Victorian Symbolism In Hunt's 'The Awakening'

The focal point of the painting is the woman with infant. This is shown by the lighting in the painting being directly on her, the bright red that she is wearing, and the circling of the putti around her figure along with the majority of their gazes being directed at her. The bright light directly behind her and the infant could possibly be coming from the sun behind the clouds in the sky, the putti to her upper right holding the torch, or it could be symbolic in that it is the infant’s halo and representative of his divine nature. The overall piece is not overly dark but the lighting seems to be most focused on the woman, infant, her other children, and the flying putti. This is an example of tenebrism.

The proposition of my paper is to propose the homosexuality as an interdisciplinary theorization of Caravaggio’s artwork done in Rome. The purpose of this paper is to not dig deeper into the homosexuality of Caravaggio but to give a different representation and perspective of homosexuality. This paper does not discuss the actual sexuality of Caravaggio, but more so how we perceive norms that can differentiate with connotations to sexuality in Rome during his lifetime. Homosexuality is intertwined with norm systems that concerns sexuality.

Many people assume that people are just people, we have no intentional meaning, but that’s not really the case. This is seen the historical fiction novel, The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963, by Christopher Paul Curtis when The Watsons were traumatized over the bombing at Joetta’s church. The author uses symbolism to convey the message that maturity comes with time because with impactful events and people, you have to adapt.

Ranging from caged parrots to the meadow in Kentucky, symbols and settings in The Awakening are prominent and provide a deeper meaning than the text does alone. Throughout The Awakening by Kate Chopin, symbols and setting recur representing Edna’s current progress in her awakening. The reader can interpret these and see a timeline of Edna’s changes and turmoil as she undergoes her changes and awakening.

“Having added to American literature a novel uncommon in its kind as in its excellence, she deserves not to be forgotten. The Awakening, deserves to be restored and to be given its place among novels worthy of preservation”(Eble 82). Kenneth Eble is speaking of Kate Chopin in the quote above, revealing his opinion of her work. The topics mentioned by Chopin in The Awakening are highly controversial due to the time period. Nevertheless, Chopin creates an amazing structure in order to convey her message. Chopin intertwines different motifs and symbols throughout the novel in order to create meaning at the end of the novel. An important motif specific to the time period is isolation due to independence. One of the many symbols attached to this

Rossetti depicts the life of a loveless old maid to illustrate the negative effects of a life in sole pursuit of love. Rossetti says, “And one was blue with famine after love, / Who like a harpstring snapped rang harsh and low / The burden of what those were

This paper will compare the themes found in the paintings "Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist and an Angel" by Domenico di Bartolomeo Ubaldini (Puligo) and "Madonna Enthroned" by Giotto. Both paintings deal with fables from the Christian faith but were executed during different periods in art. The Giotto painting was created around 1310 and the Puglio painting was executed between 1518 – 1520. Here, these two paintings have similar themes both at the extreme beginnings and endings of the Italian Renaissance, and as such they serve to present an exceptional example of the developments in art that occurred within that time. This paper shall compare

In Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening a wife and a mother of two, Edna Pontellier, discovers her desires as a woman to live life to the fullest extent and to find her true self. Eventually, her discovery leads to friction between friends, family, and the dominant values of society. Through Chopin's use of Author’s craft and literary elements, the readers have a clear comprehension as to what the author is conveying.

One of the main themes explored in The Awakening is that of a woman's place in society. In that time period, a woman was considered in some ways to be property of a man (Mahin 2). This is shown repeatedly in The Awakening, through the many relationships between the characters. As with many ideas throughout the book,

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

Imagine being far out into the middle of the ocean and at that moment, having to make a choice between judgment and individuality, death and life? In 1899, Kate Chopin composed a captivating novel titled The Awakening. Throughout Chopin's day, the work was regarded as nonsense and a waste of time on her part. Critics found the main character's rebellion to be foolish and unlawful. At that age, it was believed firmly that women should be nothing less than completely loyal to their husbands and should joyfully care for any children that they had while their spouse was away, hard at work. Edna, the central character, did not follow this standard. She says

<br>There is a woman at the bottom right of the painting that is being held by a kangaroo type creature. This creature may represent the invisible force that Dante believes is inside a sinner that makes him do the things he does, whether it be caused by mental or physical suffering. One of the sinners in the Inferno, an Impersonator, kept craving water. He said, "O you who bear no punishment at all (I can't think why) within this world of sorrow, he said to us, pause here and look upon the misery of one Master Adamo: in life I had all that I could desire, and now, alas, I crave a drop of water." (XXX: 58-63) There is a man pictured near the woman and he is throwing up. This could also be representative of the evil inborn in sinners.

Lucretia is about to kill herself to spare her family the dishonor of her rape. Artemisia portrays Lucretia as a common woman rather than an idealized figure from classical antiquity. Lucretia’s physical flaws and emotional vulnerability are apparent. The influence of Caravaggio is now obvious in Artemisia‘s work through the close-focused composition of the singular figure, Lucretia, emerging from a dark background, harshly illuminated in typical tenebrist manner that creates a dramatic impact as Artemisia halts Lucretia’s hand in action grasping the dagger, blade upward and not aimed directly at her breast, while her other hand clutches her breast in a moment of conflict as she struggles for the courage to complete the act (Garrard, Image 115). Also, as typical of Caravaggio, Artemisia portrays a single moment of narrative with a heightened sense of suspense and drama (Mann, 100).

Talking about the Roman artistic environment of the early seventeenth century we can not forget to mention the conservative atmosphere created after the Council of Trent (1545-1563 ). The articles relating to the discipline in the field of visual arts were focused on the moral and

Jacob Burckhardt in The Civilisation of the Renaissance in Italy characterises the period as one of vice. Seeing humanism as a form of excess, he argued that their retrieval of antiquity and subsequent neglect of Christianity misled them towards a life of amorality. For Burckhardt, the immorality of the Renaissance was most evident in their disregard for marriage. It is the humanists’ ethics of love and passion that contributed to Burckhardt’s characterisation of the Renaissance as a ‘glorious but problematic age’. The vice of lust is brought to the fore in the pornography produced during the sixteenth century. The conflation of sexuality, classicism and the contemporary in the literary and visual arts can be seen as emblematic of the period, representing the ‘corrupt and irreligious people’ of Renaissance society. Yet, this morally corrupting sexuality was not a new phenomenon. Pornography, which for the purpose of this discussion will refer to sexually explicit images, had existed prior to the Renaissance. Thus, its appearance cannot be attributable to the humanist concern for the classics. Sexually explicit images and literature exist within all cultures, what became problematic during the Renaissance was not what was depicted, but that these depictions were moved from the edge of artistic production to the centre.