All 3 Essays

Triangulation:


"In the studio the artist has no social responsibility. But when the artist displays his work the situation changes." – David Shrigley

For this study, I would like to investigate the term ‘male gaze’ and how that has impacted the  roles of women within art and how they have changed and affected the history of. I also wish to investigate the artists social responsibility within this theme and understanding of target audience and appealing to the mass culture.

I would like to reference John Berger and his book entitled “Ways of Seeing” [1972]. Berger highlights the idea of the male gaze by first interpreting the definition of “sight”. He states that the human gaze is only in perspective to the individual and that is thus narrow and singular; due to this, when generalised, certain things lack substance and are difficult to relate to. However, in regards to European oil painting and the tradition of the female “nude”, generalising has lead, rather rapidly to sexism and causes derogatory ideas towards the naked female figure. “She is not naked as she is, she is naked as the spectator sees her” [1972, pg. 50] summarises this theme. The naked female form is only labelled as nude within the context of the spectator, hence the social responsibility of the artist is to understand the target audience and the opinions and viewpoints of the masses in society.

Berger also speaks about the “surveyor” and the “surveyed” [1972, pg. 47], he goes into depth about how the female nude in particular always appears to be staring out of the painting, disregarding the situation around her to focus entirely on the male audience for which the paintings were originally created for, or otherwise known as the “surveyors”. 

Berger also stated that women look at themselves through the eyes of a man, whereas men look at women. “A woman must continually watch herself” [1972], she is always in the presence of her own image, her sexual objectification follows her always, and she is always aware of it. She has been taught this from early childhood, persuaded to always survey herself as men survey her. “You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity.”” [1972, pg. 51]. When a woman begins to understand the implications her image has under the male gaze, she is berated, even though her vanity has been depicted purely for the pleasure of the audience in the first place, therefore the negative connotations towards her are hypocritical. In short, in traditional art, men made images for other men. These images showed objects of desire; women.

Laura Mulvey’s ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ [1975] explores the same concept of the male gaze. She states; “In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.” [1975] There is a stark visual narrative about the way in which women are presented, they are there to serve the male gaze, and they are there to enjoy serving the male gaze. In an essay in which she considered women in classical Hollywood cinema, Mulvey outlined that “the camera is used as a tool of voyeurism and sadism, disempowering those before its gaze”, thus bringing us to reflect on the progression of the female character within media and art and understand that, although masked by changes in society, the female role has stayed the same.

For example, Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Rear Window [1954] represents a clear example of female roles as the surveyed, and the leading male role as the surveyor. In the beginning of the film he observes three women through binoculars; “Miss Torso”, “Miss Lonelyhearts”, and a bedridden wife. The visuals of him surveying these women is brash due to the use of binoculars. Their existence is used to draw the leading male and the audience’s attention to the events unfolding around them. They are suddenly not characters in their own right but merely a plot device. This was later coined by popular culture as a ‘manic pixie dream girl’. This term is commonly referenced to Michel Gondry’s film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [2004]. This is backed up by Mulvey’s quote "The presence of a woman is an indispensable element of spectacle in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to work against the development of the story line, tor freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation." [1972].

Furthering this, David Chandler focuses on the digital age and discusses the use of the camera to control the audiences gaze in his essay Notes on “The Gaze” [1998]. He specifies that when a photographer or filmmaker is at work, he temporarily holds complete power over his muses. This power is then subsequently handed over to the viewers of the image or film. It is important to remember however that the camera is merely a tool in this process and that the ultimate responsibility is on the artist. Photography as a medium is particularly accessible and thus a large breeder of the normalisation of the sexualised form. Susan Sontag specifies in her book On Photography [1979] that “Like sexual voyeurism, it is a way of at least tacitly, often explicitly, encouraging what is going on to keep happening” [1979 pg. 178].


Berger, J (1972) "Ways Of Seeing" 1st edition. Penguin Books Ltd

Chandler, D (1998) "Notes on the Gaze", Available at: http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/gaze/ [Accessed: 26.04.17]

Gondry, M (2004) "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Screen.

Hitchcock, A (1954) "Rear Window". Screen.

Mulvey, L (1972) "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". Screen. Oxford Journals.

Sontag, Susan (1979): "On Photography". Harmondsworth: Penguin

Image Analysis:

Take "Bacchus, Ceres and Amor" by Von Aachen (1552-1615) [Fig.1], 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. The woman’s form is suggestive without being explicitly sexual, she is seemingly coy in the way in which she turns her body away yet still bares both her breasts and her buttocks to the surveyor. She is the only figure not clothed in anything, although the other figures are only draped in cloth, her cloth is transparent and therefore redundant in its purpose. Her lighter skin also brings her further into the foreground and successfully makes her the prime centre point of the image. Following this, the male figure in the painting is gazing at her, encouraging the other viewers to follow his line of sight, it is almost an instruction for the viewer to follow in his lead.

