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SEXUAL DISPLAY OF WOMEN.   Term Paper ID:29738 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analysis of two paintings depicting female nudes.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Analysis of two paintings depicting female nudes. Eugene Delacroix's "Death of Sardanapolus" (1826), & Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d-Avignon" (1907). Similarity of their approach as representing something new in artistic terms. Artistic interplay of time and space. Delacroix's use of male sexual fantasy. Picasso's formulation of Cubist ideas; subject matter of prostitutes. Paper Introduction: Eugène Delacroix's Death of Sardanapalus (1826) and Pablo Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907) were painted only eighty years apart and demonstrate the immense changes that had taken place in painting in that span of time. Curiously, however, they display a remarkable similarity in their approach to subject matter which may not be immediately apparent. Both of these paintings represented something new in artistic terms. Delacroix drew on his imaginative faculty for fantasy in a swirling, boldly painted, brilliantly colored composition that used space as expressively as other elements. Picasso's early formulation of Cubist ideas, on the other hand, sought to represent an interplay of time and space rather than a more traditional replication of the real world. But both painters used the female nude as the key element in their works; an Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. In order to maximize theimpact of this idea (or, perhaps, ideal), Delacroix devised a compositionin which the still, brooding figure of the king, "presid[ing] like a geniusof evil over the panorama of destruction," becomes the center of theviewer's experience by making him the one calm element in the picture(Kleiner et al. Bruce Robertson. Both these splendid paintings, thatdid so much to alter the course of the art, reflect this common culturalbias. Curiously, however, they display a remarkable similarity intheir approach to subject matter which may not be immediately apparent.Both of these paintings represented something new in artistic terms.Delacroix drew on his imaginative faculty for fantasy in a swirling, boldlypainted, brilliantly colored composition that used space as expressively asother elements. 871). The two women on the right, whose faces wererepainted under the inspiration of African sculpture, are more radicallyconceived a collection of "more ambiguous planes suggesting a combinationof views, as if the figures are seen from more than one place in space atonce" (Kleiner et al. 871). Ed. But both painters used thefemale nude as the key element in their works; an analysis of theirpaintings in terms of gender, exoticism, and even violence demonstratesthat, no matter how innovative their approaches to painting, they stillshared fundamental assumptions about the nature of the subject. In doing so they emphasize the male sexual fantasy and the evenmore limited audience for combining violence and sexual fantasy. New York: McGraw-Hill Primis Custom Publishing, 2 1.Kleiner, Fred S., Christin J. Mamiya & Tansey 87 ). But thereis a broader sense in which the fantasy is acceptable to nearly all thepotential members of Delacroix's audience--including women, as well as menwho might not be interested in violent portrayals of sexually attractiveobjects. The violence of the scene and its exotictrappings intrigue the viewer and the subject is essentially literary, evenin its painted form, since it can only be 'read' when one possesses thenecessary information supplied not just by the title but by knowledge ofSardanapalus' legend. Romanticism [excerpt]. Nearly every member of Delacroix's audience would assume that peoplein ancient Assyria behaved in ways they could not imagine. This is how Picasso has depicted them and, although Cubismeventually encompassed a broad range of pictorial subject matter, it isinteresting that the frustration of not being able to present all thecharms of the female body at once was part of the impetus to break downspace and time as Picasso did. Just as no onecould really say what the event, or even the trappings of Assyrian royalty,looked like, so no one (at least with any authority) would be likely to saythat this reimagining of the story was absurd. The conception, however, changed ashe worked on it and eventually only the nudes remained--although the titlestill refers to a well known street in Barcelona's red light district. Eugène Delacroix's Death of Sardanapalus (1826) and Pablo Picasso'sLes Demoiselles d'Avignon (19 7) were painted only eighty years apart anddemonstrate the immense changes that had taken place in painting in thatspan of time. The picture may not appear to conform to Honour'sdescription of Romantic art as "the expression of the artist's own personalliving experience" (58). It might be said that thepicture argues that the psychology of the people depicted by Delacroix isinherently different from that of the artist and his audience--who couldnever conceive of themselves in such situations, except as a fantasy of onekind or another. In Delacroix's representation of his fantasy of an ancient Middle-Eastern king, the artist allowed his imagination to run free and thesubject might be seen as a means of allowing himself to express things thatwould not be as well received in a more modern subject. Thepainting that emerged was something new in art as Picasso eliminated thebackground, more or less merging the figures with the remaining bits ofdrapery and architecture so that any conventional notion of pictorial spaceis gone. He rests his head on his hand and surveys the wildscene in front of him without the slightest trace of involvement.Sardanapalus' detachment is an expression of the patriarchal order carriedto extremes. But in the painting "orgiastic destruction replaces the sacrificialsuicide" described by Byron (Kleiner. Theexoticism inherent in his painting resides, instead, in his presentation ofa scene that is also hidden from view--although in a somewhat different wayfrom the historical distance Delacroix relied upon. Women who work as prostitutes are social outcasts, cutoff from the rest of society and existing in a world where their fate is inthe hands of the men who are willing--or unwilling--to pay for their sexualservices. In some ways it is accurate, therefore, to look atthe current of Western representational painting as the constantreinvention of the means of representation in an art that depicted the samething, in one guise or another, over and over. Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers, 2 1.NOTE TO CLIENT:You did not include bibliographic info on your edition of Gardner's. Kleiner et al. So Iassumed that it was the 2 1 ed. For nomatter how wrapped up they are in Delacroix's emotional narrative orPicasso's simultaneous representation of time and space, the main'attractions' of both canvases are five naked or partially draped women andthey are, although in very different ways, treated as an exotic 'other' interms of gender difference. Despite the fact that Picasso's primary interest in the painting canbe said to be the development of a means of "paint[ing] forms as I thinkthem"--as the artist said of his work--the sexual display of the women isunambiguous (quoted in Kleiner et al. Displaying women as prostitutes, as sexual objects, in thismanner is, therefore, no less a matter of assuming their status as 'other'than is Delacroix's appropriation of the nude female in his fantasy of maledomination and violence. These are women who areputting themselves on display in a manner intended to provoke a lustfulresponse. The painting wasoriginally titled The Philosophical Bordello and was to have depictedclients mingling with the prostitutes. In Delacroix'spicture the king lies on a bed gloomily surveying the accumulation of hispossessions--"his women, slaves, horses, and treasure"--as the livingbeings are slaughtered and everything is heaped on his funeral pyre(Kleiner et al. 871). The three women on the left side of the picture reflect theinfluence of Iberian sculpture and they have a more classic, easilyreadable appearance. Similarly, justas many members of the audience for Picasso's painting could not conceiveof the life of a prostitute. Picasso's very different painting also revolves around the questionof male desire, and the women depicted are defined in this particularsetting solely in terms of the value they can attain in terms of men'sdesire, i.e., in the commercial terms of prostitution. That sense is the widely shared cultural assumption that thosewho are not a part of one's own culture are capable of many kinds ofbehavior that are proscribed by one's own society. 1 13). Mamiya and Richard G. Art History 6C Reader, 51-58. Works CitedHonour, Hugh. This can best be seen in the seated figurewho is simultaneously presented in a three-quarter back view while her headand right arm are shown frontally. But, even more importantly,the painting reveals the extent to which the artist and much of hisaudience were already primed to accept any sexually-tinged, violence-ladenversion of life in Asia or other exotic locales. Instead, Picasso putsthe interior of a bordello on display in a work of art--a proceeding thatwas not unique but still retained its aura of the forbidden and theclandestine. In order to adoptthis stance toward the other (in order to control the threat inherent indifference), it is often necessary to see the other as an entirelydifferent order of being from oneself. The combination of sensualindulgence--in terms of women and material goods--and disdain for theseobjects clearly had a powerful pull for the artist and, one presumes, theaudience for which he intended the painting. Picasso's early formulation of Cubist ideas, on the otherhand, sought to represent an interplay of time and space rather than a moretraditional replication of the real world. None of the persons being slain or the beautiful objects tobe burned (which are thus made exactly equivalent in value) is of anyaccount if he is not going to live since they gain their value solely fromhis desire for them. Gardner's Art through the Ages. The number of women, theraised-arms poses, the provocative draping of the lower halves of thesecond and third figures, and the direct, almost challenging, stares ofmost of them make their role as prostitutes clear. are careful to point out that the violent eroticism ofDelacroix's painting was a fantasy only of the artist "and some viewers"(871). However, the personal expression involved infantasizing this version of the story and painting it in this manner isconsiderable since "with its exotic and erotic overtones [it] taps into thefantasies of both the artist and some viewers" (Kleiner et al. This is a world whose inhabitants' behavior--much like thatof ancient Assyrian tyrants and their concubines--is conceived of by theworld at large in terms that are all the more titillating for the lack ofspecific knowledge. Tansey. The essential'difference' between 'them and us' was not (and is not) conceived of onlyin terms of relatively superficial differences--such as climate, clothing,work, or food--but in terms of moral difference as well. Picasso's appropriation of the African sculptors' means ofrepresentation, just like the similar use of ancient Iberian sculpture,merely reflects an interest in alternative styles of representation. These women were, the audience assumed,motivated by a wholly different set of moral standards or, if they happenedto be more familiar with them, necessarily conceived of them as an otherand lesser order of being in order to facilitate their commercialinteractions with them. The bodies of the women are among the mostconspicuous objects in the painting as the contrast between the deep redsand brown shadows and their pale flesh, and the extreme poses, draw theviewer's attention to them. The change in the narrative invented by Delacroix is, in itself, anindication that he was fascinated by the notion of the careless waste ofhuman life and other "possessions" of the king that was seen as apeculiarly oriental version of tyranny. As an "other," they are subject to the overtviolence depicted in Delacroix's painting and the social violence inherentin Picasso's subject. 1 13). 11th ed. Delacroix derived his subject from a narrative poem by Byron,Sardanapalus (1821), which treated the suicide of the defeated Assyrianking. If not, the authors' names may bedifferent, etc. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.