The female form in art

Trapped in a man’s world. Tucson, Arizona, 2013

I am reading an interesting essay about the use of the female form in art and how that reflects on the values and norms of our western societies. Interesting perspective.

Chew on this:

“…men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of a woman within herself is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object–and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.”

What, you might ask, might the implications of this be (if true) in art in general and photography in particular?

Take many Renaissance paintings, for example…the woman is often depicted in a way that is obvious that she is there to be observed–and observed by a man or men, of course. Not only that, she is also judged (think of her sin and her shame in Garden of Eden mythology).  Men may be depicted as they are, but women are depicted as idealizations or objects of desire.

In the essay, an example is used: The Judgement of Paris by Peter Paul Rubens, 1636. According to the author, “…man or men looking at the naked women…Paris awards the apple to the woman he finds most beautiful. Thus Beauty becomes competitive. (Today, The Judgement of Paris has become the Beauty Contest.) Those who are not judged beautiful are not beautiful. Those who are, are given the prize.”

How do you photograph women? Why? Certainly some points to ponder even if they might be debatable.

Quote source: Ways of Seeing, by John Berger, BBC and Penguin Books, 1972, reprinted in 2003.