Essay on Beauty of Human Body: Representation of the Female Form in Art

The human body is central to how we understand parts of identity such as gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity. Many artists explore gender through representations of the body and by using their own bodies in their creative process It is interesting to get a closer look at the representation of the women and the female body in art because it informs us on women status in society, how women are seen and what they are valued for. Starting from the middle age, women often tend to be represented in a very polarised way as either good or bad, saint or sinner, idealised or erotic, respectable or fallen offering an idealised and impossible vision later on the representation of woman would be that women had to stay at home in the role of the mother, spending time with their family or tending to household chores. The 1960s and 1970s were a time of social upheavals where women started to fight for equality for women with regards to sexuality, reproductive rights, the family, and the workplace. Artists began to investigate how images in western art and the media mostly produced by men portrayed the female form. Feminist artists reclaimed the female body and depicted it through a variety of lenses aiming to challenge the traditional representation of females in art. In this essay I’m going to answer how is female form representation and portrayed in art. I’m going to be talking about feminist theories and how the representation of women has change within contemporary art. I will discuss about my own art practise and how it relates to this and then look at artists that supports my theories on this topic. I going to talk about film noir as I take a lot of inspiration from this in my own practice, I will talk piratically about the femme fatale how this relates to feminist theories and how this make me feel and how I can relate this to contemporary art as a lot of film noirs portrays a femme fatale. I will examine how depictions of femininity film noir challenge feminist activism, conform to post feminist ideology and perpetuate problematic depictions of sex and violence in the figure of the femme fatale. I will discuss work by modern artist such as Jenny Saville who changed the way we view the female form in painting, I will examine and analyse some pieces of her work, explaining what they are, what they represent and show and how it relates to my theories about feminism and how the female form is a representation and portrayed in art. Another artist I’m going to look at is Jo Spence I will talk about how she portrays the female form through her photography, I will examine pieces of her work, discussing the meaning behind them and what the pieces represent. I will also compare her work to Jennie Saville and to my own art practise as well.

My practise consists of photography, drawing and painting, I have an interest in the human form and the anatomy and often focus on exploring the human body and mind through my art I normally focus on representing the female body in my work. Most of my work is done in black and white in my photographs I take close ups crops of the face and body looking at the body in fragments reminiscent to crime scene or medical photos most of my photographs are a series of work, a group of photographs put together to create one piece rather than individually pieces of art. I want my work to tell a story but have enough unknown to leave viewers interpretations ambiguous. I often draw from my photos with chalk and charcoal to create a different sensitivity to the photographs taking something that is of a dark nature and drawing it softly making something disturbing yet beautiful as well creating a different impression to the viewer. My work is of various sizes from very small detailed pieces that are intimate and draws in the viewer to large scale pieces that can create an intensity to the work I also create paintings on canvas I use oil paints as I like the texture I can get I try to be quite expressive with my paintings not only using black and white but colour as well, exploring the idea of how the shift from black and white to colour and using different colour palettes can bring a difference in feelings and the way we communicate and read a piece of artwork. My pieces are composed to evoke certain moods they have a cinematic quality to them almost like film stills, I’m inspired by film noir with its mood of pessimism and menace its dramatic use of light and shadow and high contrast black and white which I use in my artwork here are some examples of some on my pieces below

(Figure 1) (Figure 2) (Figure 3)

• Untiled 2020 Black and white photograph Untiled 2020 Black and white photograph Untiled 2020 Black and white photograph

These are photographs I’ve taking of different female body part, the feet, mouth and nose I’ve taken them in black and white as I like the stark contrast of black and white photography and how black and white photography can still show you beauty, just not in colour emphasizing the bodies form, shape, lines and shadows. Taking the image in black and white doesn’t take the focus away from your subject of the image. I wanted to capture the detail within the face and body and the shadows reflected on the face and body I wanted my work to intense drawing the viewer in.

(Figure 4)

• Untitled 2020 chalk and charcoal 29x 42cm (Figure 6)

(Figure 5) Untitled 2020 chalk and charcoal 29x 42cm

• Untitled 2020 chalk and charcoal 29x 42cm

I have then done some chalk and charcoal drawing from my photos giving a different sensitivity to the images, my work has a look of film stills to them, taking inspiration for film noir and artists like Douglas Gordon and his piece ‘24 hours psycho’ In a lot of my works I want to challenge the traditional representation of beauty. I also think my work relates to the artists I am going to talk about in this essay, with my use of the female body in their work as my work normally only consists of photographs, drawings and painting of women. I’m also interested with film noir because of the theme of femme fatale which is often seen in film noir films and how this relates to feminist theories and how females are view within art. My lasted work consists of drawing iconic film noir femme fatale scenes and then drawing them again but changing the look of them modernising them.

