The Dissertation
‘Art Sex Knowledge Power’ is a critical reading of the female nude from Renaissance to modern day with the lens of Foucault's theory of power. The objective is to realign representations of sex in art with pleasure and autonomy and away from whiteness and femininity.
It has been sold out in Good Press Glasgow from the small print run I had. This was written, designed and printed at the end of my Illustration Ba at Uni of Brighton.
Art Sex Knowledge Power
A Foucauldian reading of the female nude, from Renaissance to modern day.
Introduction
When my peers asked me what I was writing about this semester I found myself repeating these statements: art matters because it makes a difference to our lives, sex is a highly politicised part of life, and power resides in art to control how sex is thought of in the West. These ideas combine to form the question ‘What does art reveal about sexuality in the West?’ For the sake of this essay I have narrowed “art” down to the genre of the female nude. The angle of my analysis is rooted in Foucault’s theory of power. The deconstruction of “power” as a specific knowledge that mediates our attitudes and behaviours, is a useful way to critically analyse sexuality and the female nude.
By “sexuality”, I’m referring to the ability to experience and express sexual feelings (Sexuality Cambridge Dictionary). This differs from sexual orientation which fixates solely on the gender of those you find sexually attractive. French theorist Roland Barthes compares sexuality in Japan to sexuality in the West. In Japan, hes says “sexuality is in sex, not elsewhere;” where as in the States “sex is everywhere, except in sexuality.”(Barthes) This denial of sex in the Western conception of sexuality is demonstrative of the sexual repression Foucault describes in The History of Sexuality. I hope to uncover the historical agenda of Western sexuality in order to separate racist and sexist cultural values from our own sex lives.
The research of sexuality highlights the importance of acknowledging intersectionality in critical theory. This essay is not expressly about race, women or identity politics, however to omit the impact of these variables when discussing sexuality only serves to replicate the erasure and discrimination seen in art historical pedagogy. It's important to note the limitations of this essay. Colonisation, disability and LGBTQIA+ identities are each a vital part of the discussion surrounding sexuality and power. The point of this essay is not to ignore these topics but to acknowledge that, when written about, they should be done justice. It would be disrespectful to cover these areas in this essay. I do not have enough research to proficiently analyse them, thus any commentary could lead to a perpetuation of misconceptions and prejudice, something I wish to avoid.
This essay will consist of four parts. Part one is called “The ideas of Michel Foucault.” This will begin with an introduction to who Foucault was and outline his theory of power. Then I will explain the connection between art, knowledge and power based on Foucault’s theory. From this point, a feminist appropriation of Foucault’s work will be introduced to focus the perspective of the essay. Finally, I will explain why I am conducting a discourse analysis of the female nude, a methodology established by Foucault. The second part is called “The history and discourse of the female nude.” First there will be a brief history of the female nude. Then I will chronologically introduce examples of the female nude from Renaissance onwards. Once I have described each piece I will conduct a discourse analysis of the female nudes as a collection of images. At this point I can establish some of the cultural norms and regulations that occur in the West in regards to sexuality. This analysis will lead on to part three which is called “Race and gender in the female nude.” I begin this part by discussing how race and gender intersect culturally. Then with reference to Manet’s Olympia and Picasso’s Demoiselles d’Avignon I unpick how both gender and race have been used as visual cues to determine the sexuality of the subject. Part three ends with a critique of Whiteness which explores how White privilege has affected art history and the subsequent portrayal of sexuality in art. Part four is called “The contemporary female nude.” In this last section I introduce two female nudes, the first made in 2005 and the second made in 2021. The analysis of these pieces provide suggestions of what Western sexuality is currently concerned with instead of race and gender. I will then conclude that the West’s prior understanding of sexuality has been highly damaging and that we should strive toward using a new definition of sexuality that centres pleasure, respect and autonomy. This re-defining of sexuality can start to materialise if Western art institutions recognise and document non male and non White artist’s iterations of the female nude as part of the canon.
The ideas of Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault was a French historian and philosopher whose work rose to prominence in the 1970s. The aim of Foucault’s work was to understand how people in the West have come to be where they currently are (Taylor 2). His conclusion was that our current position is not a necessary condition but a result of historical developments of power (Taylor 3). In 1976, Foucault’s most explicit thinking about power was published in La Volonté de Saviour (translated as The History of Sexuality), a book outlining the development of power through sexuality (Lynch 14). This essay will expand on the idea that our sexual behaviours are not inherent but a product of Western power dynamics.
