For the Love of Women in Art

If we’re going to talk about women’s bodies this week, and loving/liking our different bits, how bout we take a gander at how women have been portrayed over the ages. Now these art bits are the smallest snapshot possible and do not even begin to cover the full range of female forms represented in the canons of art, especially as these examples only cover western art. Are these artists objective in their portrayals of women? Are we objective when we study our own images, mirrored or digital?

So, let’s make a promise to be kinder to ourselves, less judgmental of others and much more skeptical of the supposed sexy female forms put forth by big brother media, okay? Okay. And if I don’t have you convinced, take a look at these photo-shopped Renaissance beauties, and look how boring and barbie-like they are afterwards.

ImageSource:
Venus of Laussel, Upper Paleolithic culture (approximately 25,000 years old)
Venus de Willendorf, 24,000-22,000 BCE
Venus de Milo, 300-100 BCE
Virgin, ca. 1250 Alsace, Strasbourg
La Cité de Dieu (The City of God), Paris, c. 1475-1480
The Pastoral Concert. Italian Renaissance – by Giorgione or Titian, 1509
The Birth of Venus by Botticelli, 1485
The Three Graces by Peter Paul Rubens, 1635
Maria van Oosterwijk by Wallerant Vaillant, circa 1671
Madame de Pompadour by Francois Boucher, 1758
The Swing by Jean-Honore Fragonard, 1767
Self-portrait Hesitating between the Arts of Music and Painting by Angelica Kauffmann, 1791
A Woman Writing by Adelaide Labille-Guiard, 1787
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Georges Seurat, 1884
Essai de figure en plein-air : Femme à l’ombrelle tournée vers la droite en 1886, by Claude Monet
The Large Bathers by Paul Cezanne, 1906
Girl Before A Mirror by Pablo Picasso, 1932
The Musician by Tamara de Lempicka, 1929
Small Odalisque in Purple Robe by Henri Matisse, 1937