The woman in Spirit of the Dead Watching lays prostrate on a bed, exposing her naked buttocks while gazing directly at the viewer. Her position is submissive, in spite of the alluring look in the woman's eyes. The spirit of the dead represents traditional Tahitian religious beliefs, which would have been in direct conflict with the Christianity imposed upon the island nation by the French.
Sexuality was also a favorite theme of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. The artist was well-known for his escapades in Montmartre, Paris's cabaret district. Toulouse-Lautrec's work depicts a seedy underbelly of Parisian life rather than idealizing the bourgeoisie. Like Gaugin's work, the paintings of Toulouse-Lautrec embody the social changes taking place in European society during the late nineteenth century.
In Stocking, Toulouse-Lautrec depicts two dancers, one of which is just getting dressed. The one on the left wears so much makeup as to appear clown-like, and she is fully dressed. Both women are preparing for their stage acts. The woman on the right pulls up a stocking but otherwise she is totally naked. Toulouse-Lautrec paints the two women candidly, as if they do not know they are being watched. His approach mimics that of photography, which allowed for candid pictures of people that would otherwise need to sit still and model for an artist. Alone is another painting in which Toulouse-Lautrec portrays cabaret dancers as sexually uninhibited and independent women. The prone woman's eyes are closed and the painting appears hasty, as if Toulouse-Lautrec quickly stole a snapshot of a dancer taking a nap. His sketch-like brushstrokes almost transform the imagery into an abstraction, as if in a quick glance. The viewer is placed in the unique position of being a voyeur watching a woman sleep. Like Gaugin, Toulouse-Lautrec depicts female bodies and female sexuality from a male perspective. However, their paintings also show that social and gender norms were...
Four men stand out as the penultimate figures of Post-Impressionism, namely, Georges Suerat (1859-1891), Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), Paul Gauguin (1843-1903) and Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), all of whom at first accepted the Impressionist methods and then moved away from it toward a new type of painting. In the case of Cezanne, the basis of his art had much to do with studying nature in a new way, for his aim
In Braque's "Woman with a Guitar we can see the foreshadowing of the Synthetic Cubism period, when he introduces stenciling and lettering, a practice that Picasso was soon to imitate. Figure 7: Picasso, Le Guitariste"(1910 Figure 8: Braque "Woman with a Guitar" (1913 Synthetic Cubism/Collage 1912-1914: Braque was beginning to experiment further now by mixing materials such as sand and sawdust into his paint to create a more textured, built- up look and what
Anarchy in the 19th Century An Analysis of Merriman's Dynamite Club and Anarchy in the 19th Century John Merriman makes the point early in the Dynamite Club that there exists "a gossamer thread connecting…Islamist fundamentalists and Emile Henry's circle." Merriman goes on to define that connection as being one of "social inequalities." But more to the heart of the matter, however, is the difference in ideologies -- ideologies that transcended the economic, political,
His paintings were and are provocative because, instead of using personal confessions (like Dali), he uses irony and wit and intelligence to make his point hear. "The Treason of Images" is controversial in the sense that it makes the viewer question art and language and the meaning that we apply to objects. Magritte questions the assumptions made by people about the world, changing the scale of objects and defying
De La Croix, 865-66. Artists in the nineteenth century were confronted by three innovations that fatefully affected their craft: the camera, the mass produced print, and the printed reproduction. The collective techniques of an industrial age forced nineteenth century artists to analyze their function and to study closely the physical nature of their medium. Hyde, Minor, Art History's History. 32-35. Baroque Art emerged in Europe around 1600, as a reaction against
(176) In this regard, Nead notes that because she was an art lover, Richardson experienced a moral dilemma in her decision to attack "The Rokeby Venus," but she felt compelled to do so anyway based on her perception that the government was failing to act responsibility towards women in general and the suffragettes in particular. "In her statement during her trial, Richardson appears calm and articulate and nothing is said
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