The Binding and Control of the Female Form within the Masculine Gaze - Essay Example

The binding and control of the female form within the masculine gaze The idea of the female body as an object of art has been the of work done by artists throughout history. The female form represents a great many ideas within the context of American society and has been expressed in ways that define it as both human and object in order to create order in the chaos that males experience in trying to understand the meaning of the female body as it creates an effect upon them. The male artist often chains, restrains, or puts in tension the female form in order to assert control. In Hirum Power’s The Greek Slave, a narrative of passivity in chains has been asserted which allowed the work to be acceptable to the public. Understanding how vulnerability is an essential part of nudity can be found first through an examination of a male nude, The Dying Gaul, which represents how nudity evokes tension as the viewer sees in the object their own vulnerabilities and reviles them as they are associated with weakness. Through Georgia O’Keefe, however, the association of the female form at its most intimate when it is revealed through the aspects of nature allows for a sense of desire to be viewed without overtones of violence or degradation. As the discussion turns to the public sphere, the idea of the female in the work place, the concept of domination becomes more acutely visible, the vulnerability of the nude replaced by the idea of male domination over female office workers whose existence is dependent upon their beauty and sexual appeal. Within the span between the mid 19th century to the mid 20th century, the vulnerability of the female form turned from the willingness to accept those chains to the tension of patriarchal subjugation in the public sphere. The female nude has been a subject for art for centuries. The nude form reveals human beings at their most vulnerable. One of the best examples of this type of vulnerability can be seen in the sculpture titled The Dying Gaul (Figure 1). In order to understand the human belief in the idea of the nude it is interesting to examine this expressive piece of sculpture from the Hellenistic period. While the original does not exist, antiquity has saved the Roman copy of this piece in order to give to posterity an example of the human view of nudity as it relates to vulnerability. The warrior is nude in order to humiliate him and his homeland, unclothed to denote his weakness without weapons or armor on the field of battle (Perry, 1882). His death is not complete; he lives in the state between life and death as he leans against his hand contemplating the wound that will take his life. He is vulnerable to all things at this point, his strength waning as his body is without protection. In looking at this nude, the viewer can begin to see how the female nude can be understood in relationship to her environment. Figure 1 They Dying Gaul (Ancient Encyclopedia History, 2012) The female nude, on the other hand, is in a conflicted state for the viewer. The female nude has the power of her sexuality to move those who view her. Being nude leaves the female in a state of vulnerability, an essential violence on the fringes of how she is viewed. The nude and the romanticized idea of rape are never far from one another as she is represented in a form that evokes fear and sometimes anger. Anger can be found through the fear that her sexuality can motivate, manipulate, and make men violate their own principles in order to get near her in that state. It was, after all, the desire for a woman that launched a thousand ships against the city of Troy. The female nude is in a state of vulnerability, but she also has power and creates a conflict upon the viewer. This element of vulnerability and the conflict of sexual power that is held by women has been a resource for artistic creation throughout history. In the history of American art, however, the female nude has been a resource from which to identify the changing roles of the female gender as it has been reflected through artistic creation. The first example of this concept can be seen through the sculpture created by Hirum Powers in 1844 of a full sized female nude who is chained (Figure 2). The image is passive, even though it evokes a sense of violence through her chained hands. She is nude, but her body is not overtly sexualized, her breasts small and the curves of her body minimal. The sensation that she created when she was displayed, however, was not minimal as she was accepted for her vulnerability which was translated into virtue, her appearances throughout the Western world evoking a recitation of a narrative of both passivity and violence Kasson (1998) described this narrative as “a complex and disquieting story. The chain suggested violence and degradation, but the woman’s expression was pensive and tranquil.” (p. 163). This conflicting set of elements of a story created a sensation, but for her countenance, she was decidedly virtuous. According to