Subjects:
The content of this class has made me aware of a lot actually. Before this class I never looked at what sex a painter was when I looked at his or her paintings. I just looked at all paintings equally, to see which ones I liked and which ones I didn’t like. I just thought that there were more male artists than female artists. I never knew that under the surface there was so much sexism in art. But now I know that female artists were and are still being repressed. Why is it so hard for women to get credit for their art? Why do people just assume that because the artist is a woman, her art is not as good as her male colleagues?
When Judy Chicago opened her monumental piece of art, The Dinner Party, to the public in 1978 at the San Francisco Museum, there were many different opinions about her “art”. It was a beautiful work of art, a large triangular table, stretching 48 feet on each side and set on a raised platform. It was covered with 2,3000 hand-cast tiles, on which are written the names of 999 significant women in history. The triangle was selected as the earliest symbol of female power and the sign of the goddess. Each side of the equilateral triangle holds thirteen
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Shown around the country, it impacted on a very large number of viewers, demonstrating the potential of a work of art, if it was large and clear and strong in its message, to touch the lives of many people in a very direct, immediate way. I think that every woman artist from the past has influenced and is a part of every work of art that we see today in the present. This work of art was all about women and the one thing that women have that men don’t is a vagina. There are hundreds of years of women artists who struggled in the past so that another woman of today may have an easier time of doing what she loves and sharing it with the world. Why is it so wrong for a woman to express herself in art whether it is controversial or not? Are women only allowed to express themselves if they stay within societies norms and don’t challenge the way people think? But that’s what art is! Art is supposed to open our eyes to new ideas and expose people to new ways of thinking. No man can ever take that from any woman. But then why did a heated debate arise in the House of Representatives in 1990 concerning Chicago’s Dinner Party? Because of the vaginal imagery? To tell the truth, I didn’t even realize that each of the plates portrayed vaginal imagery and I know that others in our class also didn’t realize this until we were told so. The Dinner Party is for everyone and those of you who understand it are benefited with a new understanding of how great women are and have been. The thirty-nine women selected for this honor range from early goddess’s, noted feminists of the early fifteenth century through the present, to the diverse achievements of women in the twentieth century. The use of the china plate painting and needlework are considered “fine art”.
I know that it was even harder for women of many years past to get their art published or to even have their works considered “art”. She produced a beautiful work of art that women everywhere should get a chance to see. Each of the place settings consists of a porcelain plate designed by Chicago to reflect the special achievements and experiences of these historic figures.
Essay's Topics
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