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasise cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. The 1940s and 1950s are generally regarded as the classic period of film noir. Film noir of this era is associated with a low key, black and visual style. The femme fatale has always been well known in literature, art and movies especially in the fine arts, the femme fatale has been portrayed in many symbolic ways it succeeded in the 1940’s century film noir, where the combination of aggressiveness and sensuality in women was a central topic. Femme fatale can be defined as a woman who is mysteriously seductive and uses this quality to outsmart men the key aspects of the femme fatale are mystery, beauty, seduction and danger. It could be said that the femme fatale is sign of male fears about feminism as the femme fatale is situated as evil and is frequently punished or killed. Also, the idea can suggest that women can only get what they want through lies, deception, and seduction. However, some could say that femme fatale has a good feminist message that women can and should take control, even in a male dominated world. Another issue it brings up is how the female form is representation in art as the femme fatale has certain appearance what was seen as beautiful which some artist challenge in their work take Jenny Saville as an example who I am going to discuss and examine her work.

Jenny Saville is an artist I choose to discuss in this essay as I believed Saville has changed the way we view the female form in art Jenny Saville is best known for paintings that render female flesh on a huge scale. Her artwork, often being larger than six by six feet, her work magnifies the raw details of the human body and experience particularly in women and herself which in the past was rarely shown or talked about in art as images of the female form was usually the male image of the female body and what they think women beauty is objectifying the body. which is why Jenny Saville paintings subject becomes newly shocking and a powerful matter in modern day contemporary art. Her works doesn’t offer a pretty picture of humanity but an honest one. She does this by her work often not resembling the traditional aspects of beauty and feminity. With most of her paintings representing overweight women, faces squashed up against glass and sometimes bruised, drooping skin and flab, pregnant stomachs, and figures put in unusually or compromising positions exploring her fascinations with the unairbrushed female form she states the she is anti-beauty and focused instead, on exaggerating bodily elements that society generally deemed unsightly.

There is a feminist touch to her work as well as a trace of brutal misogynism to her work, showing a distinction between pride and grotesque. Jenny Saville’s artworks are focussed on the human body and its flesh begin free from the clothes that dress and protect us. Saville’s work could not be more distant from the ideal female bodies often represented by the male world. Jenny Saville often used her own face and body to create a lot of her large pieces of art that are often covered with paintings of large nude women. Jenny Saville says: ‘Women have usually only taken the role of model. I’m both, artist and model.’ She often paints from photographs to create her paintings by taking many photos of herself and friends bodies which she can then draw info about the human body from. Saville normally doesn’t take photos of the whole body but rather she zooms in on different parts of the body so she can then focus on the body parts separately she also uses and takes inspiration from pictures in medical books she then paints from these photos. This is something I often try to do in my practice when I take photographs I often take crops of different body parts as well as looking at medical photos. Jenny Saville uses oil paint which she applies in heavy layers over her large-scale canvases by pushing, smearing, and scraping the pigment.

(Figure 7) Jenny Saville Propped, 1992 Oil On Canvas

This is a painting by Saville called ‘Propped’ which is a self-portrait painting consisting of the artist siting naked on to of a black stool. Etched into the paint across the whole painting is text from the feminist writer Luce Irigaray saying ‘If we continue to speak in this sameness, speak as men have spoken for centuries, we will fail each other. Again, words will pass through our bodies, above our heads, disappear, make us disappear’. The text is in mirror image so the viewer can only view it backwards making the text appear to be more intended for the subject int the painting itself rather than for the viewer. The piece exaggerates certain body parts, she uses muted colour combinations that create a soft atmosphere with an intense subject and meaning behind it to break beatified representations of female beauty.

(Figure 8) Jenny Saville, The Mothers, 2011. Oil on Canvas,106 X 85 In

This piece of work by Jenny Saville is called ‘The Mothers (2011)’ it is a beautifully painted large distorted self-portrait, based on birth and motherhood, Saville depicts herself in the final stages of pregnancy, struggling to keep hold of two twisting children over her enlarged stomach. She has drawn and erased the figures multiple times, overlapping and layering them in order to create a sense of movement and simultaneity, using both sketchy swift line drawing and thick fleshy painting. The movement in the painting and the use of drawing makes ‘Mothers’ appearance different from her earlier work. The work examines how pregnancy changes a woman’s body. She also began to deal directly with the subject of motherhood and the feelings it evokes, examining the way mothers and babies have been presented in art with keeping the interests she has in representing the human form.