Since the Renaissance, art has been viewed and understood as the manifestation of the human subject (Jones:2006 2). The conception of art as the self, makes art a useful touchpoint for viewing the interaction between western culture, power and sexuality (Jones:2006 3). Power can be defined as the ability to control people and events as well as an official or legal right to do something (Power Cambridge Dictionary). Foucault’s conceptualization of power, freedom and subjectivity can be used to aid our ability to overcome oppression (Taylor 3). By understanding how “sexuality” comes to be defined and how certain groups are “sexier” than others, we can - perhaps through art - begin to break down sexism and racism and redefine sexuality.
Foucault’s theory of power
Traditionally, power has been understood as something possessed and enforced by those “at the top of the pyramid.” (Lynch 13) However, Foucault observed that power arises in all relationships and can also be “built up from the bottom of the pyramid.” (Lynch 13) In other words, power can be enforced by individual interactions and local relations, as well as by a sovereign state (Lynch 19). Low level actions create patterns of behaviour. As these patterns become more prevalent they eventually form national norms and regulations. Scholar Richard A Lynch makes clear that “there is no power which is exercised without a series of aims and objectives” (23). The norms that form support the agenda of the individuals performing the actions. Our own actions self regulate the power dynamics we have inherited from our culture.
Foucault’s theory of power moves through four principles. First, on a micro-level, individual “force relations” operate and organise (Lynch 19). In this essay, these “force relations” are the individual artworks that I will examine. Each painting operates as an expression of culture and has been organised through art history into genres. The second principle is a process in which, through confrontation with each other, the “force relations” transform into formations (19). These formations either strengthen or reverse the meaning of the individual items. For example, the exhibiting of the individual art works (force relations), transforms their value and meaning. By the third principle, power operates on a macro-level (19). The support which these “force relations” find in their formations creates a system (19). These systems are called “terminal forms” (19). The genre of “the female nude” is a “terminal form”. The individual artworks are now part of a greater system, in this case a genre. The fourth principle is the strategies which these “terminal forms” impart. The values of the systems are crystallised in our institutions and shape our laws and social hegemonies (19). Historically, the female nude has been used to restrict our understanding of sexuality. However, Foucault’s theory is useful as it outlines how “terminal forms” can strengthen or reverse a discourse. The formation of the contemporary female nude can be used to reverse the restrictive Western discourse on sexuality. Foucault believed where there is power, there is also resistance (Lynch 24). This essay is a call to resist the control the West has over our bodies and sexual habits.
Art, knowledge and power
Foucault’s work concentrated on modern institutions of confinement: the asylum, the clinic and the prison (Kauffman 1). Art historian Douglas Crimp suggests that the institutionalisation of the public art museum, in the mid-nineteenth century, makes art (the institution) another site worth analysing (Kauffman 2). The public art museum produces knowledge that is “recognised as true”, “known to be the case” (Feder 56). This is to say public art consolidates culturals norms. German philosopher Heidegger states “art is considered to be an expression of human life.” (1) But this so-called “human life” is rather the West’s flattering knowledge of the Eurocentric male’s imagination (Shotat and Stam 14).
It is relevant to define what is meant by “the West”. Geographically the West denotes Western Europe and North America (Shotat and Stam 14). Nowadays the West is used more generally to refer to industrialised, secular, capitalist societies (Williams 334) (Hall 186). Politically, the West has been defined by what it is not. It's a concept built on its difference from “other” worlds (Hall 188). The West treats non-European cultures as different and inferior, calling them “barbaric” and their populations “savages” (Hall 188-9). This othering also takes place within the West, as Hall says “western women were often represented as inferior to men.” (189) The cultural legacy of “othering” in the West is replicated in the art it produces.
Whilst art is understood as a manifestation of the self, Parker and Pollock remind us that “art is not a mirror” (Jones:2006 2) (119). It mediates and re-presents social relations, such as “othering”, providing a specific knowledge of its subjects (Parker and Pollock 119). The specific knowledge that art circulates has historically reinforced cultural regulations which serve the ruling class. From the perspective of the ruling group, other “knowledge” would appear to be illegitimate. (Hartsock 167) Thus, art becomes an arena where artists can control what knowledge is made legitimate. The artist has the authority to influence how we understand ourselves. This includes our understanding of sexuality, a part of ourselves often politicised in Western culture.
