From
Male
Objectification
to


Female
Representation

Throughout
art
history
the
female
form
has
been
the

subject
of
choice
for
countless
artists.
In
early
20th

century
art
many
male
artists
have
dominated
the

depiction
of
the
female
nude.
However
as
time
went

on
female
artists
chose
to
depict
the
female
form
in

their
own
way,
by
making
commentary
that
was
very

different
from
the
images
painted
by
in
the
past.
They

made
sure
that
what
they
had
to
say
and
depict
was
in

fact
connected
to
their
gender
and
it
was
from
that

that
their
statement
was
formed.


 Examples
of
Male
Artist
Objectifying

the
Nude
in
Early
Twentith
Century
Art

•  
One
piece
that
stands
out
is
Henri
Matisse’s
The

Blue
Nude
(Souvenir
de
Biskra),
1907.
In
this

painting
Matisse
has
painted
a
very
curvaceous

woman,
almost
exaggeratedly
so.
This
woman
is

positioned
in
a
very
particular
pose.
She
is

displayed
in
away
that
makes
her
something
to

be
looked
at.
Her
pose
exposes
her
very

plumped
breasts
as
well
as
her
exaggerated

buttocks.
It
can
also
be
argued
that
the
plant

behind
the
female
figure
is
in
a
way
echoing
the

shape
of
her
curves
and
bring
more
focus
to
her

body,
rather
than
anything
else
depicted
on
the

canvas.
An
element
of
the
painting
that
is
very

important
to
notice
is
that
the
female’s
eyes
are

not
looking
back
at
the
viewer.
She
is
looking

away
as
to
not
be
considered
confrontational
to

the
viewer
or
even
the
artist
himself.


•  In
an
article
called
Virility
and
Domination
in
Early

Twentieth‐Century
Vanguard
Paintings
by
Carol
Duncan,

she

expresses
her
views
on
Pablo
Picasso’s
Les
Demoiselles

d’Avignon,
1907
stating
“No
painting
of
this
decade
better

articulates
the
male‐female
dichotomy
and
the

ambivalence
men
experience
before
it
than
Picasso’s

Demoiselles
d”Avignon
of
1905‐1906.
What
is
so

remarkable
about
this
work
is
the
way
that
it
manifests
the

structural
foundation
underlying
both
the
femme
fatale

and
the
new,
primitive
woman.
Picasso
did
not
merely

combine
these
into
one
horrible
image;
he
dredged
up

from
his
psyche
the
terrifying
and
fascinating
beast
that

gave
birth
to
both
of
them.
The
Demoiselles
prismatically

mirrors
her
many
opposing
faces:
whore
and
deity,

decadent
and
savage,
tempting
and
repelling,
awesome

and
obscene,
looming
and
crouching,
masked
and
naked,

threatening
and
powerless.
In
that
jungle‐brothel
is

womankind
in
all
her
past
and
present
metamorphoses,

concealing
and
revealing
herself
before
the
male.
With

sham
and
real
reverence,
Picasso
presents
her
in
the
form

of
a
desecrated
icon
already
slashed
and
torn
into
bit.”

To

further
explain
this
view
towards
this
piece,
Duncan
is

saying
that
what
Picasso
has
done
here
is
he
encompassed

all
the
things
that
male
artist
have
done
to
the
female
nude

throughout
art
history
and
placed
them
in
one
painting.

•  Another
artist
of
the
twentieth
century
that
can
be

considered
one
to
have
objectified
the
female
nude
in
his

work
is
the
German
Expressionist
Ernst
Ludwig
Kirchner.

One
of
his
paintings
that
is
an
example
of
this
is
Tower

Room,
Fehmarn
(Self‐Portrait
with
Erna),
1913..
Something

that
should
be
mentioned
in
regards
to
this
painting
is
the

fact
that
the
face
of
the
nude
is
not
there.
Again
bring
up

the
fact
that
she
is
an
object
to
be
looked
at.

