Critical studies; The male gaze/Feminist intervention

Exotic Romanticism or The male gaze? Just the title alone gives me the creeps. Why is power and control needed? OK we wont delve into that but, why is it and has been for the majority of time through art history, always been one sided? That is the question here. Are we not made of the same flesh and bone? 

From the 16th-19th centuries woman have been seen as nothing but a muse. Women where deemed good enough to be painted back then but not to become a painter. It was not until 1860 that women were allowed to enter and study in big institutions like The Royal London Academy. Even then these works where not considered valuable, not looked after and not stored so nothing survived.  Objectification, judgment and humiliation towards the feminine form have been filtered out through art over many years. Plenty of examples are out there for us to see..... This piece by Barbara Johansen is painfully relatable as I have been here in this situation before, many times, I know exactly how the woman in the picture feels and its such an uncomfortable, encompassing feeling. Its like a pack of wolves fighting for a piece of meat out in the wild. 

                                                 Male Gaze by Barbara Johansen Newman

                                                                     acrylic on canvas 

I think the painting that brings about the most emotions from me when I view it is The Grande Odalisque, Painted by Jean-Auguste Ingres in 1814.

This piece is so suggestive, accusatory and manipulated. There was some fascination of "exotic" or foreign scenes like this. Here we have a Turkish Harem woman wearing traditional head dress and there is a hookah smoking device just to the right of the picture, so we are aware this person is potentially from a foreign land. She lays naked, positioned in an alluring manner with a seductive look over her shoulder. What we see here will most definitely not be what the model naturally looked like in real life. Unfortunately her appearance was changed by her male creator intending to produce a more "exceptional" more "perfect" outcome. Ingres has anatomically changed the models body and it has been noticed that the spine is too long with as many as four extra vertebra added. Also her right arm seems too long with barely an elbow to see. Was Ingres originally viewing something he considered to be socially unaccepted as beautiful? and felt the need to change it? Mannerism was known as a late renaissance movement who also felt inclined to exaggerate models and their natural beauty. 

I feel nothing has changed in regards to women's appearances and pressure to look and behave a certain way in current times. It is a constant battle. It has already been set in stone from these historical pieces, the expectancy of perfection from women's appearances, even though what we are viewing is not reality.

Feminist intervention ..........

Micol Hebron is a performance artist and professor at Chapman university in Southern California. Born July 1972. Hebron critically examines and engages in feminine activism in art. Hebron uses her body as the main medium in a number of projects she has explored as she seeks to challenge the way female-presenting bodies are viewed by society. She feels that all bodies should be viewed as equal regardless of what action or task the body is carrying out and not viewed as something sexual but just simply as a body. Hebron feels strongly about equality for all body types regardless of what they present and this makes me smile. Micol takes previous works from art history that hold a strong "male gaze" sense and adapts these with her own interpretation and expression. 

Here is Alexandre Cabanel`s Birth of venus