Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts

Saturday, 15 January 2022

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Review: Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking by Catherine McCormack (#Ad)

Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking by Catherine McCormack

I received this eProof for free from Icon Books via NetGalley for the purposes of providing an honest review.

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Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking by Catherine McCormack


Published: 6th May 2021 | Publisher: Icon Books | Source: NetGalley
Catherine McCormack's Website

Art historian Catherine McCormack challenges how culture teaches us to see and value women, their bodies, and their lives.

Cultural archetypes have long been used to subjugate women, binding them within the restrictive roles of Venus, bride, wife, mother, and monster. These portrayals echo throughout the paintings and sculptures of western art―Titian, Botticelli, and Giambologna―and more contemporaneously in fashion photographs, ads, and across social media. By society empowering men to represent women, women imbibe a distorted vision of themselves and their bodies, coming up against notions of impossible beauty, idealized passivity and violence, and horrifying Medusas.

In this impassioned work, art historian Catherine McCormack evaluates the production and display of portrayals of women, exposing the underlying meanings, whether overt or symbolic. She counters them by turning to women artists like Berthe Morisot, Beyoncé, Suzanne Lacy, and Faith Ringgold. These women have been overturning confining depictions of identity, sexuality, race, and power to explore the breadth and multiplicity of women’s visions of their own lives.
From The StoryGraph.

Purchase from Bookshop.org*
The StoryGraph | Goodreads



Continue reading Review: Women in the Picture: Women, Art and the Power of Looking by Catherine McCormack (#Ad)

Friday, 18 October 2019

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Lady Lilith and Me: How a Painting Gave Me Body Confidence

Lady Lilith by Rossetti
Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1866-1873

Lady Lilith and Me: How a Painting Gave Me Body Confidence


Trigger/Content Warning: This post features mentions of rape, infertility, miscarriage, and infanticide.

Lilith - the woman who, according to Jewish mythology, was Adam's first wife, who refused to be subservient to him and lie beneath him during sex, before running off to the Red Sea and becoming a she-demon - holds a special place in my heart. Not because she is considered a feminist icon, though that is pretty awesome. Not because she murdered men, mothers, new born babies, which I try to ignore. No, I love Lilith, specifically Lady Lilith above, because she's a redhead.
Continue reading Lady Lilith and Me: How a Painting Gave Me Body Confidence

Tuesday, 17 September 2019

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My Love of Art

A photo looking down a room in an art gallery with paintings on the walls on either side, with a bench in the middle with people sitting and sketching, and two people looking at the paintings on the left - photo taken in Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, New Zealand
Photo by Dev on Unsplash.


My Love of Art


Today, I want to talk to you about art I love. I'm in no way an expert, just a layman who loves what I see, so I can't wax poetic about it or anything. But I do love specific artists and subjects. All images can be clicked to be taken to the website page to learn more.
Continue reading My Love of Art