Terracotta Plaque Gender Analysis

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Gender is a socially constructed term used to identify masculinity and femininity based on the biological sex of male and female. Romans and Greeks have many similar artistic styles, since the Romans copied many of their art techniques from the Greeks, especially the creation of the human body that the Greeks were very interested in beccause of the competitive streak in creating the most naturalistically porprotional humand body . The Terracotta Plaque, by an unknown artist, dated 27 B.C - 68 A.D during the Roman culture is a terracotta, which is a type of ceramic clay used by the Greeks to make many of their potery, whose image on the plaque also has many of the artistic styles used by the Greeks to illustarte the human body. The media compaign …show more content…

Through the symbolic items held by the man, the animals used by both the man and woman, and the displayment of their bodies one can demonstrate the discrimination of gender. “Young and poweful what could a woman ask for more?” Society’s most common expectation of a masculine man is powerful, has strength, is a leader and is domiant. In the Terracotta Plaque, there are two items which symbolically display the traits that society’s concept believes to be what a masculine man is, a staff and a type of cup that is spilling liquid, which the man is holiding onto. The first item is the staff which has two pinecone-looking ends while two ribbons are also tied at the ends of the it. In Roman culture certain items diplayed in art pieces were usually allegories, for example staffs usually were only held in …show more content…

Animals are one form of portraying this type of gender discrimination. Both the man and woman in the Terracotta Plaque have at least one animal being held or around them in this artwork. The animal that the woman is holding is a snake , an animal that is considerd dangerous, lethal and in biblical terms, evil. The snake plays a major role in the punishment of human kind, specifically in Adam and Eve’s. The biblical event describes of a snake coming along to coax Adam into taking an apple form the forbidden tree but since he refuses he goes on to trying to coax Eve into taking the apple, succeding and causing God to exile them from paradise. This relates to the holding of the snake by the woman in the artwork because snakes are symbolically considered evil or a temptation and for that reason, the holding of the snake by the woman portrays them as both being evil and a temptation, making them equals. Also, it can be seen as the women holds the snake in her hand, the snake is facing her, portraying that she and the snake are one because of them being together. Meaning, that since she is a female and is supposed to be feminine, submissive and weak, she is not a good person but instead is evil. The snake also has the meaning of temptation, in realtion to Adam and

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