Representations of Women in Art - Essay Example

The essay "Representations of Women in Art" examines representations of women in art. Manet’s artwork is one of the artworks that have stilled a controversy when it is presented to the Salon. The artwork provides an image of a Negress and black cat arranged in a style to that of the Venus of Titian. The provocative nature of the image wants to highlight the issues of prostitution and racism. The representation already challenges the notions of people about art since this is considered a diversion from the traditional subjects depicted in art.

This has portrayed the reality present that time that is occurring even until now: exploitation and objectification of women. Women have become subjects of desire and pleasure because of their exotic appeal plus the connotation of being an oriental being. This is a controversial representation since people back then are not really receptive of these kinds of art pieces since they have been to adherent to the ideological standards and notions of fine art whose legitimacy is being forwarded by the museums back then as an agent of state.

Gerome’s work of art, the Slave Market, also portrays another problematic scenario about the treatment of women in the society. In this case, Gerome has highlighted how the upper class people in society uses their economic advantages to exploit others in order to supplement their needs and desires. There is still an intrinsic influence of a highly objectified treatment of women in the manner of representation done. . Ingres, on the other hand, is relatively different in portraying the female body.

He has provided a grand narrative in depicting women since he has portrayed nudity in a very different manner (Clark 127). There is indeed an incorporation of a highly sexual depiction of the body in his presentations of his works of art wherein the body, being the object of desire, is not detached from the notion of sex. However, his portrayal is not a subtle one but a challenging one that instead of being a sexual desire, there is a need to look to a woman as to who she is. At the same time, there is still no detachment to the realistic approach about the issue of sex being the main themes of his works.

Seurat employs relatively the same manner of representation to that of the three. Inherently, the most common ground of these four artists is that they have represented the body of women in a realist perspective that is more affluent to the social condition that they are experiencing (Nochlin 51). However, there is still no detachment of the body with the sexual desire in their manner of representation since it still exploits the body of women. Even if there is a revolutionist approach in terms of representing women through highlighting the issues that women face, the fact will still remain that the body will still have problems since there is still difficulty drawing the line between nudity and nakedness.

Both terms are actually crucial since these have been methods of representation that have placed the body of women at a very high risk. This risk entails that the context of gender politics and racial politics are still not settled. Inevitably, the issue that surrounds the