2nd Essay: Image Analysis (Draft)

Take for example "Bacchus, Ceres and Amor" by Von Aachen (1552-1615), although the attention of the other, male figures in this painting are focusing their attention within the image, the woman is looking out, seemingly detached from her peers. She is only in place for the surveyor, her body is henceforth not "naked" but "nude". The female "nude" differs from a naked image of a woman as she is aware of her naked body and of the sexual implications it brings forward.

"She is not naked as she is.
She is naked as the spectator sees her."

- John Berger


Rembrandt was one of the first to break this tradition in his panting "Danae" (1600-1669). Here the artist has created a more intimate relationship between himself and the model. The woman is looking away from the spectator and thus cannot deceive himself into believing that she is naked for him. She can not be turned into a "nude".

Of course, there are many female artists in the present day whom have successfully created the naked female figure without it breaching upon the title of "nude". An artist of note would be the painter Jenny Saville; her work focuses on the movement and manipulation of heavy, raw female flesh. Instead of including the gaze of her models, she brings the focus away from their faces and towards the masses of flesh in bold, confident brush strokes and dynamic angles.

note: this could also be seen as making women a faceless figure to the eye of the spectator, and thus fetishising the female form  more ...grammar?/


Nan Goldin represents a female photograoher working to dissapte the societal image of females in art. As a photographer of "snap-shot style" image making, entwining boundary less gender with intimate and often very visceral images of herself and those around her. Like John Berger's analysis, Goldin is looking in on herself and even goes as far as to photograph herself examining her own image in a handheld mirror. She also entitles one of her books "I'll be your mirror" (1998), the title of which was inspired by Nico and the Velvet Underground, which as a reflection of the time in whch she was prodominately working. Goldin uses the reflection of herself as a portal into considering her drug fuelled and underground life as projections into the world of minority classes and genders.

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find interviews with nan goldin and jenny saville to insert quotes into text, why have I chosen these artists? what is the conversation the are having? do the agree/ disagree with each others mission statements

can I find an artist whom speaks against these views? my arguments all seem very linear and bias. to achieve this I will need to first consider who I reference in my 1st essay