How are Feminist Ideas Simulated in Art?

According to Emily Prager in "Our Barbies, Ourselves", Barbie dolls were created by Jack Ryan as an indirect tool used by men to combat feminism in the 1960s.  However, I feel that it would be very extreme to combat feminism through children's toys.  Nevertheless, I wanted to research how feminist ideas are portrayed through art.  

I discovered that the messages on feminism are portrayed the most successfully through installations.  Judy Chicago shows this in The Dinner Party.  It is a part of the Center for Feminist Art in the Brooklyn Museum.  

The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago

The Dinner Party is composed of a banquet table in the shape of a triangle - triangles symbolize equality - with thirty-nine place settings.  Each place setting is for a notable woman from history and mythology, such as Sophia, Saint Bridget, Sojourner Truth, and Virginia Woolf.  In addition, the names of 999 prominent women are painted on the tiles below the table, such as Abigail Adams, Eudoxia, Enheduanna, and Mary Shelley.  With this installation, Judy aimed to participate in the "feminist revision of history", an undertaking where feminists strived to rediscover women icons forgotten due to the conspicuity of male icons throughout history. 

How is a Building's Significance Expressed to Different Groups?

Earlier this week, we talked about the article "So What?  Who Cares?", which examines the importance of addressing the questions "Who is the target audience in this essay?" and "Why is this essay important?".  During the discussion, I realized that these questions apply to more specialties than writing, such as architecture.  There are many architectural feats around the world that answer both of these questions, in particular the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto. 

Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto

The Bata Shoe Museum is both visually appealing and answers both of the questions, "Who Cares?" and "So What?".  Architect Raymond Moriyama uniquely designed the building to represent the museum's purpose of showcasing shoes from history and different cultures - the museum is constructed to look like a shoebox.  Because of its purpose, the museum has a huge audience that includes tourists, shoe fanatics, and architects, and its importance and impact ranges for different sectors of its audience.  Tourists come to the museum for its unique exhibits and its stature as a distinguished attraction in Toronto.  They leave the museum with new and uncommon knowledge about shoes.  Going to the Bata Shoe Museum is probably on a shoe fanatic's bucket list because it contains a diversity of shoes.  They are impacted the same way as tourists:  they receive remarkable information about a distinctive field.  Although the information that can be acquired at the Bata Shoe Museum is important, architects value the building's outward appearance and functionality more because they are important factors to the museum's success.  Architects are also impacted differently since they are primarily searching for inspiration for their own designs. 

How Does Setting Affect Artwork?

Early in the week, during the class seminar of The Scarlet Letter, a question came up concerning the effects of the settings, the forest, in chapters 17 to 19, and the meeting house, in chapters 20 to 22.  I believe that the forest helped represent the dark and secretive situation that Hester and Dimmesdale were in.  Also, I regard the meeting house as a gathering place for strict, law-abiding residents.  Moreover, I think that setting has a profound effect on artwork because it helps create mood.
Different art periods throughout history have different ways of expressing itself, therefore composing different moods.  For instance, artwork from the Romanticist period aesthetically glorified abstract concepts, such as survival, hope, and despair, and was based on strong emotions rather than exact truth.  An example of a Romantic artwork is The Fighting Temeraire, by Joseph Mallord William Turner.  This painting creates a tranquil mood by having a peaceful setting. 

The Fighting Temeraire by Joseph Mallord William Turner 

In addition, the Expressionist period expresses the emotional responses from an object or event by using color aesthetics.  A well-known example is The Scream, by Edvard Munch.  By using intense colors in the setting, the painting establishes moods of chaos, disorder, and alarm. 

The Scream by Edvard Munch

How Has the Portrayal of Women Changed Throughout Art History?

After reading "There Is No Unmarked Woman", by Deborah Tannen, I connected Tannen's purpose, that all women are "marked" in an unfortunate way, to how women have been portrayed, or "marked", as aesthetically pleasing (or not) in art.  Women were looked down upon for much of history, and this has been reflected in art history. 
The negative portrayal of women in art began in the early modern period, also known as the Renaissance; portraits emerged during the early modern period.  It would seem that portraits made it easier to depict this deprecation, but, during this period, women and men were portrayed similarly, and the deprecation was composed through the details.  These details, which are excellently portrayed in Portrait of a Lady, by Rogier van der Weyden, include:  stiff posture, downcast eyes, head coverings, arms' positions, no showing teeth, bound hair, and uncrossed legs.  Because Portrait of a Lady has most of these details, the lady was considered to be very virtuous.  However, not all artists back then wanted women rendered as obedient or virtuous, as shown in Self Portrait, by Judith Leyster.

Portrait of a Lady by Rogier van der Weyden

Self Portrait by Judith Leyster

Women continued to be belittled until the Feminist Movement in the 1960s.  The Feminist Movement changed the perspective of women from submissive subsistence to independent individuals that are in control of their own lives and are able to act however they want; this change has affected all forms of art since the Feminist Movement began, such as the photograph Untitled, by Cindy Sherman, and the acrylic painting Hotline for Troubled Teens, by Joe DeMers. 

Untitled by Cindy Sherman

Hotline for Troubled Teens by Joe DeMers