The Influence Of Homosexualism In Art

Contemporary female British artists Jenny Saville and Tracey Emin, both emerged as Young British Artists in the late twentieth century. They were championed by art connoisseur Charles Saatchi and following his initial backing, have become household names in the international art world with a reputation for being overly feminist in their narrative. This essay investigates the artworks of both Emin, and Saville in order to determine if their art really is feminist in its narrative or is it autobiographical and self-expressive in line with feminist cultural theory. These women artists and their art are worthy of investigation, for the contribution and legacy that they now play with respect to the roles of females in art history and theory.

The question of “why feminism?” has been presented to a number of female artists who deal with strong constructions of gender in their work. The answer, overwhelmingly, has been the desire to modify stereotypes about women that have prevailed in male-dominated art history. In the 1960’s, women who explored “feminist” issues in their art were criticized, causing mass mobilization and conscious raising as to what, exactly, was the purpose of feminist art (Crowell, 1991). Since that time, women have been trying desperately to overturn the art world and rescind the traditional stereotypes and images that have plagued them. Feminist artists created somewhat of a unified front during that

Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity was written by Griselda Pollock in 1988, and later published in The Expanding Disclosure in 1992. Griselda Pollock is an art historian, and writes this article for fellow art historians. This is an article written to show the different approaches to femininity in the late 19th century, mainly dealing with the field of art. This article shows how during this time period there were women artists, but due to the gendered ruled ideas attached to art history, these women are largely ignored by art historians. Pollock thought that these women artists are primarily overlooked due to the fact that they are judged by the same standards that are affixed to the work of their male counterparts. But she argues

Because of these prejudices, her poetry was harshly scrutinized compared to similar writings of her male counterparts. When her primary publication of “The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America”

Georgia O’Keefe is a famous American painter who painted beautiful flowers and landscapes. But she painted these images in such a way that many people believed she was portraying sexual imagery. “O’Keefe’s depictions of flowers in strict frontality and enlarged to giant scale were entirely original in character . . . the view into the open blossoms evoked an image of the female psyche and invited erotic associations.” (Joachimides 47) O’Keefe denies these allegations and says that she “magnified the scale of the flower only to ensure people would notice them.” (Haskell 203) O’Keefe’s artwork was misinterpreted because of cultural prejudice, her non-traditional lifestyle, and

In addition, I will examine the differences between male and female sexuality and how each tended to be perceived and treated by society. Then, I will look at prominent female artists and their personal experiences and beliefs on feminism and the female in their art focusing on how it tended to be received along how male artists responded to it. Mainly, I will be analyzing the clash of sexualized images in art, focusing on the differences not only between male made art versus female art, but the differences in the women’s art community, as well. What are the reasons and goals for women to use a “sexualized image” of women in their art versus

How do the works of Yasumasa Morimura, Julie Rrap and Anne Zahalka challenge conventional ways in which gender has been depicted historically in the visual arts?

In the first example, a painting done by Norman Rockwell, a girl is portrayed as “more kittenish than hoydenish” the girl and her appearance are described as “soft and tentative”. She is with a boy who is awkward, she touches just his hand and that is only to tell his fortune. The girl “looks into his eyes with confidence and no assumption of consequences to her boldness”. The girl described, was the first step away from “Mary Pickford” yet is still far away from “Flapper”. In the cover the next year, the boy and girl are shown again, this time already contrasting from the Mary Pickford type; the boy and girl share a closeness - “he is standing close in an attitude of embrace” where last time there seemed to be a line drawn in-between them. The girl’s appearance is beginning to change as well, “her dress is beginning to be tomboyish” she wears a sweater and a skirt opposed to a one piece dress and it is no longer soft and delicate. The girl has a “glance backward at the young man- awkward boy no longer- is more conscious of possible consequences of this exciting intimacy”. The stark differences in the looks that each girl is giving is enough to show the changing behavior of this new generation

At first glance, the similarities between Vincent van Gogh and Georgia O’Keeffe appear minimal at best. A young van Gogh died penniless and largely unknown in a remote backwater in the south of France, while O’Keeffe lived out a long and illustrious life as one of the most famous artists of the early twentieth century. Where O’Keeffe was the object of admiration and fascination, van Gogh was the object of pity and derision. Where O’Keeffe was heralded in her lifetime for capturing the spirit of the desert landscapes of her beloved New Mexico, van Gogh was a was a man without a country, driven by destitution and illness to wander Europe in search of peace and some measure of stability. Despite their differences, however, O’Keeffe and van Gogh share vital similarities. Both van Gogh and O’Keeffe used art to advocate for the inclusion of the disenfranchised and the forgotten (namely, the poor and the ill in van Gogh’s oeuvre and women in O’Keeffe’s); both revolutionized how the natural world is seen; both are characterized by aesthetic styles which are highly sensory and sensual, representing psychological and physical states in such groundbreaking ways that they change the modern world’s understanding of what it means to be human.

In an effort to change this objectification, O’Grady suggests that female artists must begin to reconstruct the subjectivity of black female subjects in art. They should reclaim the black female body as something to embrace and admire rather than just glance over. It is a slow and steady process but a necessary one. Furthermore, she strongly argues that the artist must do so even if her audience is uncomfortable with it because it is the best method to deconstruct a pre-existing idea of the black female subject.

Over the past two weeks of the quarter, I have learned a significant amount through studying topics and artists I was previously ignorant to. Going into this class, I didn’t even know what confessional writing and art was. However, from the readings and class discussions, I have been able to develop an understanding of not only what confessional writing and art is, but also how the genre is impacted by gender, and used as creative expression by certain artists. Of all the readings we have read throughout class thus far, the one that most struck me as displaying a clear gender bias was the review Nell Bernstein provided in her article "When Memoir Isn’t By A Hero, It’s Easy To Kiss Off.” In Michael Shnayerson’s review of Kathryn Harrison’s The Kiss, which he

Throughout history it has be seen that many white male artists have the advantage of being read on multiple levels, whilst women have been presented and reduced to just one angle of reading on their work, this being the case for the female artist Georgia O’keefe. Therefore this essay will look primarily into O’keeffes work on flowers, and particularly on how art critics and specifically male art critics perceived her work and the interpretations they ladened her work with, that she consistently denied for over six decades. The exact piece of work of Georgia O’keeffes i will be looking at is the Black Iris, 1926, Oil on Canvas, from the Alfred Stieglitz Collection.

I am going to structure this essay to answer the question ‘How has Feminist Art impacted upon feminism?’. In this essay I am going to discuss the issues of inequality within the art world and the world in general and how Feminist Art has overcome some of these past issues. I am going to discuss the work of The Guerrilla Girls, Judy Chicago and Linder Sterling and how I believe these artists changed the inequality that lingered in the art world.

In terms of a Marxist view of social art history, not only are feminists looking for a change in future art, but an overlook of works from the past that had been misconstrued because of supposed feminine issues that drew away from the common practice of other women during their time. Art from women like Frankenthaler may not have had a direct impact during their time of creation, but in the recent desire for feminism, these works of art are now considered to be a driving

The feminist criticism approach evaluates how sexual identity impacts the creation and perception of literary pieces of art. It was originally an offshoot of the feminist movements but has currently employed certain approaches, such as the Masculinity approach, which is advocated by Robert Bly. Feminist criticism takes a primary role in articulating the patriarchal perceptions that have dominated the Western thought. The perceptions have consciously or unconsciously resulted in literature which is full of raw male-advocated assumptions. The current analysis aims at providing a feminist criticism of Sophocles "Antigone", with an objective to achieve an informed position.