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

How Have Criminal Punishments Evolved, and How Does Technology Aid Investigations?

As our class began The Scarlet Letter, the terrible yet strange punishment that Hester received, the letter "A" - it stood for adultery - stitched onto her gown, immediately stood out to me.  Although adultery is a sin, I feel that Hester's punishment was too unusual and cruel.  However, in her time, this was among the standard solutions that society had to deal with convicts.  With this in mind, I decided to research the evolution of solutions that people apply for crimes, as well as how technology has changed the process of investigating a crime.  
Criminality has existed since primitive times.  In ancient society, crimes, including treason, witchcraft, sacrilege, and breaches of the hunting rules, were punished by either extinction or banishment.  As time progressed, people began using torture and death sentences as new solutions to accost criminals.  The objective of these punishments was to penalize the wrongdoer.  But, during the Dark Ages, under the feudal system, authorities regulated the criminal system in order to prevent others from doing bad deeds, using any degree of punishment to stress their point.  The criminal system became practiced more often in society, and it was brought to the Americas with the pilgrims while establishing their new society.  Cruel and unusual punishments continued to be administered, until the French Revolution evolved these punishments, making them less harmful to the welfare of the malefactor.  
Today, new technologies, such as robots, GPS systems, and advanced cameras and computer systems, greatly aid the investigation and surveillance of crimes. 

Image of a technologically advanced camera

The most important technological advancement is the computer databases.  Computer databases allow police departments to exchange information anywhere.  Also, they are a superb solution to lowering the crime rate.  This solution has been proven to be accurate, since a news report in 2012 declared that the crime rate has been the lowest since the early 1960s due to the aid of computer databases. 

How are Stereotypes Addressed by Artists?

Subsequent to reading The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, by Sherman Alexie, and "Black Men and Public Space", by Brent Staples, our primary focus in class was about stereotypes and how it can alter a person's perspective of a race.  Stereotypes affect all races, but it is more prevalent for African Americans because, for a large part of American history, African Americans have been negatively classified as second-class citizens, thus being treated inferior to whites.  This problem has been addressed by many artists, but I feel that the artist Charles White creates works of aesthetic value while addressing this issue.
Charles White is an African American artist that lived during the Civil Rights Movement, and whose artwork depicts the lives of African Americans in Black America.  While researching his work, I came across one of his lithographs that I found interesting, called Sounds of Silence 11.

Sounds of Silence 11 by Charles White 

Sounds of Silence 11 was White's way of expressively describing the distress of African Americans due to racism and stereotypes during the Civil Rights Movement.  The focal point of this lithograph is the conch shell.  In many cultures around the world, the conch shell, due to its loud vibrations and religious ennoblement, calls people to gather and support a cause.  Therefore, in White's lithograph, the conch shell symbolizes the awakening, or call, of African Americans to gather and take action in the Civil Rights Movement.  Stereotypes are the basis of prejudice and vice versa, and artists, such as Charles White, address this problem in hope that people realize the problems that stereotypes create.  

Can Hunger be Resolved?

This week, we discussed how the children's hunger, due to the parents' selfishness, plays a significant role in the memoir The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls.  The children weren't well fed, but when they found food they did not waste it.  However, there are many people that waste food, and I think it is important to address this problem. 

Hunger can be alleviated if people do not waste food.  In 2012, according to Modern Farmer, a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) says that 43 billion pounds of food was wasted in the US in 2008.  Also, Modern Farmer estimates that even a 15% reduction of food waste can feed 25 million Americans each year. These statistics are great, but realistically, many people do not truly care or look into this problem because hunger does not affect them like it does for others and they feel that keeping track of their own food waste is too much work.  It will take a long time for people to become psychologically aware of their food waste, but in the meantime, technology is proposing solutions to make it easier.  One way is with smart fridges; pioneered by LG and Samsung, smart

Image of Samsung smart fridge

fridges monitor the food in it, alert its consumer when food is going to spoil, and uses the Internet to create recipes with leftover foods.  Another solution is with apps - three popular food apps are:  Green Egg Shopper; Love Food, Hate Waste; 222 Million Tons - that help a person shop for groceries smarter.  They keep track of when the food is going to be wasted, create portion planners, and give ideas of how much of a food a person should really buy.  By advancing and introducing new technological solutions, hunger, both nationally and globally, shall decrease immensely.