Even
though

this
is
a
self‐portrait,
the
title
does
include
the
name
of
the

female
figure
but
yet
the
artist
reframes
from
showing
her

face
(his
face
is
there).
In
the
painting
her
head
is
turned

away
from
the
viewer
and
her
hair
is
even
covering
so
much

of
what
could
be
seen.
The
attention
is
taken
away
from
her

face
and
directly
to
the
rest
of
her
body,
which
is
complete

bare
there
for
the
viewer
to
see
while
he
is
in
fully
clothed.

An
element
about
this
painting
that
can
be
see
as
a
worse

objectification
that
the
previously
two
shown,
is
the
fact

that
the
artist
is
in
fact
present.
And
it
is
with
his
presence

that
he
is
not
denying
that
the
nude
is
there
for
him,
being

that
his
gaze
is
looking
directly
at
her
body
and
not
her
face.

This
here
can
alludes
to
the
fact
that
this
is
not
a
painting
to

depict
some
sort
of
conversation
between
the
two
figures,

but
to
rather
show
his
visual
control
of
her
body.


Women
Representing
Their
Gender
in

the
late
20th
Century

•  Then
in
1970s
some
women
artists
decided
to
control
they
way

that
their
gender
was
depicted
and
decided
to
show
their
own

take
on
the
female
nude
and
what
she
represented.
One
artist

that
the
really
made
a
statement
with
her
work
in
regards
to
the

female
body
was
Carolee
Schneemann.
On
August
29th
1975

Carolee
Schneemann
performed
her
piece
entitled
Interior
Scroll

in
the
exhibition
called
“Women
Here
and
Now”
in
East
Hampton

New
York.
In
regards
to
this
piece
Carolee
Schneemann
has
stated

that
"I
thought
of
the
vagina
in
many
ways‐‐
physically,

conceptually:
as
a
sculptural
form,
an
architectural
referent,
the

sources
of
sacred
knowledge,
ecstasy,
birth
passage,

transformation.
I
saw
the
vagina
as
a
translucent
chamber
of

which
the
serpent
was
an
outward
model:
enlivened
by
it's

passage
from
the
visible
to
the
invisible,
a
spiraled
coil
ringed
with

the
shape
of
desire
and
generative
mysteries,
attributes
of
both

female
and
male
sexual
power.
This
source
of
interior
knowledge

would
be
symbolized
as
the
primary
index
unifying
spirit
and
flesh

in
Goddess
worship."
Its
interesting
to
note
that
she
state
the
fact

of
goddess
worship
and
not
female,
because
what
has
been

depicted
for
so
long
was
an
object/idea
and
not
women.
What

makes
this
piece
important
in
terms
of
gender
is
the
fact
that
she

pulls
her
“voice”
out
her
vagina.
So
as
to
show
the
part
of
her

body
that
has
created
boundaries
in
the
art
world
is
that
which

she
used
to
express
herself
from.