The feminist appropriation of Foucault’s work
My interest in Foucault’s theory of power comes from its application to feminist work. In order to overcome the domination which structures Western culture, we must understand how power works (Hartsock 157). Power is firmly associated with the male and the masculine, so it falls into the feminist domain to be concerned with power (157). Simultaneously, “white is a metaphor for power,” another cause for feminist concern (Baldwin). For feminist practise to be useful, it must also be intersectional. Feminist perspectives in art are attuned to the cultural influences that exert power over subjectivity (Korsmeyer). Subjectivity equates to the subjective knowledge granted to the Western populace. In the case of the female nude, subjective knowledge about sexuality is supplied. Art both reflects and perpetuates the social formation of gender, sexuality and identity (Korsmeyer). Moreover, art influences the extent to which these formations are framed by factors such as race, national origin, social position and historical situation (Korsmeyer). Thus, a feminist use of Foucault’s theory of power when analysing art (the female nude) and sexuality will be critical to this essay.
Philosopher Susan Bordo points to our need for “an effective political discourse on the female body.” (14) The female nude is a cultural conception of the female body which equates being sexual to being White and female. In efforts to change the subordinate sexual status of those who are not male and or not White, we are required to consider the nature of power (Hartsock 157). Bordo suggests that “we must first abandon the idea of power as something possessed by one group.” (15) Instead, power should be viewed as “a network of practices, institutions, and technologies that sustain positions of dominance and subordination within a particular domain.” (15) This first step directly follows Foucault’s theory of power. Second, we need analytics capable of describing power where the central mechanisms are not repressive but constitutive (15). A power which nurtures and celebrates differences rather than impeding and destroying them (15). This second step is the feminst appropriation of Foucault’s theory. We need our practices, institutions and technologies to employ constitutive power rather than repressive power. An effective political discourse on the female body would nurture and celebrate sexuality with reference to multiple genders, races, nationalities and sexual orientations. This would prevent sexual desirability from being represented by the homogenised heterosexual White woman - a coercive, standardised ideal, erasing racial, class and other differences (Bordo 16). To establish this feminist discourse I will analayse the female nude.
Discourse analysis methodology
Discourse analysis allows us to draw conclusions from a collection of statements. A range of texts and images are collated about a topic then analysed for patterns and themes. This method was established by Foucault. His work defines what it is to be human, and as a result, what it means to be sub-human, deviant or abnormal (Gillian 186). His writing on sexuality was created through a historical discourse analysis of Western society.
So, what is a discourse? Cultural theorist Stuart Hall defines a discourse as “a group of statements which provide a language for talking about - i.e. a way of representing - a particular kind of knowledge about a topic” (201). Instead of a group of statements, I will be analysing a group of images, which produce “a way of representing” a particular knowledge of sexuality. This particular knowledge shapes both our thinking and behaviours (Rose 187). How we talk about sex and how we conduct ourselves sexually are both influenced by discourse. The acknowledgement that our actions are affected by discourse, as well as our ideas, is a key component of Foucault’s methodology.
A discourse can not consist of one statement. The accumulation of several images work together to form what Foucault calls a ‘discursive formation’ (Hall 201). The images fit together because any one artwork implies a relation to all the others (Hall 201). The meaning of any one image depends on the meaning carried by the other images (Rose 188). This is called intertextuality - a discourse can not exist in isolation. Moreover, Hall notes that “a discourse draws on elements in other discourses” which creates a network of meanings (202). For example, sexuality’s discourse draws on discourse surrounding the female nude, the West, art, race and gender. They are all interrelated concepts. This demonstrates how intersectionality is central to this essay and the concept of sexuality.
A final aspect to consider is that discourses are concerned with power. Foucault categorised a discourse as a form of discipline, informing ways of thinking and acting (Rose 189). This power to discipline is passed through institutions (Hall 202). Art is one of many institutions which exerts power. Within art, power, knowledge and sexuality interact to create discourses which affect our lifestyles. In The History of Sexuality Volume 1 An Introduction Foucault describes how the Victorians introduced a rule of silence on the subject of sex (3). The following discourse surrounding sexuality from the 19th century up to today is rooted in repression. Foucault exclaims:
“We are informed that if repression has indeed been the fundamental link between power, knowledge and sexuality since the classical age, it stands to reason that we will not be able to free ourselves from it except at a considerable cost: nothing less than a transgression of laws, a lifting of prohibitions, an irruption of speech, a reinstating of pleasure within reality, and a whole new economy in the mechanisms of power will be required.” (5)
This essay will not be able to achieve all of the above. However, there is still much to be gained from being critical of the Western discourse of sexuality. Armed with social awareness we can aid the shift from repressive to constitutive systems of power. Constitutive systems can encourage pleasure and respect, for the sexual self, without policing which bodies are deemed worthy of these attributes.