"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 of the female figure recognising her male surveyors in his panting "Danae" (1600-1669) [Fig. 2]. 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 feasibly be turned into a "nude". Unlike in Von Aarchen’s painting, both figures have their gaze focused on something happening outside of the painting that the viewer is not involved with, this suggests a narrative and thus the woman is not just a static being but suddenly has character. The viewer gets the sense that they are not involved in the events unfolding in the painting and thus can not place themselves within it.

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. Particularly in the painting “The Mothers” [Fig. 3], Saville is looking in on herself and visually figuring out what it means to be a woman. On why she chose to paint children she stated; “I’ve tried to stay away a little bit, about the issues surrounding biology being determinate and that women are here to have babies. But, it’s so powerful…”. Again, in the painting, Saville is not focused on the surveyor but instead focused on the children she is holding. This successfully brings forward the importance she is trying to stress on identifying women as functioning biological beings instead of purely aesthetic ‘nudes’ only present for the male gaze.

Nan Goldin represents a female photographer working to dissipate the societally ingrained 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, a reflection of the time in which she was working. Goldin uses the reflection of herself as a portal to consider her drug fueled and underground life as projections into the world of minority classes and genders. In this image, "Self-Portrait in my Blue Bathroom" [Fig. 4], her body is not present, therefore can not be objectified. She has used the mirror, not as a symbol of vanity, but as a tool in which to show a glimpse or herself. By doing this, she has dissipated the notion of vanity and its ties to reflection. On the subject of gaze; instead of looking at her reflection, she is focused on something happening outside of the shot. Similarly to Rembrandt’s Danae, this suggests action that the viewer is not involved with. Goldin has taken this idea one step further by involving expression; she seems startled and is not passive like many of the female in Bacchus, Ceres and Amor, thus in turn suggests character and prompts the viewer to consider an event prior to the image which they see before them. The title of this image is personal, ‘in my blue bathroom’; she is claiming ownership over the space in which she exists and simultaneously making her work personal and intimate. All of these aspects build the image of a woman whom is not just a stationary figure but a being with emotional capabilities and a life outside of the image.

To conclude, the female form has been manipulated by the male gaze throughout the history of art, and seemingly this hasn't changed. In the cases illustrated in this essay, the artists have used and manipulated their social responsibility to portray the female form for the viewing of the masses. In the first image, this was to appeal directly to the male gaze. Second image began to break this down, whereas third and forth images entirely changed the direction of gaze.

[Fig. 1]

Von Aachen, H "Bacchus, Ceres and Amor", 1595 - 1605, Height: 1,630 mm (64.17 in). Width: 1,130 mm (44.49 in)

[Fig. 2]

Rembrandt, H "Danae" 1636, oil on canvas, 185cm x 203cm (73in x 80in), Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

[Fig. 3]

Saville, J "The Mothers" 2011, oil on canvas, 106 5/16 × 86 5/8 inches  (270 × 220 cm)

[Fig. 4]

Goldin, N "Self-Portrait in my Blue Bathroom", 1991, Berlin

Reflective Practice:

The images created for my visual journal focus on the idea of the male gaze and the elimination of said gaze. My aims here were to produce work which was easily read into and accessible but also had a deeper rooted meaning. 

Initially, the focus lay on representing the female portrait in a more traditional style using black ink and a selection of brown tone, white and black chalk pencils [Fig. 1]. The aim here was to relate my images to traditional art using medium but modernise it with the use of minimal line work and the obstruction of the eyes. The success of these images relies on how easily they can be communicated to a larger audience. It appears that by removing the females gaze, the question of her being the "Surveyor" or the "Surveyed" [] is overruled. Hence in that sense it is successful. However, it does raise a lot more questions which I hadnt previously addressed. For example, does removing the womans eyes give her more or less power? The artists has chosen to no longer give her control of her gaze. 

The collage [Fig. 2] is again a more obvious was of depicting the gaze. The eyes are drawn in to look at the female figure, whom herself possesses no gaze. She is but an object to be admired. The overly obvious tone of this image presents the viewer to consider why it is seemingly conforming to the concept of the male gaze in such a brash manner.

[Fig. 1]

[Fig. 2]

[Fig. 3]

Goldin, N "Self-Portrait in my Blue Bathroom", 1991, Berlin