OUGD501: Context of Practice - The Gaze Seminar

We started the session by summarising the lecture from Thursday.

• Voyeurism and Sigmund Freud's sexual fantasy principle
• Sexual desire and the need to look a certain way
• Visual culture (Art and the media)
• Looking is not just neutral
• 'Men act, women appear' (John Berger, 1972)
• Men have a purpose and power, women are objectified
• Visual representations are skewed because they are made by men

Hans Melling 'Vanity'

We looked at the first image which was presented to us during the lecture.

• Dutch painting 
• The art industry was made up primarily of men up until the 1970's
• People who bought art were men, people who painted art were men
• Society at the time was run by men primarily
• Domination and exploitation of women in society
• The reason that Hans Melling painted a woman was because men would have bought the painting and they would not like to look at a nude man
• This makes a man feel more secure about his masculinity
• The fantasy which comes with this painting does not challenge you because she never meets your gaze
• The mirror has been placed in her hand to encourage you to look at her
• Constantly available to men

Alexandre Cabanel 'Birth of Venus' 1863

Manet 'Olympia' 1863

• Both depict female nudes
• Birth of venus is passive and everything is on display
• Olympia is confrontational and covered up
• Olympia illustrates a prostitute
• Venus is the goddess of love 
• Venus is clearly a fantasy
• Olympia is more like reality, this made it very unpopular when it was first shown

Titan's Venus of Urbino

• The dog in this painting is a representation of mans best friend
• The scene of this painting illustrates a mans ideal fantasy - the nanny in the background with the children whilst the wife and dog are in bed waiting for the man to come home

John Berger describes the nude:

• Naked - to be oneself
• Nude - to be naked and looked at by others and not to recognise oneself by that representation

We then spent the next half of the session looking at the text: 

Coward, R 'The Look', in Thomas, J. (ed.) (2000), Reading Images, Basinstoke: Palgrove, pages 33-39.