Collage History

Furthermore, the artwork portrays the way how people conduct themselves in their daily activities and presents their common values and attitude to life. For instance, the sculpture can be related to the problem of women’s rights. Although the lady is utterly sexualized and objectified, it is done in a vulgar way of a kitsch, which makes a viewer to think about the status of woman in the modern society. In addition, utilizing recognizable celebrities as a selling point could be considered a type of self-irony and reflection on the contemporary status of art.

The essay Hair written by Maria Alderich, is an analysis of women during the 1950’s need to conform, rebel, or fit in to societies social standards and the inner conflict it caused in women’s identity. The essay is Alderich’s firsthand account of the females in her immediate family and how they use their hair styles to define themselves and represent their self-identity.

Barbara Kruger uses collage to create her artwork, Banksy uses stencil print and Gustav Klutsis uses photo montage. Although collage and photo

She repeatedly re-examines the woman’s roles in society and history, she doesn’t believe that her works have negative or explicit messages, which is why she leaves them untitled making them open to interpretation. In the late 1980’s she expanded her range to more gross subjects. I believe her works strongly support woman’s rights, which was, is still is a very important topic. She typically photographed herself in a range of costumes. To create her photographs, often times she would shoots alone in her workspace, taking on many roles such as make-up artist, director, talent, and so

In both Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale there is an emphasis on the impact of youth and beauty on the lives of the protagonists. It could be argued that these Gothic texts glorify the value of these themes, however an alternate reading supports the view that these texts primarily highlight the ‘dangerous’ implications of a society in which these values are idolized. The emphasis on the themes of youth and beauty is a key characteristic within the gothic literary tradition. For example, in significant gothic novels such as Frankenstein, the antagonist is treated with disdain as a result of his appearance, leading him to become a “murderer”. Similarly evidence is also found within Faustus through the portrayal of ‘Helen’; she leads Faustus to commit the ultimate sin of sexual intercourse with a demon.

Plastered on the tops of taxi cabs and magazine covers, a slim beautiful women pouts down at the littering of people bustling around. Often her head is cut out of the frame, or she is reduced to her body parts with only her chest or back showing. With long legs and a voluminous form, she is the essence of womanhood and emulates the modern women. Except, she doesn’t. Her arm brushed skin and contorted body is nothing like the average women she stares down at, and that's because she is a culmination of the male gazes influence of how a women should look and act throughout history. Womanhood has been influenced by the male gaze because women are brought up with symbols of women that are created by men. In western culture there is only male subjectivity

This careful study of Toulouse-Lautrec’s portrayal of women allows insight into his theme for the painting. As shown earlier, these women form a striking combination of actress

She has remarkably realistic features and proportions, as well as a short, but feminine hairstyle, womanly hips, and an expression of empowerment. Maybe this was not what the artist was trying to express, but the meaning changes through history, and yet, this piece can still relate to issues in society today (fig. 5).

At the time this painting was being done, modernism was taking place in France. The country was adopting new technologies like the car and train. At this time, women could not have a sense of modernity. If they were to experience it, it was likely that they would be disregarded. Through modernism a broad subject was opened in painting. This was fortunate for men and but not for women, who remained on one side of the window. Men had the freedom in their subject matter. Through modernism, more barriers were built for women to withhold them. It also connected society by ensuring that classes were integrated. The clarity of the paintings indicates how modernism was favoring men. As women still portray their lives us unfinished during the modernism era, the live of men was already

Once again this focal point is drawing attention to the ‘real woman’, and challenges the conventional beauty of women in this century. It also challenges the audience, about why women are not to be viewed, especially naked in their natural state, hairy, fat and imperfect for all to see. This unconventional presentation of the female body by Saville, may often cause many to turn away in disgust.

Some of the female artists profiled in this unit are all united in their quest of projecting a unanimous theme of reclamation of the female sexuality and identity. They conveyed the impression that female sexual objectification was no longer for male or societal consumption but for a purpose for women to feel empowered. They also had an immerse understanding of genderism and the power it has; especially under societal pressures. Thus, female artists came to understand the ideology of individualism and therefore pursued the art of liberation and identity that no longer tolerated under the scope of muscularity.

Major moments in his artistic life have been facilitated by his use of the female body, showing that Duchamp made this journey with the help of the female form by both using the male gaze on the female form and at the same time using the female form to challenge conventional views on gender, all which is just as complicated and confusing as Duchamp’s work.

Furthermore, he ‘experimented with prints for…subject matter…more undercurrent…under the radar’ (Burlingham in McQueen, 2014) in the art world. Grasset had used the medium since the 1880s and here, by using it for art and not for commercial purposes, he is reinventing printmaking. It is a move away from the Academic tradition of the ‘original artwork’ and creates a more egalitarian art for the masses. In ‘La Vitrioleuse’ and ‘La Morphinomane’, he presents us with ‘two examples of the Parisian female archetypes that are commonly illustrated as afflicting French society’ (Levesque, 2014) and they represent a marked move away from his previous depictions of women. Here, he ‘refuses to use the…woman as a mere ornamental motif…his model is the contemporary…Parisian woman’ (Plantin in Roos Rosa de Carvalho and Vellekoop, 2013: p110). However, his view is a misogynistic one as he demonstrates the dangers of society giving women freedom. These prints are part of the Art Nouveau movement and both depict women with wild, natural hair and arabesque

Although Potter’s work is at times autobiographical, her aim is to present common female perspectives related to the internal psyche. Potter draws on her own life experiences as well as the experiences of women friends to build identifiable narratives in the work. There are several groups of figures in Potter’s production, each with distinctive formal qualities and each using different materials or modeling methods. Although each group of figures has a different focus, all address the social and personal pressures experienced by women. The group of multi-coloured underglazed porcelain figures display more individual characteristics through details such as facial expressions, apparel or other trappings. Using humour and gentle satire, Potter sets up a vignette in each of these pieces. The women are seen performing rigorously to maintain the appearance of youthful beauty and the perception of “doing it all” with ease. Another set of figures includes attire embossed with nature motifs such as leaves and flowers - suggesting the natural cycle of growth, change and mortality inherent to all life. A group of figures without heads or facial identity places attention directly on the body speaking to the pervasiveness of body image angst in our culture. These forms exhibit physical cracks signifying aged skin, but also are indicative of stress fractures in the veneers employed to hide age. Ever present in

From the macabre description of New York and some of his inhabitants and the thermodynamic of some of Bellows paintings, the symposium proceeded under a different note that still analysed the body in relation to movement, in particular the female body in commercial art. Professor Jennifer Greenhill presented her paper Commercial Illustration’s Immaterial Bodies which focused on the commercial artist Coles Phillips and this imagery for the mass press where design is vital to attract any potential buyers. It was illuminating to discover this artist and some of his most characteristic works created with a fade-away technique where the body of women disappears in the background so dematerialising their bodies. Prof Greenhill provided an excellent overview of the artist as well as his technique and showed many eye-catching images that are still incredibly powerful in terms of graphic and design. Coles Phillips was a lawyer, a painter, but most importantly a graphic designer and his preferred technique was the watercolour; his pictorial technique consists in