"some natural notes about her body"
June 7, 2009 11:13 AM Subscribe
500 years of women's faces in western art : three-minute video.
via The Happiness Project (previously).
via The Happiness Project (previously).
This post was deleted for the following reason: posted previously -- jessamyn
So, two thing struck me.
First, it's takes almost a third of the video clip for the successive women to actually start looking like different women. The early works all seem to me, at least, to basically be the same woman (or the same feminine ideal, really) in different settings.
Second, the shift away from photo-realistic portraits was kind of underwhelming. I can't really say why. I knew it was coming; I expected it. Perhaps this made the actual event less interesting. In any case I expected it to be more shocking, then it was.
posted by oddman at 11:22 AM on June 7, 2009
First, it's takes almost a third of the video clip for the successive women to actually start looking like different women. The early works all seem to me, at least, to basically be the same woman (or the same feminine ideal, really) in different settings.
Second, the shift away from photo-realistic portraits was kind of underwhelming. I can't really say why. I knew it was coming; I expected it. Perhaps this made the actual event less interesting. In any case I expected it to be more shocking, then it was.
posted by oddman at 11:22 AM on June 7, 2009
It would be interesting to see a male version of this. I suspect the men would look more different from each other than these do. Could be called: "500 years of woman as subject in male art".
posted by Hildegarde at 11:32 AM on June 7, 2009
posted by Hildegarde at 11:32 AM on June 7, 2009
Second, the shift away from photo-realistic portraits was kind of underwhelming. I can't really say why. I knew it was coming; I expected it. Perhaps this made the actual event less interesting. In any case I expected it to be more shocking, then it was.
I suspect this is partially due to two things the video does. One, it really telegraphs the coming change you are expecting. Watch it again and you can see more abstracted (or, perhaps, "painterly" is more accurate) depictions scattered among the more realistic depictions. This gets you comfortable with the idea that it's not a black/white shift when it does happen.
Second, these are all close-ups of larger works. The brush work is more obvious and, thus, becomes more obvious and abstracting to the eye. This, again, makes the transition to true abstraction more easy to accept, I think.
As with all things art, YMMV.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:34 AM on June 7, 2009
I suspect this is partially due to two things the video does. One, it really telegraphs the coming change you are expecting. Watch it again and you can see more abstracted (or, perhaps, "painterly" is more accurate) depictions scattered among the more realistic depictions. This gets you comfortable with the idea that it's not a black/white shift when it does happen.
Second, these are all close-ups of larger works. The brush work is more obvious and, thus, becomes more obvious and abstracting to the eye. This, again, makes the transition to true abstraction more easy to accept, I think.
As with all things art, YMMV.
posted by Thorzdad at 11:34 AM on June 7, 2009
would have been interesting to see a split -- one side going to photography, the other side going to abstraction.
posted by empath at 11:41 AM on June 7, 2009
posted by empath at 11:41 AM on June 7, 2009
The evolution toward a modern standard of feminine beauty was a little more jagged than I thought it would be.
posted by darth_tedious at 11:55 AM on June 7, 2009
posted by darth_tedious at 11:55 AM on June 7, 2009
My favorite thing in the entire universe is a woman's face.
posted by jeff-o-matic at 12:15 PM on June 7, 2009
posted by jeff-o-matic at 12:15 PM on June 7, 2009
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posted by arcticwoman at 11:20 AM on June 7, 2009