The history and discourse of the female nude
A representation is a symbol that stands for something not present in the depiction (Williams 267). The nude deploys the naked body as a symbol for sexuality. I will focus on the female nude over the male nude. The rise of the female nude and its subsequent popularity highlights issues of power imbalance in the West. This makes the female nude a useful example of how modern systems of power function through art. Art historian Lynda Nead states “more than any other subject, the female body connotes ‘Art’.”(1) Thus, an overview of the history of the female nude is a necessary start to navigating the interrelations of art, power and sexuality.
A brief history of the female nude
In recent times, the term ‘the nude’ has become synonymous with the female nude (Heleniak 641). However, the male nude predates the female nude. This in part began since public nudity was commonplace for men in Greek civilisation (Heleniak 641). So when men were portrayed as gods, heroes and athletes, they were also portrayed naked. This is true of most subjects in history painting. History painting is a genre of art which depicts historical, religious or mythological subjects based on the human figure (Parker and Pollock 115). It was most influential between the Renaissance and the mid-nineteenth century. Subsequently it made the study of the naked human form a required skill of the artist (Parker and Pollock 115).
It was not until the late 18th century that the female nude began to proliferate in history painting. Women were excluded from art academies, except as models, and by the 17th century they were the favoured subject of male artists (Helenaik 641). From the 19th century, the female nude started to appear without an obvious historical context attached (Heleniak 645). The subject that was once a goddess or Madonna became the “available object of male desire” (Helenaik 645). Since the chosen models were working class women, often they would also be sex workers who, in pursuit of more respectable employment, would model for artists (Heleniak 646).
We can begin to see here how art consolidates Western norms and regulations. The representation of the female body in art was commonly the representation of the female sex worker. Thus, the female nude contains implications, through association, of the role of women in society. In this case, the implication is that women are valued as sexually accessible commodities. Whereas the male nude suggests that men are culturally important individuals, for example Michelangelo’s David (Walters 13). The female nude is of interest as it signifies the West’s selective knowledge of sexuality as a tool to control peoples sexual liberties.
The category of the nude, regardless of gender, shapes our understanding of sexuality. In 1956, British art historian Kenneth Clarke wrote ‘The Nude: A Study of Ideal Form’ which introduces the transition of the naked to the nude. This is a transition from the actual to the ideal (Nead 14). The body is transformed from a physical corporeal being to a metaphysical cultural projection. The nude itself becomes a theory of representation (Nead 15). To quote Nead, the nude is “the body produced by culture” (15). My aim is to question what kind of body Western culture is producing, and how this informs who gets to be sexual whilst others are sexualised.
Heidegger defines culture as “the realisation of the highest values, through the nurture and cultivation of the highest goods of man.” (1). Western culture values those who are male and those who are White (Hall). These sexist and racist systems of power are consolidated by the female nude. After analysing Clarke’s text, art historian John-Paul Stonard observes “If the nude is 'the body reformed', the naked body is by implication deformed, impoverished and subjugated” (317). Our relationship to our own bodies is damaged by the nude as an ideal. Western ideals of what is sexually desirable are influenced by the female nude. The problem is that these ideals were created to maintain the hegemonic notion that White women are the only legitimate objects of desire (Shotat and Stam 322).
The female nude from Renaissance to Modernism
Now I will conduct a discourse analysis of the female nude, from Renaissance to Modernism. I have chosen the following nudes based on the recurring reference to either the artworks or artists in my research. The repetition of these references serves as evidence that these images create a discursive formation of the female nude. Since discourses influence each other, the discourse of the female nude will bleed into discourse on sexuality, power and the West. I will introduce each nude chronologically, then review what conclusions can be drawn.
Fig 1 Giorgione, Sleeping Venus, 1510. Oil on canvas, w1750 x h1085 mm. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Old Masters Picture Gallery).
Sleeping Venus is a Renaissance painting completed in 1510 by Giorgione. It was the first large-scale representation of the female nude painted in Venice (Sleeping Venus Google Arts & Culture). A naked White woman lies asleep in the foreground, propped up by a red pillow and laid over a white sheet. She faces the viewer with eyes closed, her left hand placed gently over her groin. Her lack of awareness makes “this the perfect view for the voyeur” (Heleniak 644). The background is a landscape with rolling hills, trees and a few buildings. This setting binds the female nude’s association with nature, which implies that women are symbols of fertility (Heleniak 644). This woman represents the goddess Venus, thus the piece falls under the category of history painting.
Fig 2 Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538. Oil on canvas, w1655 x h1192 mm. Uffizi Gallery.
