours of the background. This painting appears to be centred around the ideology that women are home-keepers, whose main role is to satisfy and assist her husband while simultaneously minding the children and keeping the home tidy and ready for his return. The social consequences of this artwork could have been that the woman could have been berated for not taking pleasure out of being a mother and raising her children, as a woman should. She could have been made redundant as her husband may have felt as though she is no longer useful if she couldn’t adequately adhere to her roles as a mother and a
Prior to the 20th century, female artists were the minority members of the art world (Montfort). They lacked formal training and therefore were not taken seriously. If they did paint, it was generally assumed they had a relative who was a relatively well known male painter. Women usually worked with still lifes and miniatures which were the “lowest” in the hierarchy of genres, bible scenes, history, and mythological paintings being at the top (Montfort). To be able to paint the more respected genres, one had to have experience studying anatomy and drawing the male nude, both activities considered t...
Throughout Salvador Dali’s life he made many meaningful relationships, and one of these was that of Robert Descharnes a French photographer. Dali and Descharnes worked together on a film called, “L’aventure prodigieuse de la dentellière et du rhinocéros” that was based on Dali’s theories (Lazarus). This was only the beginning of their forty year friendship. Descharnes would help Dali by taking photographs of whatever he might paint, draw or write about. Dali would take these photographs and use them to to start a painting, and then add his own twist and style to each, more than what we could naturally see in the photo. Descharnes tells in an interview that he help to start a few of Salvador’s paintings, and even finished on for him as a collaborator
In Rossetti’s poem “In an Artist’s Studio”, she illustrates a man in the art studio surrounded around his canvases. On each of his canvases, he has painted the same woman in different positions, as depicted in, “One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans” (Rossetti 104). This man continuously paints the same women, each time depicting her differently as demonstrated, “A saint, and angel…” (Rossetti 104). Similarly, in McKay’s poem he illustrates for the readers, a dark skinned, half clothed woman dancing. Both of these poems focus on how men view women, and how men idealize women for their beauty, or some other desirable part of them. Both of these poets express that men do not appreciate the wholeness and complexity of both of these women. McKay’s idealized woman is also a woman of colour, which may lead into a discussion of race gender, and sexuality. In Rossetti’s poem, the artist “feeds upon” (Rossetti 104) the object of his affection, “not as she is, but as she fills his dreams” (Rossetti 104). Also, McKay’s narrator idealizes her physical beauty and describes how everyone “devoured” her beauty, even though “her self was not in that strange place” (McKay 18). The main difference is that McKay’s narrator sees his desired woman as having “grown lovelier for passing through a storm” (McKay 18), whereas Rossetti’s artist uses his art to wash away the pain-and by extension, the
This investigation will examine a few key works by the anonymous female artist group know in popular culture as the Guerrilla Girls. In this essay it will reveal several prominent themes within the groups works that uncover the racial and gender inequalities in politics, art and pop culture with the use of humor. These collaborating artists work and operate with a variety of mediums, their works display a strong message concerned with activism connected by humor allowing the Guerrilla Girls to communicate and resonate a more powerful message to the viewer. The ways in which this collaborating group has employed many questions and facts against the hierarchy and historical ideologies which have exploited women and their roles in art. This investigation will allow the reader to identify three areas in which the Guerrilla Girls apply a certain forms of humor to transform society’s view on the prominent issue of gender in the art world. These specific ploys that are performed by the Guerrilla Girls are in the way they dress, the masks they wear, pseudonymous names of dead women artists and the witty factual evidence in their works. These are all examples to evoke audiences in challenging not only the art society which dictates the value and worth of women in art but also to confront yourself and your own beliefs in a way that makes audiences rethink these growing issues.
There was no serious effort to train women for professional careers in art, because of the enormous social pressure for women to become homemakers. The very fact that women in general were not given enough opportunities is demonstrated by what Marie Bracquemond, a student of the famous artist Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, said in 1860, “The severity of Monsieur Ingres frightened me… because he doubted the courage and perseverance of a woman in the field of painting… He would assign to them only the painting of flowers, of fruits, of still life’s, portraits and genre scenes.”
Adèle Ratignolle uses art to beautify her home. Madame Ratignolle represents the ideal mother-woman (Bloom 119). Her chief concerns and interests are for her husband and children. She was society’s model of a woman’s role. Madame Ratignolle’s purpose for playing the pia...
The shadowed interior of a stately manor opens up into a charmingly detailed world of imperial proportions. Barely in focus are immense classically inspired works about the divine source of creativity elevated near the top of the room, flanked on the bottom by the undefined reflections of a man and woman in a mirror. Six figures occupy the foreground, middle-ground, and background of the picture plane, the most notable of them all being a precious and angelic looking youth dressed in an exquisite silver dress. One of the most recognized works by Spanish Court Painter and Realist Diego Velázquez in 1656, “Las Meninas”, translated as The Maids of Honor, is famous for being thought provoking, one look at the massive oil painting will tell you
Aristotle once claimed that, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Artists, such as Louise-Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun and Mary Cassatt, captured not only the way things physically appeared on the outside, but also the emotions that were transpiring on the inside. A part no always visible to the viewer. While both artists, Le Brun and Cassatt, worked within the perimeters of their artistic cultures --the 18th century in which female artists were excluded and the 19th century, in which women were artistically limited-- they were able to capture the loving relationship between mother and child, but in works such as Marie Antoinette and Her Children and Mother Nursing her Child 1898,
Monet and Degas' earlier works have notably different brush stroke styles. While Monet has tended to lean towards the short, choppy and yet delicate, Degas’ strokes blended virtuously unnoticeable. However, these seem to correspond with their earlier themes and objectives. Monet mastered the art of illustrating waves with his brush stroke style, Degas, the curve of a woman’s body or the sheer coat of a young colt. The colours chosen by either artist’s match the scenes they tend to choose to paint. Degas normally chose colours that would show deep contrast between the background and foreground. Monet chose colours the gently blended and showed vibrancy but that created a kind of stable balance in the greater part of his paintings. Degas’ brushstrokes a...
The proportions of the painting are done in an unusual way. The three flowers in the painting are much larger than the women, despite the fact that they are all at a similar height on the
Throughout the 20th century, aesthetic expressions have been admired and observed by everybody. Whether your favorites are a film, a painting, a play, or even a song, beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. The expression where I found beauty and truth is in the painting, “Girl before a mirror” painted by Pablo Picasso in 1932. Through my eyes, there are certain elements that affect its aesthetic value, these include the origins of which it came, the overall characteristics of the painting, how the time and place influenced Picasso, and the consequences and influences that this painting has created throughout the world since.
The gestural and heavy working of the paint and the contrasting colors make the painting appear active yet are arduous to follow. The defining element of Woman and Bicycle is the presence of the black lines that do most of the work in terms of identifying the figure. Through the wild nature of the brushwork, color, and composition of the painting, it can be implied that the artist is making an implication towards the wild nature of even the most proper of women.