An interpretation of the use of female imagery in the works of selected contemporary South African artists

Abstract

Historically, the female figure has often been used to express the artist's emotions or ideas. It is not only the figure that is important but the manner in which it is portrayed. It has been represented as an object of fertility , love, sexuality, sensuality etc. and has been used repeatedly in Greek Mythology. In Greece, before the fourth century B.C., sculptures of young women were usually clothed while those of young athletes were normally naked. By the fourth century statues of nude women were beginning to be made to express ' ideal nudity'. This ideal developed around the cult of Aphrodite, the love goddess. To the Romans it was the goddess, Venus. The Greek Master Praxiteles created the first significant Aphrodite statue (Fig. 1. ·1) for the island of Chidos. The s-shape of this voluptuous female nude, becomes a familiar symbol of desire in later works. During the middle ages there was little interest in portraying naked women in the arts, except in instances where there was a need to symbolize fleshly lusts. Only during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, did women begin to play a more important role in courtly life and were expressed more in the arts and letters. With the rise of the age of chivalry came the cult of the Virgin Mary in the Church. The virgin counterbalanced the idea of Eve the Temptress that had dominated the thinking during the earlier years of the Middle Ages. Mary achieved a position of honour and even of power in the masculine world of knighthood and the crusades. These images of women at the royal courts or the Virgin Mary were depicted fully clothed. Despite this, their femininity was not completely hidden but accentuated by the slightly seductive s-curve posture present in the Virein of Paris (Fig. 1.2) Even though there is a similarity between the Viq~in of Paris and the Aphrodite due to their femininity and the s-curve posture, they are quite different. According to Hobbs [1975: 153] 'Aphrodite' is a goddess of beauty whose nudity implies an acceptance of the human body. The 'Virgin of Paris' is a spiritual figure whose beauty exemplifies a beatitude transcending the earthly body. The Italian Renaissance, a form of society based on city-states, overtook the Feudal system of the middle ages. The church began to lose its influence on the artists, as they began to work for the wealthy noblemen who held political power. Men like Lorenzo de Medici inspired a new interest in the arts of the Greek culture. It was not easy for the artists of the fifteenth century to narrow the gap between the goddess of love and the Christian Virgin. The medieval attitude of the female image still prevailed. Images of naked men took on the role of becoming symbols or representations of biblical heroes e.g. like Michelangelo's David, or symbols of the growing middle class society of traders. Femininity was out of style. Sandro Botticelli managed to create one of the most enduring versions of Venus Aphrodite in art history e.g. the Birth of Venus (Fig. 1.3). Although Botticelli's 'Venus' is a naked woman she creates a different, almost sacred atmosphere in comparison to the nudes that follow. She 'floats' above the ground and is characteristic of medieval·'Jhristian art (angels and virgins). The Venetian artist, Titian, painted the Venus of Urbino (Fig. 1.4) nearly sixty years later. There is nothing medieval about this nude. Her facial expression combined with her passive almost seductive posture signifies she is available for pleasure. Through this work Titian established a convention of female nudity that was to endure for centuries. Versions of this pose have been repeated in countless works. By the seventeenth century, Rubens's paintings (Belgium) of nude women, like Titian's goddess, seem uninhibited about their nakedness. They lack the medieval reserve that is still found in Botticelli's Venus. In The JudKement of Paris (Fig.l .5) Rubens portrays a Greek story of a beauty contest between Athena, Aphrodite and Hera. The appearance of nude female images managed to survive even the nineteenth century Victorian period. The sight of a woman's ankle was even considered provocative during these times. Even the use of the word 'leg' was considered indecent. Yet the art of the time was full of sexually titillating paintings of Turkish harems, Roman slave markets and orgies. As long as the nudes in a work were considered classical and the subject matter could be interpreted as information to teach historical or moral lessons, it was approved. Western painting and the Venus theme had survived over a period of 400 years. In the early twentieth century, the female form was still present. The modern movement grew stronger. The traditional practice of realistically illustrating a subject or nude was overlooked and classical themes seemed to lose their credibility in an increasingly scientific and materialistic world. During the early years of the twentieth century artists sought solutions to overcome the limitations of realism. Picasso's solution broke the rules of composition, including the conventions of the nude. This is made clear in his painting, The Dance. (Fig. 1.6) Matisse's approach was to turn the female ~ure into just another compositional element as can be seen in Dance (Fig. 1. 