Burns & Brown (2012), “the Neoclassical style, which highlighted heroism and virtue, eliminated the sensual grossness many ascribed to the nude figure, and made The Greek Slave acceptable and even morally beneficial for its audience”. The genius of her construction is that she posed no threat to the viewer and while in modern terms her facial expression could be read through many interpretations, in the 19th century, the idea of virtue was so strong that her passivity is defined with the idea of moral dignity. Figure 2 The Greek Slave (Burns & Brown, 2012) When compared to a contemporary piece of art that shows a woman in chains, the tension and the dynamic has changed dramatically. Tobias Luttmer, in one of his pieces in the collection ‘Winged Obsession’, reveals a tension between the violence of the chains and the body of the female form (Figure 3). In contrast to the work done by Powers, this piece explores the idea of resistance, the power to fight the binds relevant to the exploration of the female form. Modern interpretations of women in chains would not find them moral if they did not resist those chains. Jakes (2001) discusses the literary imagery of the woman in chains, recognizes that through modern ideas she is both victim and willing participant. Where the virtue of the female nude is found in her passivity in the work of the 19th century, it is clear that in modern terms the female in chains is a conflicting idea, both in control and not in control of the circumstances that have landed her bound. Figure 3 Winged Obsession, Luttmer 2012. (Luttmer, 2012). Georgia O’Keefe worked in the mid 20th century, exploring the idea of the female form through its position in the masculine point of view in contrast to the beauty that it represented from a female perspective. While there was much to be seen that displayed the female form as one in which restraint, violence, and pornographic reflection was the ongoing narrative, O’Keefe displaced the female form from the conflict of the masculine eye to a relationship with nature. In contrast, Chave (1998) quotes reviewer Jack Flam in describing Degas work in that “Degas seems to be probing the female body for its secrets, to be reaching out toward a mystery that he sensed, longed for, and was haunted by, but that he was unable to fully grasp” (p. 351). This mystery that males have sought to understood, the feeling that they were missing an essential element of understanding about the female body has been reflected in their desires to control it, chain it into submission in order to find the answers to the questions that have plagued them for as long as male and female have existed. O’Keefe gave the viewer the answer, but it is unclear that it is understood from the male perspective Teresa de Lauretis describes the female nude form as “the allegorical representation of Truth” (Chave, 1998, p. 351). The oddity about that comment is the extent to which it was in contrast with the difficulty that women have in exploring their sense of desire through artistic expression. In 1927 Lewis Mumford said of O’Keefe “What distinguishes Miss O’Keefe, however, is the fact that she has discovered a beautiful language…and has created in this language a new set of symbols; by these means she has opened up a whole area of human consciousness which has never, so far as I am aware, been so completely revealed in literature or in graphic design” (p. 352). O’Keefe found a voice that expressed the female desire, her own voice rising above that of the male and creating a way of expressing the female form without the need to make it pornographic, violent, or merely objectified. As intimate as her work was in expressing that form, it was delicate and purified in the relationship of the body to nature. The female body is more often restricted by the pressures of a patriarchal society in which the ideals of female construction, the concept of the celebration of being what is defined through female existence are oppressed because it is not understood through the male perspective. What the male sees is something outside of his control, and often, subject to the control of nature where the female is bound by those concepts of procreation that hold her in a grip the likes of which males cannot begin to understand. She is subject to the action of her body which displaces her ability to perform in the same way as men, and often it allows her to create a world in which she performs beyond the expectations that a male places upon himself. She is an enigma, a mystery, and because he cannot understand her, she is bound under her control. If she is not, then he is lost and does not understand her place in relationship to what he understands of himself. Todd (1998) discusses the idea of the female subject as it relates to the work of Isabel Bishop who depicted the urban female as she lived her life within the constraints of her gender. Although Bishops work was of clothed and active women as they moved through society in relationship to their gender, it is possible to see within her depictions the desire