Description
In this essay, you will reflect on how women were portrayed in Western art over time. You saw images of goddesses and saints, royals and patrons of art. Choose three paintings, where women are portrayed in different roles and with different means. You can include examples from past material, but make sure the chosen examples include different “roles” of women. For example, you may want to include Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, and Boucher’s Portrait of Madame Pompadour, and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles. Or, you may want to compare Raphael’s Madonna of Meadows (La Belle Jardiniere), and Gentileschi’s Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes and Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun’s Self-Portrait. Titian’s nudes, Ingres’s Grand Odalisque, Kaufmann’s Cornelia, Leger’s Three Women (Pic. 28.37), Frida Kahlo’s Two Fridas (28.51), Manet’s Olympia and Luncheon the Grass are excellent candidates. Just make sure the dates fall into the chronological boundaries of our course.
Discuss the way the artists presented women and the messages the works of art convey. Do they idealize women? Do they emphasize women’s physical beauty? Are these women seen as influential members of their respective societies or simply as a commodity? Have these attitudes toward women changed over time?
Include basic information about each painting (title, artist’s name, year, period style, country where they were produced). Explain the “role” of women in each painting, explain what stylistic changes are present from one period to the next, reflect on the evolution of women’s representation across time.
