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women's status during renaissance
women's status during renaissance
women during the renaissance
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Rembrandt van Rijn was a Dutch artist well known for his many paintings and etchings of landscapes, figures and animals. His subjects included biblical, secular and mythological scenes. Rembrandt also dabbled in the nude even though they were not popular among his contemporaries. Rembrandt’s nudes were his interpretation of the real human body. He painted every wrinkle and every fold of the body. Rembrandt’s nudes were not considered ugly and grotesque. His nudes were unlike the Greek goddesses his colleagues would portray. There has been some debate and questions as to whether or not Rembrandt used the most important women in his life as models for his nude masterpieces. The most important women in his life were his wife Saskia, his son's nursemaid, Geertje Dircks, and his common-law wife and mother of his daughter, Hendrickje Stoffels. Rembrandt would not use the women in his life as models for his nude paintings because at this time posing in the nude was considered immoral and he would not have compromised them. Despite this some evidence suggest that he did use Hendrickje as a model in a nude portrait.
Danaë, 1636
Rembrandt’s Danaë 1636 is considered the most impressive nude to be found in 17th-century history painting by many art historians. It is painted on a large scale but much more intimate in character than the Blinding of Samson where Rembrandt abandoned his dramatic style. The character Danaë who is depicted in the painting is the mother of Perseus from Greek mythology. It is presumed in the painting that she is welcoming Zeus into her bedroom where he impregnates her in the form of a shower of gold. This painting’s figure is palpable lifelike and exudes a great sensuality unlike any other nude painting in the ea...
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...very day life as nudes for his portrait. First, he would not have depicted the women in his life that could be easily recognized by people. But most importantly, it is unlikely that Rembrandt would use the women in his life as models for his nude paintings because during this time period posing nude was immoral.
Works Cited
B. P. J. Broos, et al. "Rembrandt van Rijn." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. 9 Feb. 2011 .
Sluijter, Eric Jan. Rembrandt and the Female Nude. Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 2006. Print. (pg. 221-222)
Sluijter, Eric Jan. Rembrandt and the Female Nude. Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 2006. Print. (pg. 113-115)
"Bathsheba at Her Bath – Rembrandt Harmensz. VAN RIJN, Known as REMBRANDT – Paintings | Louvre Museum." Site Officiel Du Musée Du Louvre. Web. 10 Feb. 2011.
Throughout Chapter 23, the two paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi drew my attentions the most. Both of these paints offer rare occurrences of a woman’s perspective in the 17th century art scene, which are unique and refreshing. In Susannah and the Elders, Gentileschi depicts a scene from a story in the book of Daniel, where the young Susannah is threatened by two elder men while bathing alone in her garden. The subject matter was popular among Roman catholic arts, perhaps because it offered a rare chance to display the female nude. Non-allegorical female nudes were highly stigmatized, subsequently paintings of female nudes were often cloaked in the framework of biblical/ mythological narratives. Following this tradition, female nude figures, including the depiction of Susannah, were often highly idealistic and unrelatable.
Rembrandt was born into a Dutch society of the Baroque era . This time period influenced his style of artwork heavily as these were the Post-High Renaissance years. This meant that the accepted artworks of the society at the time were religiously based works influenced by the efforts of the Reformation which was also occurring at the time. This meant that Rembrandt painted his works using religious artwork methods such as the art of chiaroscuro, strategically planning the composition of light and dark to give the figures an enlightened or holy appearance. Therefore when Rembrandt painted self-portraits he carried over these methods, painting himself in this almost holy presence with the use of chiaroscuro. The self-portraits show a vast expressiveness that make the works succ...
The official French academy rejected this painting from being displayed not because of the naked female form there was a lot of those since the Renaissance but because of their presence in a modern setting, accompanied by clothed, bourgeois men. The two women were unclothed in the forest near a lake, most likely far from any walking distance, because there was a boat in the lake that they probably took to get to their private area. This suggests that the women were not goddesses, but possibly prostitutes. It’s difficult to notice any lining in this painting since it’s so dark, but if you look closely at the wealthy's man's cane to the far right, you can see a diagonal line along with some of the tree branches. The dark shadows from the trees and people make up the value of the painting, which also makes most of the portrait negative since most of the space is dark. However the bright baby blue from the women's dress pops out making the space somehow positive. The painting seems to be a three-dimensional shape because the basket, women, and fruit come forward and pop out, there are also some triangular shapes in the movement such as the wealthy man to the rights bent leg. “Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe” is an oil painting due to the brush strokes for the grass and trees making the texture
Morisot, Berthe. A Woman at Her Toilette. 1875-1880. Oil on Canvas. The Art Institute of Chicago, Illnois.
While flipping through the pages of a fashion magazine, my fingers stop abruptly as my eyes catch an image of a nude man holding a clothed woman. The man has a muscular body and is effortlessly supporting the woman who's body is arched backwards, her arms hang in a swan-like manner. On the ground by her left foot lays a paint palette and her right hand is grasping a paint brush. The room that they are in appears to be a studio with press board floors, brick walls, and old unfinished wooden workbenches draped in cloth. The woman is painting a canvas with the image of the nude man. The foreground consists of the artist and the model, the painting and the easel, a stool, and a table with art supplies spread out on top. In the background, to the right of the canvas, stands a life-size statue of a woman facing the wall. The statue is a generic image of Greek statues from around 400 - 200 BC. In the right bottom corner of the page, a bottle of golden perfume called Tabu is superimposed on the page. The caption written in cursive reads, "Blame it on Tabu".