Most of the works of Saville, represent the fight and struggle between the female body and the body ideals contemporary culture has been trying to force upon it. In an era where the goal and body ideal are to be thin and to look a certain way, many women reasonably feel bad and ashamed of their own bodies. Through her work, Saville creates a new female ideal body that is different from all the ideals of the male dominated culture and represents her own female opinion and aesthetics and the way a woman looks at herself. She paints women bodies but the theory behind each and every piece of her work is as important as the painting itself. Through her work she is trying to create a new ideal about beauty. Saville’s women are beautiful through their individuality, but they have been convinced to despise their own body through the social structures. In her interview she claims “I paint women as most women see themselves. I try to catch their identity, their skin, their hair, their heat, their leakiness. I do have this sense with female flesh that things are leaking out. A lot of our flesh is blue, like butcher’s meat. In history, pubic hair has always been perfect, painted by men. In real life, it moves around, up your stomach, or down your legs’

(Figure 9) Jenny Saville Branded 1992 Oil and Mixed Media On Canvas 209.5 X 179Cm.

Another piece of work by her is the large scale self portrait ‘Branded (1992)’ which is one of her best known pieces of works, in Saville painting she paints her own face in the body of an overweight woman she distorts her own torso and breasts through the painting the size of her hips and stomach is unrealistic, while her breasts and torso look huge. making the body parts overhanging and striking different words in red colour are imprinted on the body words that are often placed upon women that physically brand women. We can see a conflict between human mental constructions and physical forms. This piece can be compared to the work of Jo Spence since it uses the same verbal practice with words marking a hateful female body in one of Jo Spence pieces, she wrote on her own sick elderly body the word ‘Monster’. During 1989, Jo Spence collaborated with the doctor Tim Sheard, producing a series of phototherapy works titled ‘Narratives of Disease.’ These five photographs trace the experiences of a cancer patient undergoing medical treatment uses her own body as a site for exploring the imperfect female body. Cancerous bodies become sites of abjection. When we look at diseased bodies, they remind us of our own precarious mortality and of the reality of death. This fear is transformed into disgust and horror and these emotions enable us to distance ourselves from what frightens us. One of the photographs it the series of work is ‘Exiled’, which shows Spence’s exposed torso placed in the centre of the frame with the word ‘monster’ scribbled across it mocking and challenging the viewer. Spence said, ‘I wrote ‘monster’ across my chest, because that’s how I experienced myself as a cancer patient: monstrous to other people: ‘How dare you talk about it. I can’t bear to hear your pain. I might get cancer’. Jo Spence art also consist of similar themes to Jenney Saville art, with her work representing the constant struggle between the female body and the body ideals.

(Figure 10) Jo Spence Narratives Of Disease: Exiled, 1990 Photograph

Jo Spence was a born in London 1934 and was feminist artist and activist who explored themes of gender, class and self-identity with a lot of her work trying to release women from stereotypes. She demonstrates the way that photography can be both art and activism. Her work is political and depicts the female body in a way that runs counter to media and historical narratives of idealised femininity and beauty.

Jo Spence’s images laid bare the female body to take control of her own body. Jo Spence worked with a range of photographic genres, from documentary to phototherapy, producing work which was crucial in debates on photography and the critique of representation. She believed that the medium has an empowering capacity when applied to complex issues of class, power, gender, health and the body. Jo Spence really makes you think about the body as a subject rather than an object. Thinking about the body and how it is used, Jo spence and Jenny Saville work has such a raw quality to them, something I hope to achieve in my art practise. Jo Spence spreads her work across various camera projects the series ‘Libido Uprising’ criticises the role of women being limited to either carrying out domestic chores or the object of sexual desire.

(Figure 11) Jo Spence Photograph

In this image, Spence stands straight carrying a vacuum cleaner as the soldier would carry a weapon. As a guard is disciplined to conform to the duties of his post, so spence bears the vacuum cleaner as a symbol of the domestic duties so often expected of women.

After Spence was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1982, she made several series of self-portraits documenting her battle with the disease. The photographs expressed her physical and emotional state. The work represented the honest emotion she felt living in an unruly body that cannot conform to the pressures of female perfection expected and idealised in society.

In conclusion, I think that that the representation of the female form in art is forever evolving, many women artist are now making works for women and not only about ideal women. The Female form in art has always tend to conform to the ideal of beauty of their time, in the past the women were represented as a passive and very soft object of desire for the male gaze, there are also numerous representations of objectified women conforming to a unique stereotype of what beauty is thought to be, with more diversity in the representation of men in terms of age and physical appearance than in the representation of women. A lot of art involving females relates to theories about feminism and different pieces of art portrays women in many different ways from femme fatale in film to the paintings by Jenny Saville. But in the larger context of the discussion going on about being aware of diversity in the way we represent our society, I also think that now we see more representation of women that are real and complex, women who are active, in charge of themselves and with an ideal of their own. It is interesting to have works of art that speaks about men perception of women, but we should also see art about women perception of themselves artist like Jenny Saville and Jo Spence change the way the female form is represented and portrayed in art.