Girls in Boots: Returning the Male Gaze

By Jean Shepard

Spring 2005 Graduate: Bachelor of Fine Arts Major
Faculty Advisor for project: Virginia Derryberry
Second Faculty Reader Advisor for project: Virginia Spivey

The painted female nude has a long-standing history in the West, functioning variously as high-class soft-core pornography, iconic representation of the Western art tradition, and ground for feminist critique.  Much of the feminist critique has revolved around the notion of the male gaze, a concept based in feminist film theory that examines the presumption that the viewer of art works is a white, heterosexual, middle-class man.  Many postmodern artists (such as Hannah Wilke or Cindy Sherman) have created works attempting to subvert the male gaze using a wide variety of approaches.  One of the primary traditions targeted in critiquing the male gaze is that of the female nude.  By a traditional female nude, I generally mean an idealized painted female nude figure, often reclining, often exotic or mythical—or otherwise obviously not contemporary, generally indicated by the surroundings, clothing, and hairstyle.  A perfect example would by nineteenth-century French painter Ingres’ Odalisque and Slave, which depicts a nude woman lying prone with the accoutrements of a Middle Eastern harem girl.  I propose a research project combining studio work in painting with art historical inquiry that explores the way contemporary painting, including my own, reacts to these patriarchal and canonical images.

My own studio work explores the subject of the female nude in visual terms that reference and deal with the concept of the male gaze and traditional painting.  I have begun paintings that work to acknowledge the viewer’s role, referencing traditional Western female nude paintings beginning in the period of the Renaissance as well as their more contemporary counterpart, pin-up paintings. My paintings utilize eye contact, monumental scale (at least four feet by six feet), facial expression, pose, and ironic elements such as a pair of blue cowboy boots to suggest a departure from the traditional, realistic style in which they are painted.  My intention is to create paintings that will both continue the tradition of the female nude in subject matter and aesthetic appeal, but that will undermine the implicit idea that the painted women’s bodies are meant for some abstract male consumption.  My goal is to question the placement of the female nude within art history, creating paintings that both enter into discourse with other paintings and that have significance of their own.

As a feminist, I create paintings that are aware of and even subvert the male gaze.  Although this idea is by no means new, I wish to complicate it by making paintings that are traditional in form—with layers of oil paint that create naturalistic, illusionistic figures.  I intend to see how traditional I can make these paintings and still create work that does not objectify and denigrate the model.   Is it even possible to create new paintings of the powerful painted female nude that are viable as art objects without being misogynistic?

I will look at how others have dealt with trying to make the tradition of the female nude more politically palatable or with using that traditional form to make a political statement.  In addition to creating my paintings, I will also provide a formal academic paper documenting my technical and theoretical research.  The research paper component of the project should try to assess what our current conception of the female nude is.  I will focus on artists that are currently working and producing applicable art, such as Jenny Saville, John Currin, and Lisa Yuskavage.  Contemporary painting frequently refers to historical and canonical works; thus, researching the traditional paintings will not only provide a context in which to place current work but will also allow for deeper readings of contemporary paintings.  In light of this, I will give a brief overview of the tradition against which we are rebelling and to research early signs of rebellion, as in Manet’s Olympia, for example. There are a number of artists who worked in the tradition of the female nude whose work I find both interesting and problematic, like Ingres or Titian. I plan to focus my discussion of traditional female nudes on three representative paintings: Manet’s Olympia, Titian’s Venus of Urbino, and Ingres’ La Grande Odalisque.  I chose these latter two because they are both mired in the collective cultural understanding of what a female nude is and how it relates to what great Western art is.  A large part of the art historical research will be looking at secondary sources, such as Lynda Nead’s The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity, and Sexuality exploring the cultural context of the female nude. 

By doing this research, I can have a better concept of where my own work fits in with cutting-edge contemporary paintings.  With this project, I enter into the conversation currently created by other artists working with this subject; I will do this by creating a body of paintings that attempt to fulfill the artistic goals I laid out earlier: subverting and upholding the tradition to create a powerfully painted female nude with an awareness of the underlying gender politics.  I will continue with my “girls in boots” theme.  By making these paintings, I will visually represent my ideas, allowing for discovery of the opportunities and limitations in creating traditional but feminist and self-aware paintings.

