A poster from a 2007 campaign of the Guerilla Girls, a feminist group concerned with women’s place in the art world, reads, “Do women have to be nude to get into the Met.? Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female.”
Though male nudity was accepted in society and the art world before female nudity, female nudity meant something different, especially in art. While male nudity was seen as strong and powerful, female nudity was often viewed as obscene and sexual. Through time, the female nude in art became a subject of its own, portraying females and their bodies as objects. Female nudes were put on display for men, suggested by the idealistic portrayal of the female body and the anatomy and positioning of the art forms.
Origins
The concept of the ideal female body dates back to Plato and Aristotle, agrees Kenneth Clark in his book The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form and Helen McDonald in her book Erotic Ambiguties: The Female Nude in Art. According to Clark, Aristotle believed that “everything has an ideal form of which the phenomena of experience are more or less corrupted replicas.” In other words, what we perceive as reality are actually shadows of what is ideal. This was reflected in art starting with the Greeks, even though the portrayal of the female nude in art did not develop until around the fifth century, mostly because religious and social constructs forbade it. The portrayal of the first nude women in ancient art were, according to Clark, “comically unideal,” and at times didn’t even look human.
The current perception of nudity in art can be traced to ancient Greek sculptures of naked male athletes in fifth century B.C. The idealistic terms of the sculptures are attributed to the belief that Apollo, the god of justice, was the perfect male form. The female equivalent is Aphrodite in Greece, or Venus in Rome, the goddess of love and beauty. While males in ancient Greek art were defined by strength and were portrayed as, according to Clark, “alert and confident,” females were overall demure and weak figures, simply soft ovals and spheres in many sculptures and paintings.
The first nudes
One of the first well-known entirely nude female sculptures was Aphrodite of Cnidus, circa 350 B.C. According to Philippe Comar in Images of the Body, it reflects the Greek idea of “mimesis,” the theory that art reflects reality. However, since the sculpture is of a goddess and not of a real woman, the reality of Aphrodite must be constructed in idealistic terms, which becomes, says Comar, the “image of absolute beauty (21).”
The creation of the Esquiline Venus in 50 B.C. Rome, aids in our present perception of the ancient female nude. According to Clark, the creator should be attributed with the creation of the female nude. Clark points out that the figure is the “evolved notion of feminine beauty,” with her small, far-apart breasts and high pelvis. The full-nude female figure was very rare in ancient Greece, so one must look for similar nudes draped in a cloth called draperie mouillée, or “the draped nude.” One such work is Aphrodite de Melos, or Venus de Milo, a 100 B.C. Greek sculpture, depicting a half-nude female disproportioned at 6-feet-8-inches tall.
Fertility
The idea that women transform from vulgar to celestial is a reoccurring theme in art. Clark points out that the vulgar woman is the symbol of fertility, a large and imperfect body while the celestial version is much more geometrically influenced, and more pleasing to the male eye.
Symbols of fertility are seen in sculptures such as Venus of Willendorf, believed to be created between 24,000 B.C. and 22,000 B.C. This was thought to be one of the oldest sculptures depicting a nude female, but in 2008, in a cave in the south-west region of Germany, archaeologists discovered the oldest known sculpture of a human figure. According to an article in The Independent, a London newspaper, scientists believe the sculpture is 35,000 years old and depicts a pregnant woman.
Subjects/Objects
In Old Mistress: Women, Art and Ideology, Rosika Parker and Griselda Pollock assert that even though women were not making art, especially history paintings, they were most often the subjects of art “as an image with specific connotations and meanings. The images reproduce on the ideological level of art the relations of power between men and woman.” They claim this is because of the tendency of artists to display cultural norms rather than their personal views.
Overall, women in art are portrayed as idealistic objects for viewing pleasure. Their place in art reflected their position in society, and vice versa. Women were often seen as sexual beings to please men; as fertile creatures only good for reproducing; and as demure, stupid creatures. These idealistic forms were the basis of the female nude in art, which gives feed to the art and media portraying women today.
Sources
- Clark, Kenneth. The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1956, 4.
- Comar, Philippe. Images of the Body. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1993, 21
- Connor, Steve. “After 35,000 years, erotic art for cavemen discovered.” The Independent
- "Guerrilla Girls." 2007. http://www.guerrillagirls.com/posters/getnakedshanghai.shtml
- Parker, Rozsika and Griselda Pollock. Old Mistress: Women, Art and Ideology. Hammersmith, London: Harper Collins, 1981, 116.
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