7) Occasionally, both these artists, in their later years, returned to slightly more traditional methods of representing the female nude. Many artists began to apply the new techniques discovered, to traditional subject matter. When we look at the British artist Henry Moore, we find that his sculptures were some of the more successful efforts at interpreting the female figure in new ways. He does not necessarily portray the female body as beautiful, yet his work was. often very sexual in nature. This is due to the fact that he used semi abstract shapes to suggest, rather than represent parts of the body e.g. ReclininK FiKure (Maquette) (Fig. 1.8). He started to experiment with open sculpture. Moore began with 'natural' open spaces, such as that formed by the elbow the woman is leaning on or that which exists below her raised knee. Often he would distort them, making a space larger or smaller than viewers would expect, sometimes even eliminating parts of the body. Moore's sculptures create different ideas in viewers' minds as they move around the massive form. Some see landscape-like forms, e.g. mountains and caverns, which suggest a reassuring permanence. Others tend to see body shapes or sexual allusions. His sculptures are more than just the body of a woman, they can be seen as an affirmation of life itself. During the 1960's, artists went back to more realistic representations of the human figure. They leaned towards the 'comic strip' type of representation and advertising. Pop Artists, such as Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselman created satirical versions of the modern Venus. Warhol took the ideal woman off her pedestal and put her on the supermarket shelf. She became as common and as interchangeable as a line of food cans. Tom Wesselmann's Seascape (Fig. 1.9) reflects the dehumanisation that occurs in a mass-media, mass-production modern world and implies that the status of women has become likewise (as dehumanised and mass-produced.) Wesselmann created a series of Great American Nudes. Each one is set in a collage environment of sexual symbols and products which advertising has made necessary to life. It is almost as if the Venus ha~ become a figure whose only features are sexual.ways. He does not necessarily portray the female body as beautiful, yet his work was. often very sexual in nature. This is due to the fact that he used semi abstract shapes to suggest, rather than represent parts of the body e.g. ReclininK FiKure (Maquette) (Fig. 1.8). He started to experiment with open sculpture. Moore began with 'natural' open spaces, such as that formed by the elbow the woman is leaning on or that which exists below her raised knee. Often he would distort them, making a space larger or smaller than viewers would expect, sometimes even eliminating parts of the body. Moore's sculptures create different ideas in viewers' minds as they move around the massive form. Some see landscape-like forms, e.g. mountains and caverns, which suggest a reassuring permanence. Others tend to see body shapes or sexual allusions. His sculptures are more than just the body of a woman, they can be seen as an affirmation of life itself. During the 1960's, artists went back to more realistic representations of the human figure. They leaned towards the 'comic strip' type of representation and advertising. Pop Artists, such as Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselman created satirical versions of the modern Venus. Warhol took the ideal woman off her pedestal and put her on the supermarket shelf. She became as common and as interchangeable as a line of food cans. Tom Wesselmann's Seascape (Fig. 1.9) reflects the dehumanisation that occurs in a mass-media, mass-production modern world and implies that the status of women has become likewise (as dehumanised and mass-produced.) Wesselmann created a series of Great American Nudes. Each one is set in a collage environment of sexual symbols and products which advertising has made necessary to life. It is almost as if the Venus ha~ become a figure whose only features are sexual.ways. He does not necessarily portray the female body as beautiful, yet his work was. often very sexual in nature. This is due to the fact that he used semi abstract shapes to suggest, rather than represent parts of the body e.g. ReclininK FiKure (Maquette) (Fig. 1.8). He started to experiment with open sculpture. Moore began with 'natural' open spaces, such as that formed by the elbow the woman is leaning on or that which exists below her raised knee. Often he would distort them, making a space larger or smaller than viewers would expect, sometimes even eliminating parts of the body. Moore's sculptures create different ideas in viewers' minds as they move around the massive form. Some see landscape-like forms, e.g. mountains and caverns, which suggest a reassuring permanence. Others tend to see body shapes or sexual allusions. His sculptures are more than just the body of a woman, they can be seen as an affirmation of life itself. During the 1960's, artists went back to more realistic representations of the human figure. They leaned towards the 'comic strip' type of representation and advertising. Pop Artists, such as Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselman created satirical versions of the modern Venus. Warhol took the ideal woman off her pedestal and put her on the supermarket shelf. She became as common and as interchangeable as a line of food cans. Tom Wesselmann's Seascape (Fig. 1.9) reflects the dehumanisation that occurs in a mass-media, mass-production modern world and implies that the status of women has become likewise (as dehumanised and mass-produced.) Wesselmann created a series of Great American Nudes. Each one is set in a collage environment of sexual symbols and products which advertising has made necessary to life. It is almost as if the Venus ha~ become a figure whose only features are sexual.