Nudity In Art: Vanessa Beecroft

In totality, I agree with her thesis that “the total nudity offered at birth does not exist in any region of the world.” And that “the body is not a product of nature, but of culture.” Body modifications is still a relevant and constant part in today’s

As you begin Beauty (Re) discovers the Male Body your read of author Susan Bordo spilling her morning coffee over a shockingly sexual advisement of a nude man. Initially, I rolled my eyes and settled in assuming, I was going to read about the tragedy of how men are now being objectified and exposed in adverting like women. As I flip through the pages looking at the scantily clad images I’m not really shocked; this essay was written fifteen years ago; I see these kinds of images going to the mall. What was shocking, however, was how Bordo a published, woman philosopher born in 1947 wrote about these images. I felt myself blush as I read “it seems slightly erect, or perhaps that’s his nonerect size, either way, there’s a substantial presence

In fact, these people reference that Fernando Botero once “mistakenly” described his figures as “fat” in an interview by saying "They're fat figures, to use the favourite words." (Hilbrenner, n.d.). While many argue that it is a slip of the tongue, it strengthens their notion that Botero is essentially obsessed with fat women, not “volumetric” figures. It is also true that a significant portion of Botero’s work does portray nude women in particular. Some argue that female bodies are in fact full of features that appeal to Fernando’s volumetric manipulation. As such, it is not outlandish to explain his obsession with their

The post-modernist Julie Rrap is a contemporary artist whose focal point rests on the basis of femineity and the way the female identity is represented historically within art. She is a feminist who accuses the ‘male gaze’ of instigating a predatory activity that is accustomed with the norm of society. She relates this norm to existing social structures that are attributed with a patriarchal society, where women were nothing more than sexual objects. All in all this term, the ‘male gaze’ evaluates the predatory voyeurism of society, where the male is the active subject and the female is a passive object of representation.

Despite evident differences in the compositional elements of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles and Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, both utilise a composition with a shallow plane to distort visual perception in their work. This distortion promotes the spectator to revaluate the way they perceive these female prostitute subjects. Picasso’s treatment of paint and use blocked colours in Les Demoiselles creates the sensation of a flat, two-dimensional image, signifying a radical break from traditional modes of representation. The lack of depth in the painting pushes the figures of female prostitutes on top of each other, layering the stark angles and sharp forms that make up their bodies. In addition, this layering on such a large scale (243.9 cm × 233 cm) creates a feeling that the figures are pushing beyond the boundaries of the work and imposing themselves onto the spectator. Furthermore, the stances of the prostitutes, who are dramatically flaunting their bodies with arms raised and torsos presented openly, fills the frame, refusing the spectator to accesses to other areas of the image. Instead the female figures dominate the attention of the viewer, in some ways empowering these figures who previously lacked representation. These formal elements of composition all come together in Les Demoiselles to challenge the spectator’s ways of viewing the females in the work.

In this paper I will evaluate two artworks that share the same theme of “motherhood and breastfeeding.” In the last few years, the sexualization of breastfeeding has become a big issue. This is due to people see breast as sexual objects and think that women are being exhibitionist, and are doing it just to flaunt their breasts in public. Breastfeeding mothers are faced with the public criticism as they struggle to breastfeed their child, although it is the most natural and healthy method of feeding. The first artwork is by Mary Cassatt and is titled Mother Rose Nursing her Child. This painting was created in the 1900s and it depicts a woman breastfeeding her child. The second piece is a contemporary portrait created by Catherine Opie titled Self-Portrait Nursing. The portrait depicts a modern mother also nursing her child. When comparing both of these pieces of art I plan to focus on the beauty of motherhood and the bond between mother and child. In this paper I will discuss the social issue of mother’s being criticized for breastfeeding in public. Now more than ever women’s breasts are being overly sexualized when they are not a sexual organ, but in fact a part of their body used to feed another human being.

In Chapter 3 of his book, “Ways of Seeing”, John Berger argues that in western nude art and present day media, that women are largely shown and treated as objects upon whom power is asserted by men either as figures in the canvas or as spectators. Berger’s purpose is to make readers aware of how the perception of women in the art so that they will recognize the evolution of western cultured art.

The reading claims that nudes throughout artistic history have been an important source of beauty and controversy. Nudes began to spike during the Baroque period as they were used for the more expressive and emotional arts of the time. In the nineteenth century, nudes became more common, yet became more sensitive. Artists would train by drawing nudes of ancient Greek statues and figures from myth. However, many artists would then move on to create works depicting prostitutes or peasant naked women. This would not please patrons as they were extremely societally taboo. However, this did not start artists from making them, as they moved into the twentieth and twenty-first century. This shows the importance of artistic nudes and their impact

There are many companies in the world today that put an idea of this perfect female body into the heads of women. These images lead to a faulty standard men hold of women and their bodies and that women strive to become. Margaret Atwood addresses the issue of the way men view the female body by writing her essay in the viewpoints of a male so the reader can better understand how the expectation men have of the female body is unrealistic. First, she uses an allusive comparison to show the male expectation of the female body and how it is objectified as if it were a doll that comes with accessories. Next, she uses an anecdote with defamiliarization to show how the way the father views a Barbie doll and the way it portrays the female body to young girls is hypocritical. Lastly, Margaret Atwood uses insidious diction to talk about how men not only view the female body as a product but how they also use the female body as a product which can be sold amongst businessmen. In The Female Body, Margaret Atwood uses many rhetorical devices to convey how the female body is viewed through the eyes of men.

Finally, the depiction of figure is perhaps the most interesting and intellectually challenging element in this piece. The figure, while emotionally withdrawn from the viewer, is physically imposing. She is looking down and away from the viewer, as if the isn’t aware that she is being watched. Her mask-like facial features also do little in the way of conveying emotion. Her body, however, is quite different. The dark thick lines shaping her muscles and limbs, the detail in the curls of her hair, the placement of her fingers, and her exposed breast all demand the attention of the viewers’ eye. The bold lines that define her legs, waist, and hip, make her seem intrusively part of our space. The awkward placement of her

Also, collaged images of woman 's genitalia were cut out and spaced all around the portrait. The spaces were carefully used to show that the collages were floating around the woman. The artist used overlapping technique to show certain collage cut-out appear closer to the viewer. He pasted some collage over and some behind the woman that you could see through with the overlapping. The collage images were abstract that you could barely tell that they were buttocks until you zoom in and see them close up.

Feminism, the focus of this imaged project, is an important because to this day women still treated inferiorly in western and eastern culture. Because in Saudi Arabia women are prohibited to drive and need permission from males for life choices. (Erickson, 2017) Because 1 in 5 Australian women aged 15 years have experienced sexual violence and 1 in 3 have experienced physical violence(ABS Personal Safety Survey,2012). The project has approached feminism in an innovative way through its inclusiveness of intersectional feminism and variety of artists with perspectives on feminism and women.

While the human form has always been acceptable in art, the nude female form continues to stir

towards her body does not need any viewers’ definition. From disguising and performing, she conveys the aspiration of merging herself with the mother-like

A fascination with the human body, body were an experience that could somehow be held in common. The ways in which we might experience the body as connected or represent it as disconnected in a live performance. Shifting attention from traditional art object to the artist’s physical action further proposed that art existed in real space and real time. Marina Abramovic, a pioneer of performance art began using her own body as the subject, object, and medium in the early 1970s as she said, ‘In performance my body is object and subject.’ For the exhibition