•  Another
artist
who
used
her
body
in
art
and
created
a
much

different
depiction
is
Hannah
Wilke.
One
piece
that
says
a
lot

with
the
use
of
her
body
is
S.O.S‐
Starification
Object
Series,

1974‐1982.
In
this
performance
the
audience
members
would

chew
pieces
of
gum
and
she
would
shaped
them
into
vulvas
and

then
placed
them
on
her
body
to
represent
social
wounds,

mimicking
the
marks
of
tribal
scarification
and
then
was

photographed
in
a
series
of
pin‐up
poses.
The
metaphor
that
she

creates
with
the
gum
is
that
for
such
a
long
time
women
were

like
it,
in
that
“you
could
chew
her
up,
get
what
you
want
from

her,
throw
her
out,
and
pop
in
a
new
piece”.
By
saying
this
she
is

commenting
on
way
that
women
are
used
as
objects
and
the

placement
of
the
gum
on
her
body
is
the
scars
resulting
from
the

“gum”
effect
females
face.
But
something
that
is
also
very

obvious
about
this
work
is
the
poses
that
she
made
for
the
ten

different
photographs
and
she
shows
a
juxtaposition
between

being
“starified”
and
being
scarred.
In
these
photos
she
is
being

both
confrontational
and
seductive
to
the
viewer,
and
she
is

aware
of
that.
She
is
also
dealing
with
both
pain
and
pleasure,
all

effects
of
socially
constructed
roles.
She
has
stated
that
she

wants
women
to
“take
control
of
and
have
pride
in
the
sensuality

of
their
own
bodies
and
create
a
sexuality
in
their
own
terms,

without
deferring
to
concepts
degenerated
by
culture”.

In
saying

that,
a
reading
that
one
can
take
away
from
this
work
as
a
whole

is
that
being
that
women
have
been
treated
and
depicted
a

certain
way
throughout
history
in
general,
they
should
take
pride

in
their
gender
and
act
on
it
how
they
wish,
and
not
just
in
the

way
that
society
for
so
long
has
expected
them
too.
With
her

poses
she
is
mocking
the
feminine
requirements
of
society.

•  So
one
can
see
how
women
decided
not
to
sit
back
and
watch
how
they
were
expected
to
be
depicted
in
society
as

well
as
they
place
in
the
art
world.
It
was
many
works
and
ideas
like
these
that
made
many
other
female
artists
to

take
notice
that
they
could
choose
to
take
control
of
female
depiction
and
representation,
not
only
on
a
canvas,

photograph,
etc.
but
in
the
museum
world
too.
An
example
of
this
was
the
start
of
the
anonymous
feminist
artist

group
called
the
Guerrilla
Girls
that
started
after
a
1985
Museum
of
Modern
Art
exhibition.
The
exhibition
was

suppose
to
be
an
international
survey
of
paintings
and
sculptures
but
only
5
percent
of
the
artists
were
females,

out
of
169
pieces
only
13
were
done
by
female
artists.


•  The
Guerrilla
Girls
are
made
up
of
anonymous
contemporary
artist
that
hide
their
identity
so
as
not
to
have
a

negative
black
lash
on
their
work
and
jobs,
and
they
take
on
names
of
famous
female
artists
of
the
past
to
fight
the

institutions
that
control
most
of
the
art
world.
A
poster
that
they
put
together
after
the
1985
MOMA
exhibition
for

an
exhibit
that
was
to
happen
in
the
Metropolitan
Museum
of
Art
where
the
question
“Do
women
have
to
be

naked
to
get
into
the
Met.
Museum?”
is
brought
up.
In
this
poster
they
incorporated
the
very
famous
Le
Grand

Odalisque
by
Jean
Auguste
Dominique
Ingres.
The
“great”
female
nude,
one
that
was
distorted
to
meet
the

standards
of
female
perfection.
What
the
Guerrilla
girls
are
stating
in
their
poster
is
that
the
female
form
is

pervasive
in
art
but
not
the
female
artist,
and
their
agenda
to
change
it.

•  So
it
is
with
groups
like
this
and
the
general
work
of
females
that
followed
works
by
Schneemann
and
Wilke
that

are
helping
to
bring
forth
a
change,
and
even
though
it
is
taking
some
time,
at
least
they
are
informing
the
art

public
that
females
have
something
more
to
offer
in
their
art,
and
that
the
nude
is
something
that
can
be
depicted

with
more
of
a
conscious
statement
than
that
of
a
sexuality
imposed
by
make
artists
of
the
past,
like
Matisse,

Picasso
and
Kirchner.
And
even
though
throughout
art
history
men
have
dominated
the
way
that
the
female
form

was
depicted,
women
want
to
make
sure
that
their
representation
of
the
female
nude
and
the
female
gender
in

general
is
shown
by
their
standards.