As Berger wrote, “men act, women appear”. This seems to have been the case throughout art history from the classical period and the renaissance to modern art. The nude in art has demonstrated the difference between men and women. Women have been portrayed as either goddesses or whores for the male gaze, where as men are depicted as powerful, muscular and active. Contemporary female artists have attempted to oppose this tradition, however, even today women are used in advertising to attract attention and men to show strength and power.
Women are seen as objects of desire. Throughout art history this depiction of women has been present. Most classical images of the nude show women reclining on a bed with a low, seductive gaze out to the viewer or with her head or eyes turned away to make her less personal and more of an object to watch. Giorgione's Sleeping Venus (c.1508) uses this classic composition. By having Venus asleep the viewer is free to fantasise about her. This is a classical composition of the nude, which was dominant in the Renaissance, during the time in which women were portrayed as beautiful goddesses or objects for the male to look at. They were positioned to highlight their curves and sexuality and depicted as biblical or legendary characters. It seemed acceptable to portray women as these objects of desire if they were labelled Venus, Danae or of other mythical characters.
Giorgione, Sleeping Venus
(1508) Oil on canvas (108.5x175cm) Dresden Gallery, Germany
Men are seen as active, strong heroes, as depicted through art history. They are either shown working, hunting, fighting or displaying their muscular bodies. Durer's Apollo and Diana (c.1502) shows the man standing, being active and hunting, while the women sits back as a beautiful object and watches passively. This depiction is customary to how both genders have been depicted in art. As Saunders points out in The Nude: A New Perspective (1), the male nude is almost invisible in our society and when it is featured it is for the purpose of “celebration of physical power”. Today the male nude is shown for either medical studies or in bodybuilding or gay magazines. Even in today's advertising men are used to suggest health and strength, while women are “simply [used] to attract male attention and suggest availability”.
Albrecht Durer, Apollo and Diana
(c.1502) Engraving (115x70mm) Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York
The reason for this depiction difference between genders initially was because the majority of artists were male; therefore they would create beautiful females for their own consumption and portray themselves as strong and controlling. As far back as the ancient Greek this was the case in art. This is seen in many ancient Greek sculptures. The women are portrayed as divine goddesses and the men idealised, celebrating the strength and beauty of masculinity. The men are active the women passive.
We have been brought up in a society that has stereotyped women as passive, nurturing and sexual and men as active, strong, leaders and heroes. In general most images of women in art show them either beautiful objects to be admired, adorned with jewels, makeup and rich clothing or with children, doing household chores. This stereotypical placement has influenced the way different genders are portrayed in art.
The
Renaissance (14th-16th century AD) demonstrates the beauty of the classical
nude. Women were shown as objects for men to look at. A prime example of this
classical nude is the art of Titian (Tiziano Vecellio 1485-1576). His Venus
of Urbino (1538), shows a beautiful reclining women as an object
of desire. She knows she is being watched. Her eyes connect with the viewer in
a tempting and provoking way. She is aware of her sexuality and objectivity,
lying there for anyone to look at. Titian, Venus of Urbino
(1538) Oil on canvas (119x165cm) Uffizi, Florence
Classical nudes, like Titians, were either portrayed as goddesses or of biblical character. Titian's Danae and the Shower of Gold (1554) is an example of women being represented as mythical characters in art. Danae was a legendary princess and because this image is named after a legend it becomes acceptable for her to be an object of desire as she is not a real human being.
Titian, Danae and the Shower of
Gold (1554) Oil on canvas (178x 128cm) Museo del Prado, Madrid
This idea is the same as the use of the mirror as a symbol of vanity and a way to moralise the nude although this is hypocritical, as Berger expresses in his Ways of Seeing (2). By putting a mirror in her hand and calling the painting vanity it makes the nude acceptable for the male to admire in the same way it does when the image is mythical.
Men featured in art during the Renaissance challenged the viewer with a confident, outward portrayal. For example, Michelangelo's David (1501-4) illustrates the muscular form and honourable power of this biblical character before battle. Men were the dynamic and active beings, seen fighting, exercising and flaunting their bodies in a way to show off their strength and power. The male body was not portrayed as a sexual object to admire, but rather as an ideal. In images of the male nude the subject is more about the study of the body and how it works or to express physical perfection.
Michelangelo, David (1501-1504)
Carrara marble
Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence
Manet's Olympia (1863) began a new depiction of the female nude and the start of the modern period. Olympia is different to previous nudes in the way she is aware of the spectators desire and is unashamed. Although Manet has used the traditional composition of other nude paintings, his subject is different and at the time was shocking to the audience as she is not a mythical or biblical character. Olympia does not have the modest, submissive, low gaze of nude paintings before her. She is alert and challenges the viewer with her confident stare. This is a prime example of women being depicted as whores.
