Women in the Picture (Paperback)

Catherine McCormack

ISBN 10: 1785786954 / ISBN 13: 9781785786952

Published by Icon Books, Duxford, 2021

About this Item

Paperback. 'I'm glad this book was written because it felt like the scales were falling from my eyes as I read it. Women will continue to be objectified in art and in popular culture, but the book sheds a generous amount of angry light on how we got here.' - The HeraldA perfect pin-up, a damsel in distress, a saintly mother, a femme fatale.Women's identity has long been stifled by a limited set of archetypes, found everywhere in pictures from art history's classics to advertising, while women artists have been overlooked and held back from shaping more empowering roles.In this impassioned book, art historian Catherine McCormack asks us to look again at what these images have told us to value, opening up our most loved images - from those of Titian and Botticelli to Picasso and the Pre-Raphaelites. She also shows us how women artists - from Berthe Morisot to Beyonce, Judy Chicago to Kara Walker - have offered us new ways of thinking about women's identity, sexuality, race and power.Women in the Picture gives us new ways of seeing the art of the past and the familiar images of today so that we might free women from these restrictive roles and embrace the breadth of women's vision. A bold reconsideration of women in art - from the 'Old Masters' to the posts of Instagram influencers. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781785786952

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Women in the Picture (Paperback)
• Publisher: Icon Books, Duxford
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1785786954
• ISBN 13: 9781785786952
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

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.