Analysis: Bay Area Figurative Movement

I think about how the world had betrayed this women. They made this woman plump and empty, she does not even have a face. This statue is nude showing everything to the naked eye, she does not have a desirable body. This sculpture shows how much a woman was respected back in the day, which was very little.

With the sculpture straight ahead, the audience sees a profile view of the scene; however, the artist created the sculpture with enough space and depth to be able to view the front of the woman’s face from a side angle. The artist created the seated woman with much detail; her nose, chin, slightly opened mouth, pronounced brow line and inset eyes show this. She reaches for the chest with her right arm in a very delicate manner as her left arm lays on the throne for support.

The statues, Heyl Aphrodite and Capitoline Gaul, both contain human-like features, but only one shows the ideal woman figure. By observing Heyl Aphrodite, viewers notice her soft, curvaceous figure. Her body is proportional creating balance and harmony. Fabric hugs the goddess’s body, draping over her right breast, while exposing the left, conveying a sense of sexuality. Her lack of eye contact expresses weakness, while her body posture, with the aid of the fabric, shows movement. Merker compares the artwork in her book, when she writes, “The raised right shoulder gives a sense of movement; although there is no torsion, one feels there ought to be and is reminded of the unstable, twisting movement of the Heyl Aphrodite in

The woman depicted in the sculpture stands straight and tall. Her large scale along with her posture gives her a powerful appearance. Her expression is serene and composed. She does not exhibit much emotion. Instead, she is shown as being stoic and controlled. She looks straight ahead, and her entire body points forward.

She is reasonably proportioned, as the span of her arms seems to match the length of her body, and she is about eight heads tall. Her pose is relaxed and somewhat graceful; her head is pointed down, her right arm is bent at the elbow and she holds a piece of fabric in hand. The figure’s partially bent left leg makes it look like she started to walk toward the pond with the intention of getting in but caught sight of her reflection and stopped to look; she planted her left foot, outstretched her left arm and rested the respective hand on a

large it dwarfs her, and behind to her left is a massive statue of a

Seated Nude is a terracotta sculpture on a black marble base. Housed at the Museum of Modern art it stands 6” long 8 1/8” tall and 3 ½” wide. The piece features a woman seated on a ground with her right arm extended back propping her up. Her other arm is bent and behind her head. The left leg is bent in an inverted “V” with her foot on the ground. The right leg is bent lying flat on the ground and going in-between the “V” of her other leg. Her face, hair, hands, and feet are not heavily detailed; however her features are clearly defined. The hair is pulled back with rounded hair in a circle around her head,

To allay any doubt concerning Parr’s standing as a figure modeller, the author directs the reader’s attention to an article published in 1929, which extols the virtues of Parr’s figurative work. It was written by the notable art critic, Malcolm C Salaman, who in his The Studio magazine article, champions Parr’s work. However, as much of Salaman’s argument has already been addressed in this book. The following paragraph gives an indication of Salaman’s opinion of Parr and his work:

What catches my senses is her beauty and her impressive size. When viewed from far it looks tiny however, from close range it is an amazing sculpture. From the pedestal to the top it measures 305 feet and 6 inches, with the face measuring over 8 feet tall and weighs 225 tons. The fact that she is more than just a monument; a symbol of freedom, it makes anyone continue to learn more about her.

The nude female piece of work that I chose is figure 2-20 Great American Nude. The content is showing many more objects other than just the female. There are several things on a night stand because she is in a bed. The work is more abstract and cartoon like. The woman is illustrated without eyes and a nose. In the other paintings it looks like the females are trying to hide their nakedness. In the Great American Nude particularly she is proud of it or just waking up.

I barely trace my fingers along the raw and frigid curves of the bust. They instinctively follow the harsh edges that define the woman’s décolleté, inside the concavities of the collarbone. My fingers retract into a tight fist, as I kneeled down to admire the sculpture’s subtle details - the subdued simplicity of her fine curls and how they accented her defined features, and the protruding brow bone harmonizing with the lacklustre eyes. Footsteps bounce off the carven mahogany walls, adding undertones of life to the otherwise transfixed woman. The shadows I cast upon her fall in flawless, practiced unison - a gradient and geometric pattern resting upon the ivory marble, creating a juxtaposition between the softness of her expression to the

A major theme that can be seen through Mutu’s collection of works is femininity and an emphasis on a strong female narrative. Mutu uses her artwork to show her journey as a women artist. She toys with the Western culture’s idea of the ideal female by distorting her female characters through her collages combining fantasy and mystical characteristics. By using common day items from cutout magazines and reinventing their purposes through her collages, demonstrates how different cultures, although each having its own individuality can combine. Mutu dismembers the normal female body and reconfigures it to express her idea or theme she’s tackling. Inside the exhibit, I found Humming hung on a large divider next to Mutu’s Suspended Playtime, balls made from garbage bags hung from the ceiling. Humming, easily able to be overlooked due to its distracting neighbor, luckily caught my attention. Each female figure is created through hundreds of intricate details and different pieces signifying how women are constantly exposed to different ideals that continue to change, as well as putting emphasis on the individuality of each female. The female figure stands on the right-hand portion of the painting,

We can see the prominence of the muscles with carefully articulated body parts. The artist paid careful attention to human anatomy when creating this statue. He was also sure to follow the idealized body the Hellenistic period with pronounced muscle and large feet. Another convention of the Hellenistic period is how animated he is, with his pose and expression being very dynamic. He is also in good proportion and is accurate to the natural human form. We see that the chest and torso are a little under 2/3rd’s the 50” sculpture. This would make his chest around 30 inches (2 and a half feet) which would be considered average for males making this sculpture life size. The man also has a beard and curly locks of hair. This is the most stylized part of the rendering, as the way the hair is clumped is into sections and is symmetrical on both sides of the head. This choice is likely made because of the difficulty of interpreting hair on a sculpture. Also, the hair is noticeably the only part of the body with an exception to the smooth texture, attracting our eye towards his face. This is because the texture of the beard is made with deep, wavy grooves to show strands of hair. Lastly, on the face, we notice the eye sockets are empty, this is likely due to glass marbles or some other material once filling the

The era of Mannerism is renown for its increasingly complex works of art, much like the High Renaissance before it, and the discipline of sculpture is no exception. Out of this period comes more intricate poses, forms, and emphasis on the illusion of movement which is perhaps most evident in Giambologna's "The Rape of the Sabine Women". His sculpture depicts a young man attempting to carry a struggling young woman as he stands over the contorted body of an older man, either the woman's husband or father. What is interesting about this work is not only the realistic human forms and perceived chaos of the moment, but also the lack of a dominant side from which this sculpture would be viewed. In order to achieve these features, Giabologna utilizes a combination of various textures and diagonal lines to create the complete illusion of muscle, flesh, energy, and multiple focus points.

First, Manet transformed the goddess-like image of the nude female by painting the female as a modern Parisian woman with curves and less flattering features such as more body fat. Manet also has the female figure at the focal point of the painting gazing as if looking straight at the audience. “The gaze” from the woman figure gives the illusion that the woman is making eye contact with the viewer. This gaze by the nude female gives her the appearance that she is strong, bold, and challenging in contrast to the