Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking

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year-old Alicia Silverstone bared it all for a good cause on Dec 20 in a PETA campaign against animal leather. “I never, ever, get naked in TV, in film, nothin’, never, nope — but I’ve done it for PETA because that’s how much it matters to me,” she said in the campaign’s behind the scenes video. She added, “I’d rather go naked than wear animals.” In the final picture, Silverstone is seen wearing nothing but cowboy boots as she covers herself up in a sexy pose in a cactus field. stars relating to sloppy research. Otherwise this seemed like a good introduction to the way women's bodies are viewed in the realms of high art and pop culture. I was horrified not because of the violence and gore, but because its subject matter: the villainizing of woman’s aging body and elderly woman’s sexual desire, which was at the core of the film. Women in the Picture mounts a sensitive and probing critique of the motifs, the preordained poses and affectations of the female figure in art.' ― The New York Times I like the idea of this book more than how it presents its facts; where it takes a non-neutral stance, and where I thought it highlighted parts of a discussion to establish its own views. Having said this, independent of the way information is presented, it has a lot of interesting information.

Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking

Essential reading ... gripping, inspirational, beautifully written and highly thought-provoking' Dr Helen Gørrill, author of Women Can't Paint I'm glad this book was written because it felt like the scales were falling from my eyes as I read it. Women will continue to be objectified in art and in popular culture, but the book sheds a generous amount of angry light on how we got here.' - The Herald How is it that their works were in storerooms until recently? Maestras is a feminist exhibition that seeks to emphatically correct the prejudices that have come about as a result of the patriarchy – prejudices that have meant that works by female artists have remained in museum storerooms during the 20th century.” She said the male-dominated artistic system had always sought to defend itself by denigrating female artists. Equally damaging, she added, was how historians had played down the achievements of women until their voices were silenced and their creations overlooked and then hidden from view.This part didn't answer my questions and was repetitive, but here I was not the target audience anyway. Like Alicia Silverstone, Taraji P. Henson feels strongly about animal cruelty, and she put her fabulous figure to use for that cause, posing for a naked PETA campaign (see here via Essence) at age 41 with the slogan “Fur? I’d rather go naked.”

Book review of “Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with

The problem is that one form of sexual desire [male artists] has been chosen to represent sexual desire universally.If an artist is truly great they will get there, if given the right platform. You’ve just got to put energy into it” Alison Jacques The walls of our galleries have a sacrosanct charge that absorbs any censure. Oil paint is a soothing medium that smooths out the brutality and double standards of these narratives and turns them into lessons in culture and civilization for the general public. But what other alternative histories lie buried in plain sight beneath the gilded frames, the imposing ceilings, the tasselled ropes and the protective glass surfaces that deflect proper scrutiny?" The Woman in the Picture” is so multi-layered that it took me virtually the whole book to grasp the implications behind the title of this marvellous novel. The reader is swept along by the mystery straight away. English filmmaker Henry Whitaker is trying to locate the woman in a photograph he now possesses. The photograph of a girl and a letter from her to her fiancee who shot dead Henry’s father in WWI. His companion Captain Smith shoots dead the German and gives the dead German’s field glasses containing both the photograph and letter to Henry, still a child after WWI. A well written and important art history book - one of those rare art history books where an art novice won't feel out of their depth' ― FAD magazine

Women in the Picture : Women, Art and the Power of Looking

The anti-natalist philosopher David Benatar argues that it would be better if no one had children ever again. My assumption is that today, works of art influenced by culture and works of art influencing culture are not easily distinguishable. That's why discussions of sexism in modern art and media and pop culture, and blaming Renaissance artworks - which are mostly reflections of their own time and culture - without considering politics, economics and other intersectional topics, were not convincing. Henry Whitaker is an aspiring filmmaker. Something happened when he was a child that has colored the rest of his life's experiences, for good or ill. A second thread in the story, interspersed with his own, is that of his daughter, Miranda, who comes to know more about her father's life before she was a part of it. When I started reading this book, I liked it immediately. A romantic mystery, set in the inter-war years....what's not to like? Then, I must say, that I found myself a little lost.....and I never quite found myself again. There are a lot of characters in this book, and even after finishing it, I still couldn't figure out how or where half of the characters came from. Somewhere around the middle of the book, they just didn't hold my attention long enough to concentrate. I think the problem lies within the way the story immediately starts to inexplicably changes from one narrative to another. It becomes clear further on in the book, why this is happening. However, I was confused for a good while there, and it left me feeling a little disinterested and detached. Here, the historical events and facts mentioned, were eye opening and insightful. It's interesting how knowing about, say, the owner of a painting can change your mind about the art.She does cover a lot of cultural ground. I was not very interested in her commentaries on current society such as Beyonce and sexism in advertising (hardly a new topic). That a woman “has to survey everything she is and everything she does because how she appears to others, and ultimately how she appears to men, is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life.” Jennifer Aniston has always been living proof that you can, in fact, get better-looking every year — and her 2008 GQ cover wearing nothing but a tie at age 40 was just one more bit of evidence (see here via Time).