Shahid Mahdi

Writing I
Professor Tomlinson
6/10/13

Damsels in Distress: An Aesthetic Adventure

Ranging from the cave dwelling paintings and sculptures to the 21st century, the depiction of the
woman has been perpetually evolving. The emblem of fertility, the nascent leader of motherhood; the
Biblical origin of sin and vice yet undoubtedly the most pivotal figures in humanity - women make the
world go around.
In correlation with the perceptions of human self-expression, artworks that depict women are
almost guaranteed to have auxiliary motives, messages or repercussions stretching beyond the painting.

I drowsily ambled into the Museum of Modern Art, shuffling besides the most
hardcore of tourists. I had committed what was, so to speak, a lunatics fantasy. Having
expeditiously gone to Brooklyn the night before on what was colloquially referred to as a lads
trip back home in London, I made the somewhat unfounded decision to - in staying with the
theme - become as much a nighthawk as possible and stay up until after I had been to the
museum.
Thus, I was deliberately cast in a sort of daze. The variety of daze that I would
recommend all my peers at some point or the other in their lives. It amplifies art to seem all the
more ethereal; a symposium of figments; half of which are conjured up in my mind. The
remainders of the paintings in all their blandly maddening creative glory finish themselves as
they meet your pupils.
The last breathtaking exhibition I had visited was a retrospective of Roy
Lichtensteins back at the Tate Modern in London. I was immediately taken by the vibrancy and
quietness of his works. They were jewels from a bygone era, a comic-book series of memories left
that managed to subtly be commentaries on the era. Thus, to stumble upon his Girl With A
Beach Ball (1961) was a most wondrous, delightful surprise that immediately jolted me awake
from my conscious-coma. The painting, with emphasis on verticality, outlines a predecessor to
the famous comic book babes, as I like to refer to them, that Lichtenstein was so renowned far
(case and point: Crying Girl, 1963). The signature circular print that diffuses the graphic look is
evident when observed up close. What affected me was the idea of beauty. This was the pin-up
girl. This was the Californian seductress who one would see gallivanting down Santa Monica
Beach with her equally tanned friends. Today we idolise pop-stars, actors and actresses, and to
an extent, between the time of Mr. Lichtenstein and today, we can track the image of the
All-American Girl. The young lady in Girl With A Beach Ball is difficult to describe on the basis
that she seems to have a deliberately inconspicuous expression. Her arms are raised, and she
could potentially be yelling a command, or complaining, or simply screaming out of pure
excitement (perhaps my knowledge of beach ball activities is too limited). There is no
background. The only indication that the girl is on a beach lies in the name of the piece. The
gilded-yellow background might connotate that the image is timeless, as there is no landscape,
no ornament or house or object besides the ball to analyse the situation from. I found the
experience of scrutinising the painting to be all the more romantic as, thanks to my prioritising
early attendance, I was one of the only people in the room, and incidentally the only person
observing this painting (Monets Water Lillies, on the same floor, mustve been the mainstay for
the time being).
Her arms are chunky, not attenuated. There are no cheekbones visible, and her jawline is
cloaked by a rounded edge. The models glamorised in the media today are a far cry from this
fantastically real girl. She is voluptuous, not stick-like. She is curvaceous, not linear. She is an
anachronism locked away in a museum.
She was one woman.
The next woman I saw would not be conventionally be seen as a beautiful woman. Besides
poring over specific works of de Koonigs in AP Art History during high school, I was not too
familiar with his dazzling portfolio. However, I had too crossed paths with de Koonings
Woman (1950-52) before. It was not at the Museum of Modern Art, but in a small private
school across the pond at the American School in London. It was our first class, and my
brilliant teacher, Ms. Kisor, brought up de Koonigs Woman. She did not say anything further.
The point she was trying to make was that art knows no ideological boundaries, even when the
title of the piece, Woman, may suggest some sort of constraint.
Woman, to be fair, does indeed resemble what the title suggests. In my numbed state, I
managed to somehow recall the Woman of Willendorf, a miniature sculpture traced from the
ancient Neolithic cave dwellings of southern France highlighted by the incredible Werner
Herzog film Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010). The breasts were exaggerated, scrawls of paint
were lashed left and right as if the piece had been composed by the outline of a sword rather
than a paintbrush. Hues of yellow and green randomly assort themselves logically into the
chaos presented. Much like Girl With A Beach Ball, there is no landscape. In my view, this
emboldens the idea of women being timeless wonders, and perhaps to place them into a
specific scenario would be to contradict the conscious choice both these artists made in creating
their female characters.
The womans eyelashes were detailed and accentuated, as were her maddening reptilian
eyes. Silhouettes of what could possibly be a ship and a person lay astray. Astray is a good term
to describe the painting holistically. A clear apparition of some sort was present, but barely. Mr.
de Koonig was not concerned with displaying the contemporary idea of beauty, rather the
boundaries which it violates and consequently stretches. This woman did not promote an
ideology or commemorate pop culture. One way to look at it would be to define it by what it is
not. Not pleasing, inviting, warming or in the least promiscuous. Not what any artist by trade
sought to emulate up until de Koonigs time.
There I was seeing these two women in all their splendour. Comparing and contrasting
them has shed light to the fact that there is a possibility that the aesthetic attempt to capture a
woman in art, whether its Boticellis The Birth of Venus o r the aforementioned de Koonig
composition, is futile. It evolves thanks to the trends of the time, the norms, the conventions.
Ironically, it also manages to evolve while abandoning one or more of these elements.
 Would I suggest pulling an all nighter before going to a museum the next day?
Absolutely. Absorbing these paintings on nothing but adrenalin opens your eyes to the
simplicity of the works. Being drowsy amplifies the power; it allows the shock and the surprise
that goes so terribly underrated when awake.