to break free of those constraints. The perspective of the mid 19th century was focused on the virtue of women, but by the early 20th century, female artists had begun to express what was real about women. O’Keefe discussed the truth about female sexuality, shedding the violent, often disturbing imagery in exchange for a language that discussed the natural expression of female intimacy. Bishop, in contrast, evoked images of women in working spaces. Bishop’s work, however, was a victim of its time, her expression of the pretty office worker expanding upon the idea that beauty was associated with performance for women and without beauty they were failing within the public sphere (Todd, 1998). Todd (1998) writes that “A woman’s ‘power’ in the workplace came from her ability to behave in a differential ‘womanly’ manner according to an ideology that valued her subordination to the demands of male superiors” (p. 430). Todd (1998) further explores this idea through the work of Edward Hopper who depicts a female office worker with her boss at night (Figure 4). She is tall against his seated position, presumably positioned as powerful in her knowledge and organization of the business. She is not free to go towards the desk, however, obstacles to her own seat of authority preventing her from moving from a subordinate with knowledge to a superior who can accomplish more through power. The woman is in stark contrast to the work of Bishop, her body far more voluptuous and her stature more sexualized. The contrast between this sexuality and her vulnerability in the public sphere is highly suggestive of male control over women. Her poised position, ready to serve suggests that she is within a state of stress, her posture suggesting that she will fulfill whatever he desires. Just as the subject matter of women who are bound or nude create the sense of their vulnerability to the whims of others; this painting also expresses this same state of vulnerability. The changes that occurred between the 19th and the 20th century can be seen through the female form, her nudity first representing her willingness to accept her vulnerability, but in later works her placement within the public sphere creating a sense of her vulnerability to the patriarchal will. While the female form has shifted from being placed in tranquility with her binds to being in tension with those binds, the cultural chains that hold her under control is still a part of the way in which she is positioned. Although a great many changes took place within the hundred years between Powers and Hopper, the vulnerability was still as powerful. As seen through O’Keefe, the expression of the female is in conflict with what the male sees within the world. While male artists have continues to search for answers to that mystery, female artists have created a space in which her desires and connection to nature can be explored. Although some aspects of the female form as a representation of female gender studies has changed over the years, the idea of her body as a source of mystery and subject of control has been a continuint theme. Resources Ancient Encyclopedia History. (2012). The Dying Gaul. Retrieved from http://www.ancient.eu.com/image/205/ Archives of American Art. (2012). The Greek Slave. Retrieved from http://www.aaa.si.e du/collections/images/detail/original-plaster-greek-slave-8436 Art and Faith Too. (2012). Edward Hopper Office at Night 1940. Retrieved from http://03varvara.wordpress.com/2010/06/19/edward-hopper-office-at-night-1940/edward- hopper-office-at-night-1940/ Burns, S. & Brown J. (2012). White into black: Seeing race, slavery, and anti-slavery in antebellum America. Picturing US History. Retrieved from http://picturinghistory .gc.cuny.edu/lessons_burnsbrown1.php Chave, A. C. (1998). O’Keefe and the masculine gaze. In Doezema, M. (Eds.). Reading American art (1-11). New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. Doezema, M. (1998). Reading American art. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. Jakes, T. D. (2001). Woman, thou art loosed: healing the wounds of the past. Shippensburg, PA: Treasure House. Kasson, J. (1998). Narratives of the female body: The Greek slave. In Doezema, M. (Eds.). Reading American art (1-11). New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. Luttmer, T (2012). The portfolio of Tobias Luttmer. Retrieved from http://www.tobiasluttmer.com/blog/ Perry, W. C. (1882). Greek and Roman sculpture: A popular introduction to the history of Greek and Roman sculpture. London: Longmans, Green. Ressler, S. R. (2003). Women artists of the American West. Jefferson N. C.: McFarland. Todd, E. W. (1998). The question of difference: Isabel Bishop’s differential office girls. In Doezema, M. (Eds.). Reading American art (1-11). New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. Craven, W. (1998). The seventeenth century New England mercantile image: Social content and style in the Freake portraits. In Doezema, M. (Eds.). Reading American art (1-11). New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. Read More