Edouard Manet Oil on canvas (130.5x190cm) Musee d’Orsay, Paris 
Manet often shocked the audience of his time with his representations of the female body. As he puts it in his own words “I paint what I see, and not what others like to see.” (3) His works were often rejected and raised protests as they were different to the classic nudes. They portrayed women as prostitutes through realism. His painting The Picnic (1863), is another that depicts women in this way. This painting once again received many attacks by critics because of the whore like depiction of women. She sits naked amongst two clothed men. Manet, through his work, shows the way women have been portrayed as whores. Although this is the case his women are still there for the sexual satisfaction of men.
Édouard Manet, The Picnic (1863)
Oil on canvas (208cm x 264.5cm)
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Until the late 19th century women were not allowed to draw nude figures at all, which influenced the depiction of women in art. Contemporary women have a lot more freedom and therefore the nude today is represented differently. The subject of the nude has changed from goddess or whore as represented in art before the 20th century. Contemporary artists such as Jenny Saville and Lisa Yuskavage have changed this depiction by using the female nude to convey a message about body image in today's society.
Saville uses large-scale, fleshy nude images of women to express this issue of body image and contradict the classic nude by illustrating her women as overweight, grotesque distorted women. She talks about her work and intentions in an interview with Elton John (2003) (4). She conveys a message about body image and truth in the media. This is especially shown in her photographs collection made with Glen Luchford. By distorting her body and pressing it against glass she was able to portray herself as an obese character, yet in reality she is quite petite. Saville’s self-portrait titled Branded (1992) is an example of her work showing the gross, over- weight depiction of women. She has used her own body to express this struggle with body image in today's society.
Jenny Saville, Branded (1992) Oil on Canvas (213.4cm x 182.9cm) The Saatchi Gallery,
London
Jenny Saville & Glen Luchford, Closed Contact #14 (1995-6)
C-print mounted in plexiglas (182.9 x 182.9 x 15.2cm)
Lisa Yuskavage also depicts women as exaggerated, fleshy, crude objects of disgust rather than desire to comment on the issue of body image and plastic surgery in young women. She also hinges on the issue of women being depicted in art as objects to be looked upon, like Saville, by contradicting the tradition of perfect beautiful looking women and displaying them as foul, raw and over exaggerated.
This issue of body image has risen in today's society because of the representation of women as objects. Women have been portrayed as attractive creatures for the adornment of men throughout history and therefore women feel they should be perfectly beautiful. This has triggered problems such as anorexia and is particularly shown today in advertising with the use of women as objects of attraction.
Berger pointed out the idea of women watching how they appear to others, particularly men. He states that women become the surveyor as well as the surveyed. Women must constantly watch how they are being viewed as well as being watched. This matter of awareness of body image is evident in most nude paintings of women, particularly Titian’s traditional nudes. They know they are being watched and are being used for the male gaze.
These messages and exaggerated truth depiction’s are one way contemporary female artists have changed the way women are viewed in art. Other female artists today are in the process of changing the original depiction of the female nude such as Jean Shepard whose intention “is to create paintings that will both continue the tradition of the female nude in subject matter and aesthetic appeal, but that will undermine the implicit idea that the painted women's bodies are meant for some abstract male consumption”.(5) Shepard uses traditional components in her large-scale paintings, however she incorporates ironic elements, such as cowboy boots, to disconnect the traditional depiction of women as objects. Her subjects are aware of this sexual consumption, like many before her. She tries to make her paintings as traditional as possible using conventional techniques and components, however without degrading and objectifying the subject.
Women in art history have been portrayed as passive objects for the male gaze, weather as a goddess to make the nude acceptable, or as whores to tempt the viewer. Whereas men have been depicted as strong, active and honourable. These different representations are due to the gender of the majority of artists and the way society has stereotyped each gender role. Female artists today have attempted to counter this conventional image of women in art by expressing different issues through their work such as body image. Also changing the classical nude by presenting her huge and distorted or incorporating other elements to change original the intent.
Notes:
1. Saunders, G. The Nude: A New Perspective. Harper and Row, 1989
2. Berger, J. Ways of Seeing. BBC/Penguin Books, 1972
3. Gerondeau, M. The Impressionist Movement and its greatest painters. 2004
www.impressioniste.net/manet_Edouard.htm
4. Interview with Elton John, Oct 2003
www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1285/is_9_33/ai_108050851
5. Shepard, J. Girls In Boots:Returning the male gaze The University of North Carolina, Asheville, 2005
www.unca.edu/urp/GrantPropFallSpring.htm
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