CRITICAL STUDIES - Feminist Interventions

 Auguste Renoir


This painting by Renoir is a strong depiction of euro-centric female beauty standards of the era, with Venus-like red hair and 'fair' skin. Though the subject has the body of a mature woman, with a draping loose top to show this off, her face appears very juvenile with rosy cheeks and soft features, I think this is quite telling about men's ideas of the perfect woman at the time - submissive and innocent like a child, but with a sort of maternal quality. This is emphasised by the delicately painted flowers which symbolise fertility, and her hands look really small and dainty, suggesting Renoir has taken certain liberties with the anatomy according to his own ideas of beauty.


This contemporary example of art about women is by the Guerrilla Girls, who challenge the norms of female representation in the art world. They create factual, graphic designs with block colour which have a straight forward message that is difficult to argue with, especially since they incorporate exposing statistics. The work contains ideology from 3rd wave feminism which centres around the female body and its exploitation by men and on industrial levels; the Guerrilla Girls have re-appropriated the female nude in this poster, showing the taking back of power and adding a jarring twist with the gorilla head on her body to subvert expectations of women's beauty and submission.




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