Annabelle's ARH 411 Blog

The Wounded Deer, 1946 by Frida Kahlo      At the beginning of the lesson for this week, we were asked a question. “Can you name three female artists from before the 1950s?” At the time, I could name one. Many people in the class also could name 1-2, but not three. Why could this be? When you think of all the greatest artists of the world, many names might come to mind. Leonardo Da Vinci, Jackson Pollock, Michelangelo, etc. All these artists are men. Men in the art industry have been widely known for their art and their talents. Women, on the other hand, tend to go unnoticed or unappreciated.    “There is another approach to the question. Many con- temporary feminists assert that there is actually a different kind of greatness for women's art than for men's—They propose the existence of a distinctive and recognizable feminine style, differing in both formal and expressive qualities from that of men artists and posited on the unique character of women's situation...

FRANCO ORIGLIA/GETTY IMAGES      For this week’s writing, I have chosen a photo of the Mona Lisa, painted by Leonardo Da Vinci. This photo may not look exactly like the original. This is because this image is a photograph of the Mona Lisa that has been cropped down and heavily edited. You can tell from the heavy shadows and the orange hue. One thing you might notice is the heavy cracking in the photo, which leads you to believe it is actually a photo of the real Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is currently an extremely well-known and popular painting. If you take a second to google “The Mona Lisa,” you will find a plethora of results that aren’t quite the real painting. Why might this be? Many people have attempted to recreate or redesign the Mona Lisa. There are AI images of what the Mona Lisa would look like as a real person, there are digital prints of a reworked modern Mona Lisa, and there are even pictures of the Mona Lisa on socks! One thing I find myself asking is, “how d...

Sandro Botticelli, Birth of Venus, 1485. Tempura on Canvas, The Uffizi.      In the art world, beauty is a common theme. Many people have entirely unique ideas of what beauty is and how it can be represented. Hickey believes beauty is subjective, which most can agree. Where Amelia and Hickey differentiate is with the criteria of beauty. Amelia explains how Hickey feels a sense of entitlement when determining what beauty is. Beauty is subjective to the viewer, right? While beauty is essentially subjective, it does not give people the right to claim what beauty is and what it means. Amelia states in her writing, " I do not believe the aesthetic approach to visual culture, which inevitably cleaves to the connoisseurial tradition and perpetuates its authoritarian effects, to be a productive one at this point in our cultural history."   (Jones, 2) Amelia does not find the souly "visual" approach to beauty to be effective. By having one man decide what beauty is and t...