Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking

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The author comments on the significance of her work that “ This was perhaps the first time that the mask had slipped since the Virgin Mother's debut in images in the fifth century CE, after the Council of Ephesus had decided in 431 that Mary was the Mother of God.” Focusing on the art historical and female artists who were not getting their dues was also a way to future-proof the gallery against “the increasing number of situations when large ‘supermarket’ galleries try to take what we have built,” she says, referring to the poaching of emerging artists just at the point that they start to gain recognition. Really great survey of some large tropes of female depiction in art. The last chapter was kind of redundant and fell off for me a little. In general every time she was getting a bit too white millennial feminist she would turn around and interrogate/ challenge those ideas which was refreshing for an art history book that’s attempting to cover a lot of ground. Super impressed with her ability to cover so many topics in general and give a lot of time and care to showing multiple different perspectives and experiences in the book. Overall this was a slay for Catherine Two years might have passed but we are suddenly in the middle of a new project. What is constant is Miss Weedon, the secretary of Arthur Maxted’s (Henry’s boss) who is obviously infatuated with Henry. Circumstances throw them together and other circumstances, strange synchronicities threaten to derail Henry’s life and career. Yet somehow he battles on and all the while it is impossible to put the book down. I watched the horror film X from A24 not too long ago. As far as I know the this movie is critically acclaimed.

Women in the Picture : Women, Art and the Power of Looking

I was horrified not because of the violence and gore, but because its subject matter: the villainizing of woman’s aging body and elderly woman’s sexual desire, which was at the core of the film. To most people it will not come as a surprise that historically, most famous artists were men, that women were not allowed to study the fine arts, and that the few female artists that existed received little if any attention. The well-known exceptions are Artemisia Gentileschi and Berthe Morisot. And there are occasions where she does present contrary points of view like “The Dinner Party” by Judy Chicago (currently at the Brooklyn Museum). I felt the author on less firm ground when discussing artistic interpretations of women which she referred to as the “male gaze”. She states: This is a highly opinionated book. It examines how the female body has been portrayed over the centuries using themes like Venus (the seductive look), Motherhood (puritanical and housekeeping), Maidens (but this was more on rape), and Monstrous women (those who stray out of the norm – witches).

In Hans Baldung Grien’s painting The Ages of Woman and Death, there is a juxtaposition of a youthful “Venus “ type figure and her older self ( which is depicted very unfavourably ), which the author interprets as promoting the idea of “that women, no matter how lovely on the outside, are all hags in Venus' clothing, just waiting to be unmasked by the march of time.” This is the better, and my favorite part of the book as it gives you new tools for observing art and helps you interpret and criticize art independently. All the characters in the book were either mind boggling boring or just plain strange. And I can’t say I liked the way the author wrote about women. Just felt so unauthentic. The story had a whisper of mystery here and there but it did not feel like it was resolved in any towards the end. Seventeenth-century works by Artemisia Gentileschi, Fede Galizia and Elisabetta Sirani give way to still lifes of fruit and flowers before the exhibition moves to portraits – including Élisabeth Louise Vigeé Le Brun’s Lady Hamilton as a Bacchante – and then to Orientalism, depictions of working women, images of maternity, sisterhood and, finally, to images of female emancipation.

Women in the Picture by Catherine McCormack | Waterstones

In 1975 James received a Ford Foundation grant to research and write The Original Americans: US Indians, for the Minority Rights in London. Over the next twenty-five years he travelled widely in the US and Canada, working on – among other projects – a number of radio and TV documentaries, including the award-winning Savagery and the American Indian and The Two Worlds of the Innu, both for the BBC. His critically-acclaimed history of Native Americans, The Earth Shall Weep, was published by Picador in the UK in 1998, and by Grove/Atlantic in the US the following year. In 2000, it won a Myers Outstanding Book award. James continues to serve as a member of the executive committee of Survival, an international organization campaigning for the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide. My assumption is that today, works of art influenced by culture and works of art influencing culture are not easily distinguishable. That's why discussions of sexism in modern art and media and pop culture, and blaming Renaissance artworks - which are mostly reflections of their own time and culture - without considering politics, economics and other intersectional topics, were not convincing. If this was a work of fiction I would like it more, its provoking language that is littered with buzz words depicts wonderful, vivid scenes. This made it an enjoyable read, that is until I remembered this is a work of non-fiction. For my non-fiction reads I prefer to work things out for myself but this book, with its continual need to emphasise and spell things out, left me no room to do this. Women in the Picture is a very informative and, despite its difficult topic, enjoyable read. For anyone interested in understanding the connection between art, culture, self-perception, race and much more, this is a crucial starting point. Interestingly, in the movie X, there is also this pairing of the old murderous, sex-crazed fiend and the alluring and youthful woman, and …they are played by the SAME ACTRESS. It’s hard to not see it as a resurrection of the damaging Hans Baldung Grien painting.)

If an artist is truly great they will get there, if given the right platform. You’ve just got to put energy into it” Alison Jacques For those interested there is the “National Museum of Women in the Arts” dedicated solely to female artists in Washington DC. If we start to see the separation between what we find intolerable in real life and what we lionize in monuments and works of art, then perhaps we can further the way in which we talk about systemic sexual violence against women… leads us to a burning question of what we do with the artworks and public sculptures that contradict our proudly held liberal values in real life. Henry Whitaker is an aspiring filmmaker. Something happened when he was a child that has colored the rest of his life's experiences, for good or ill. A second thread in the story, interspersed with his own, is that of his daughter, Miranda, who comes to know more about her father's life before she was a part of it. JAMES WILSON was born and brought up near Cambridge, and studied History at Oxford University. He now divides his time between London and France.

WOMEN IN THE PICTURE | Kirkus Reviews

When women are hidden, or robbed of their past, they are robbed of their identity,” said De la Villa. “The power of culture is very important. It just can’t be separated from the social conditions we enjoy, or which we suffer.” When I started reading this book, I liked it immediately. A romantic mystery, set in the inter-war years....what's not to like? Then, I must say, that I found myself a little lost.....and I never quite found myself again. There are a lot of characters in this book, and even after finishing it, I still couldn't figure out how or where half of the characters came from. Somewhere around the middle of the book, they just didn't hold my attention long enough to concentrate. I think the problem lies within the way the story immediately starts to inexplicably changes from one narrative to another. It becomes clear further on in the book, why this is happening. However, I was confused for a good while there, and it left me feeling a little disinterested and detached. The second chapter looks at mothers and the construction of motherhood through appearance (a mother who looks beautiful is a good mother). Not to mention iconic imagery of the ‘Madonna and Child’ and depictions of the Virgin Mary being in only two instances: the piety of Jesus’ birth and the grief of his death. This chapter also looks at the ‘angel of the house’ in which mothers care for everyone but themselves unless paid or enslaved workers take over the role. Mothers are then un-autonomous machines with no sexual availability as it highlights women as organic (unlike the inorganic venus) unless fetishised (e.g MILF's).On his return to Britain after the First World War, Henry Whitaker begins his career as a film-maker - first as assistant to the legendary director Arthur Maxted, and then as one of the country's foremost documentary-makers. But all the while he yearns to create a feature film of his own - a work of art that will give his life meaning. This is a very accessible and informative read, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in feminist art history. Here, the historical events and facts mentioned, were eye opening and insightful. It's interesting how knowing about, say, the owner of a painting can change your mind about the art. And the “Maiden and Dead Damsels” archetype that aesthetizes the suffering of women and perpetuates the ideal of “ purity”.