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Beautiful Bodies throughout History
Throughout History, Art Imitates Life--Beautiful Life
Beautiful bodies are nothing new; for thousands of years, women have strived
to achieve what is "beautiful." Works of art throughout history
have portrayed the significance of beauty in women's bodies. Even today,
graphic artwork such as magazine ads and billboards show only flawless beauty
among women. By examining works of art created both today and throughout
history, we can see the significance of female beauty throughout world civilizations,
as well as modern American society.
One of the earliest known works of art to idealize the female body is the
Venus of Willendorf. This piece dates back to approximately 20,000
BCE. By today's standards, the figure is hideously fat and takes the form
of a woman hugging her enormous breasts. But why is she so large? Scholars
believe she was created in the form of a fertility goddess. Obesity in those
ages must have been an extremely rare luxury. After all, this is a goddess
that the people worshipped, so being enormous must have been a plus. Think
about it: a woman of this size could undoubtedly nourish many children.
The civilization from which she comes most likely worshipped this goddess/diety
in hopes of successful reproduction and survival (20).
While nude women in Renaissance paintings are nowhere near the size of the
Venus above, they are notably chunky. Believe it or not, being overweight
by today's standards was considered to be beautiful during the Renaissance.
Similarly to the Venus of Willendorf, an overweight woman living
during the Renaissance was considered to be well-nourished and healthy.
Being overweight was also a sign of great wealth and high status. Can you
imagine eating to your heart's content in order to look good?
An example of female beauty during the Renaissance can be seen in Boticelli's Birth of Venus. Painted in 1485, this painting depicts the birth of the Roman Goddess of beauty, Venus. She has just been "born" and raised out of the sea, and divine beings rush to cover her with a cloak. Notice how Venus is indeed full-figured. If this same subject were to be painted today, how do you think Venus's body would look (26)?
Unlike the ideal beauties from ancient Rome, Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), a real woman, established her own standard of beauty throughout her reign as queen of England. Elizabeth portrayed herself as a divine image. She used cosmetics containing white lead ingredients to make her skin appear pale, likening herself to depctions of the Virgin Mary. Born to King Henry VIII of England, she was the only legitimate heir to the throne as her father was unable to produce a male heir (a legitimate one, that is). England, at the time, was very hostile toward the notion of a female ruler. Elizabeth was pressured to marry, but ultimately she did not marry, claiming she was wedded only to her country. It is speculated that women in England at the time aspired to copy her physical appearance: pale, gaunt, and thin (32).
Nearly
three centuries after the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the nude female still
remained a popular subject among painters. La Grande Odalisque by
JAD Ingres was painted in 1814 and exhibited in the Paris Salon of 1819.
The painting was highly criticized for the exaggerated anatomy of the body
(she has an elongated backbone). This painting serves as one of the first
examples of artistic license in the creation of a more sensual and exotic
female body.
The
female body in art has been the target of male gaze for centuries. In 1866,
Gustave Corbet painted The Origin of the World, which was intended
for clandestine male audiences only. The painting serves almost as a lifelike
and life-size study of the female genital area. But moreso this piece was
kept privately as a male possession. The painting depicts only the genital
region. There is no head, face, arms, or legs. The woman lies in a seductive
and submissive position before the viewer (144).
Surrealist
artist Magritte similarly depicted the female body in his painting Le
Viol (The Rape) in 1934. The painting hauntingly illustrates a woman's
face transformed into her torso. Her eyes become breasts, her nose a belly
button, and her mouth the genital region. The title of the piece insinuates
control and manipulation of the figure portrayed. Was Magritte commenting
on warped male perceptions of the female body? Or was he proudly reinforcing
the objectification of women? Perhaps he was skillfully aiming for both
(142).
Almost
40 years after The Rape, the second wave feminist movement was at
its peak. American women were protesting their predestined roles as homemaker
and housewife as well as the general perception of a "weaker sex."
At this time, feminist art was emerging; it was often used as a political
vehicle for expression and protest. Sandra Orgel's Sheet Closet was
part of an installation known as Womanhouse in 1972. The installation took
form of a real house. Each room embodied a different feminist concept and
installation of its own. Sheet Closet depicted a mannequin-like woman
literally trapped inside a linen closet. The viewer pities this delicate
mannaquin, in a sense, as she is not only imprisoned, but her body is part
of the closet shelves themselves (169).
Feminist
ideas, causes, and works of art continued to prevail in Western culture
even after the 1970's. By 1992, artists like the young Jenny Saville were
still tackling women's issues. Many breakthroughs for women's equality had
been made by this point, but women still had a ways to go in terms of self-perception
and body image. Saville produced a series of self-portrait paintings depicting
her own body. The diseased and almost deformed bodies both intimidate and
intrigue the viewer. In Branded (at right), adjectives such as "decorative"
and "delicate" appear to be carved into the flesh of the grossly
enlarged body.While this art is confrontive and powerful, Saville makes
it clear that these portraits are representative of failures--women who
aspire to meet cultural beauty ideals and continuously feel as if they have
failed to do so (143).
As
Jenny Saville employed her own body as an expression of women's struggles,
artists like Renee Cox portrayed the plight of African American women. Yo
Mama, a photograph taken in 1993, illustrates a slender and muscular
black woman. She is naked and appears to be strong and powerful; she holds
an infant in her arms as she stares intentionally into the viewer's eyes.
The artist sought to capture the lingering horrors among African American
families that stem from slavery and the separation from loved ones. African
American family ties are notably strong today, as the illustration portrays
(Chicago and Lucie-Smith, 63).
In 1996, another minority female artist took a stand against the abuse of women's bodies. Isis Rodriguez, a California resident of Puerto Rican descent, produced cartoonish drawings that confront the accepted "vices" of women. She employs humor and propoganda methods to convey her message. No More is an illustration of a Puerto Rican woman, her legs spread open in sexual offering.
From
her genitals emerges a ferocious tiger that seemingly attempts to attack
the viewer. In her right hand she holds a gun, in her left a bitten apple;
the apple symbolizes the Biblical story of Adam and Eve in which Eve eats
a forbidden apple from the tree of Jehova (God). (Throughout the history
of Western Civilization, women have been held accountable and blamed for
these acts on behalf of Eve.) The woman is also depicted with severed shackles
on her ankles and wrists, indicating empowerment and freedom. Isis Rodriquez
has worked to combat prostitution, namely the use and exploitation of women
by pimps and governments who profit from this age-old profession. She wrote
in 1998 "Legalizing [prostitution] is great for the pimps, the madams,
the johns, the military, and the IRS, because they will have more control
and make more money. In academic circles we now have people who claim that
the whore was symbolic of women's freedom and empowerment. (They have the
nerve to tell us [women] that prostitution should be legal because it's
the world's oldest profession and we can't escape it. We have to tolerate
it.) (111)" Women and Art: Contested Territory. The Ivy Press Limited, 1999.
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