I will create at least ten paintings in oil paint on large panels in addition to the paper.  My attached budget for supplies for the paintings does go over the fall research grant limit of $250; I will seek additional funds from other sources.  I intend to publish this paper in the UNCA Journal of Undergraduate Research in addition to the NCUR Proceedings.  I would like to present this research at NCUR 2005 in the spring and plan to apply for an NCUR travel grant.

Bibliography

       1. Betterton, Rosemary.  An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists, and the Body.  London: Routledge, 1996.

       2. Danto, Arthur C. “Bad Boy, Good Manners.” The Nation 278.4 (2004): 29. InfoTrac. UNC-Asheville Lib. 16 September 2004 <http://web7.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/1/1/1/purl=rc6_EAIM>

       3. Ferrara, Lidia Guibert.  Reclining Nude. San Fransisco: Chronicle Books, 2002.

       4. Lovelace, Carey. “Lisa Yuskavage: Fleshed Out.” Art in America. July 2001: 80.

       5. McDonald, Helen.  Erotic Ambiguities: The Female Nude in Art. London: Routledge, 2001.

       6. Meagher, Michelle. “Jenny Saville and a Feminist Aesthetics of Disgust.” Hypatia 18.4 (2003):23. InfoTrac. UNC-Asheville Lib. 20 September 2004. <http://web7.infotrac.galegroup.com/itw/infomark/1/1/1/purl=rc6_EAIM>

       7. Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”

       8. Nead, Lynda. The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity, and Sexuality. London: Routledge, 1992.

       9. Nochlin, Linda. “Floating in Gender Nirvana.”  Art in America. March 2003: 94.

     10. Ockman, Carol. Ingres’s Eroticized Bodies: Retracing the Serpentine Line. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.

     11. Pointon, Marcia. Naked Authority: The Body in Western Painting 1830-1908. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

     12. Rimanelli, David. “John Currin.” Artforum International. September 2003: 219.

     13. Robinson, ed. Feminism – Art – Theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, Inc., 2001.

Budget

1 37 ml tube alizarin crimson oil paint at $6.65 each…………………………………...  .$6.65

1 37 ml tube burnt sienna oil paint at $4.63 each…………………………………….…  .$4.63

1 37 ml tube burnt umber oil paint at $4.63 each…………………………………….   ….$4.63

1 37 ml tube cadmium red medium oil paint at $12.13 each..………………………… .$12.13

1 37 ml tube cadmium yellow medium oil paint at $9.77 each…………………….…  …$9.77

1 37 ml tube cobalt blue oil paint at $12.13 each……………………………………   …$12.13

2 37 ml tubes flake white replacement oil paint at $4.63 each……………………  .……$9.26

1 37 ml tube hansa yellow light oil paint at $6.65 each…………………………………   $6.65

1 37 ml tube hansa yellow deep oil paint at $6.65 each………………………………  …$6.65

1 37 ml tube prussian blue oil paint at $5.86 each……..………………………………..  $5.86

1 37 ml tube raw sienna oil paint at $4.63 each………………………………………       $4.63

1 37 ml tube raw umber oil paint at $4.63 each……………………………………    ……$4.63

1 37 ml tube ultramarine oil paint at $5.86 each…………………………………   ……...$5.86

1 37 ml tube venetian red oil paint at $4.63 each……………………………………….    $4.63

1 37 ml tube yellow ochre oil paint at $4.63 each……………………………………    …$4.63

1 liter Liquin oil medium at $32.99 each………………………………………………      $32.99

2 gallons acrylic gesso at $24.99 each………………………………………………    …$49.98

10 4’x8’sheets luaun plywood at $8.90 each ......................................................   $89.20
40 1”x2”x8’ wood supports at $0.98 each……………………………………...…….    ..$39.20

4 32 oz. containers wood glue at $8.99 each………………………………………  …...$44.95

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                                                                                                                       $350.07