The exhibit was put up in May of 2013, an exhibit came to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It had four main sections. It had A) photos of naked men and women depicted in a variety of poses, B) photos engaged in various sexual activities, C) several nude men “standing very close to one another”, and some others that resembled advertisements from a famous
Faggin, Giorgio T and Hughes, Robert. The Complete Paintings of the Van Eycks. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1976. Print.
Women have spent a large amount of time throughout the 20th century fighting for liberation from a patriarchal form that told them that they must be quiet and loyal to their husbands and fathers. For the duration of this essay, I will be discussing how the “Modern Woman” image that appeared through the Art Deco style — that emulated ideas such as the femme fatale and masqueraded woman, and presented new styles to enhance women’s comfortability and freedom — is still prevalent and has grown in contemporary art and design since. Overall I will describing to you how fashion, sexuality, and the newly emerged ‘female gaze’, and how these tie in together — in both periods of time — to produce what can be described as powerful femininity.
Aristotle once claimed that, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Artists, such as Louise-Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun and Mary Cassatt, captured not only the way things physically appeared on the outside, but also the emotions that were transpiring on the inside. A part no always visible to the viewer. While both artists, Le Brun and Cassatt, worked within the perimeters of their artistic cultures --the 18th century in which female artists were excluded and the 19th century, in which women were artistically limited-- they were able to capture the loving relationship between mother and child, but in works such as Marie Antoinette and Her Children and Mother Nursing her Child 1898,
Prior to the 20th century, female artists were the minority members of the art world (Montfort). They lacked formal training and therefore were not taken seriously. If they did paint, it was generally assumed they had a relative who was a relatively well known male painter. Women usually worked with still lifes and miniatures which were the “lowest” in the hierarchy of genres, bible scenes, history, and mythological paintings being at the top (Montfort). To be able to paint the more respected genres, one had to have experience studying anatomy and drawing the male nude, both activities considered t...
Stent, S., 2011, ‘Fetishizing the Feminine: the Surreal Fashion of Elsa Schiaparelli’, Nottingham French Studies, September, 50, 78-87.
Ella Hendriks, Leo Jansen, Johanna Salvant, Élisabeth Ravaud, Myriam Eveno, Michel Menu, Inge Fiedler, Muriel Geldof, Luc Megens, Maarten van Bommel, C. Richard Johnson Jr, Don. H. Johnson. "A comparative study of Vincent van Gogh’s Bedroom series." .
“The Grafin von Scholfeld with her Daughter” is oil on canvas art piece painted in 1793. It is a painting of a woman holding her daughter on her lap, the woman being “The Grafin von Schonfeld.” The woman is dressed in clothing that is from the upper class or a royalty stature in the late 1700’s. The clothing looks rich in material and sleek like silk in the colors of wine and a rich green. She has a covering on her head that looks like an extravagant scarf that drapes over her shoulder on one side, also made of the same silky material used for her dress. The woman has pale skin, reddish brown hair, bluish eyes, and rosy cheeks. Her eyes look very real and penetrating when you examine the painting. The daughter is about the age of 5 or 6 years old. Her arms are around her mother’s neck and legs draped across her mother’s lap. The daughter is wearing a white fluid dress that looks thin in material with a red sash around her midsection. The daughter has the same reddish brown hair and rosy cheeks. The mothers and daughters eyes are equally as big in size, while the child’s eyes seem also very real and youthful.
This paper explains the history and development of the nude art in the Renaissance and Medieval period. In the Renaissance age the patrons and artist readopted the antiquity of the classical Greek into representation of nude. This is an epoch when drastic changes occurred in which Christian authorities no longer viewed the nude art as something conflicting or shameful. In contrary they believed that nude being reformed in ancient in classical antiquity portrays divine characteristics and emancipates the light that is pure and heroic (Long, 2008; Bonfante, 1989; Tinagli, 1997). To establish a further understanding why during the Renaissance age nude art brilliantly portrayed human anatomy, the work of some most remarkable artists such as Michelangelo, Botticelli, Masaccio and Durer are described (Long, 2008) These minds welcomed the classical antiquity into their paintings and sculpturing and often the Greek athletic figures and mythological Venus figure were used as ideal models in depicting nude art (Bonfante, 1989). The classical renewal of nude art had specific roles attached to both male and female nude, in the world of art. The religious figures were depicted in antique forms as to convey their theological status and importance. In contrast to the Renaissance period, the Medieval representation of nude art was rare and Religious authorities oppose its development as they believed it may lead to sin and degradation (Long, 2008; Steinberg, 1983). In short this paper will present a historical overview of the nude art and how the diverse cultural attitude towards depiction of nude existed in each period.
Cook, A.D. “Nude Beauty Nude. Body of Art.” A.D. Cook figurative artist. 3 January 2013. Web. 13 April 2014.