Museum Visit

Today, I visited the Saint Louis University Museum of Art and made a few observations on how women were presented in these artworks. First, a lot of these women appeared nude or sexualized, as the artist would typically focus on one particular aspect of the women’s body such as her lips or breasts. There was a certain sculpture that I noticed called ‘Meditating Girl’ made in 1958 that showed a girl crouching over, apparently meditating, while completely nude. I did not see why this was necessary to express the idea of a girl meditating. This gave the impression of the male gaze and, considering most of the artists of the museum were men, it gave a clear message that women are only to be seen as objects.

Besides the nudity in this art, I also noticed that there was far more painting or sculptures of men or structures rather than women. Women were hardly ever presented. I especially noticed this in the religious section of the museum. While there were many pictures of Jesus, apostles, and other important men, the only art works of women were only of Mary. There are several important women mentioned in the Bible, yet Mary was the only one that ever got painted. And even she was only in a limited amount compared to the amount of paintings there were of men.

Another element in the artwork that I was thinking about was that women were hardly ever painted alone. Usually, they were with a man or with a child. This was probably a way to confirm norms that women are meant to be child rearing or meant to serve man. With any pictures of men that I saw, they appeared independent and strong, while women were usually meek and fragile in comparison. This is a way to create oppression for woman, as though they cannot be anything but fragile without a man.