Analysis Of Speechless By Shirin Neshat

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One of the works of art that particularly stood out to me from the chapter 4 online power point was Speechless, from the Women of Allah Series, in 1996 by Shirin Neshat. This piece was crafted with pen and ink over a gelatin silver print. Being middle eastern with an islamic background myself this piece really stood out to me. I will be analyzing this piece of work through feminist criticism as well as

Feminist criticism is a literacy form of criticism that gives the perspective of writing through a feminist perspective. It is a political form of literature that analyzes the questions of how male and females relate to each other and the world, the repression of women and how women are portrayed in literature. From a feminist perspective …show more content…

“Speechless” is a black and white photo. To me the choice of colors from the artist already shows the type of tone that they want to set. Typically black and white photos set a more dramatic serious tone to me. The photo appears to be very heavy. The photo has Farsi text written all over the woman 's face along with a gun to the side of her face. The setting in “Speechless” by Shirin Neshat is effective an plays a very important role in creating the atmosphere and theme of the artwork. Without knowing the background of the artwork the person viewing it from the outside perspective might be a little confused with whats going on. The artist however has incorporated cultural aspects and cues to make the audience more aware of what is going on. In the artwork there is a woman covered with a veil. You can see half of her face and see that she has distinct characteristics that can lead the audience to interfere she is of middle eastern descent. Dark hair, dark eyes, thick dark eyebrows. She is also covered in various amounts of Farsi/Arabic text that also give cultural cues to the overall message that the artist is trying to convey. Giving these cultural cues to the audience give the audience context to the overall message of the piece. The character of this piece is the woman portrayed in the piece. She is the main part of the artwork as everything else surrounds her. The symbols in the piece extend

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