Venus of Urbino is a Renaissance painting completed in 1538 by Titian. Italian artist and writer Giorgio Vasari described it as “a young Venus lying down” which was unanimously accepted thereafter (Venus of Urbino Google Arts & Culture). A naked White woman lies awake in the foreground, propped up by pillows and laid over a white sheet. In the background two maids are looking through a chest. The woman holds red flowers in her right hand, whilst her left is placed over her groin. There is a dog curled up asleep at her feet. The woman is looking directly at the viewer with a slight smile. The position of the woman was modelled on Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus (Art In Context). The difference between these paintings is the location. Titian has brought Venus inside, by grounding her in a familiar reality her sexuality becomes more blatant as the context is relatable to the audience.
Fig 3 Diego Velazquez The Toilet of Venus (‘The Rokeby Venus’), 1647-1651. Oil on canvas, h1425 x w1798 mm. The National Gallery.
The Toilet of Venus is a painting from the Spanish Golden Age completed between 1647 and 1651 by Velazquez. This painting was famously slashed by the suffragette Mary Richardson in 1914 (Art Fund). She explained her attack by comparing her destruction of “the most beautiful women in mythological history” to the British government's destruction of her fellow suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst (McCouat). Central to the painting, a naked White woman lies back turned to the viewer. We can see her face in the reflection of the mirror held up by a cherub. The woman lies on blue and white sheets and a red curtain hangs in the background. Whilst the subject is still a representation of the goddess Venus, this woman appears more human than the prior two subjects. Her skin is more flushed and her position less staged.
Fig 4 Francisco Goya Las Maja Desnuda, 1795-1800. Oil on canvas, w1906 x h973 mm. Museo del Prado.
Las Maja Desnuda is a Romanticist painting completed between 1795 and 1800 by Goya. A naked White woman lies across a green velvet sofa covered by a white sheet. She smiles at the viewer, her hands resting behind her head drawing prominence to her chest. The background is a plain grey wall. This nude follows the legacy of the Venus’s seen before however it is a departure from the genre of history painting. In the Encyclopaedia of Comparative Iconography art historian Kathryn Moore Heleniak remarked that “nothing hints at a higher meaning; she appears to be simply an alluring and available object of male desire” (645). By the 19th century, the transition of the female nude as goddess to sexual object was well under way.
Fig 5 Auguste Renoir, Reclining Nude, 1883. Oil on canvas, w813 x h651. The Met.
Reclining Nude is an Impressionist painting completed in 1883 by Renoir. In a provocative interview, Renoir was asked how he painted with hands crippled with arthritis. Renoir replied “with my prick”, drawing attention to how sexuality was a driver in his practice (Nead 56). A naked White girl reclines on the landscape. She looks to the right with her right hand resting on a white sheet wrapped around her leg. The style of this painting deviates the most from prior nudes. Regardless of style, the image contains a white sheet and mirrors the figure’s position from The Toilet of Venus. Thus, Reclining Nude shares enough similarities to reinforce the discourse of the female nude.
The discourse of the female nude
All of these paintings feature a young, White, feminine, woman. The female nude is a representation of the body elevated to the status of high art. This makes the female nude a potent symbol of desirability and sexuality. Thus, when the female nude is always young, White, feminine and passive, the discourse delivers a knowledge that it is these traits specifically which make a woman sexually normal and desirable. This subjective knowledge of sexuality is destructive and regulates the sexual subordination of women.
One trope seen in the female nude is the promise of fertility. The woman in the nude is commonly a representation of Venus - the Roman goddess of love, beauty, desire, sex and fertility. The West’s celebration of the nude is firmly attached to its symbolism of fertility. Our knowledge of sexuality, as a result, narrows down to fit “the strict economy of reproduction” (Foucault 36). The idealisation of fertility pushes several agendas. It devalues casual sex and sex for pleasure (Foucault 36). It promotes heteronormativity, erasing queer sexualities. It propagates a capitalist need for production. And finally, it conflates beauty and value with youth. Placing heightened importance on fertility restricts our sexuality. The sexual regulations enforced result in shaming and allegations of sexual deviance, from example being gay or promiscuous becomes socially unlawful. It is the repetition of fertility being used as a symbol in the female nude which creates said regulations.
Another trope of the female nude is the passivity of the subject. The Cambridge dictionary defines passive as allowing others to be in control (Passive Cambridge Dictionary). In Old Mistresses Parker and Pollock described the female nude as “frequently asleep, unconscious or unconcerned” (116). The male artist is in control of the representation of the female model, a demonstration of the gendered power dynamic at play. The acceptance that men are in control of women, is a misogynist mindset that percolates Western culture. When this thinking is applied to sexuality it results in concerning behaviours, namely sexual assault, rape and violence. Since the female nude is culturally valued, we normalise and encourage the passivity of women in sex.
The discourse on sexuality that results from the female nude also perpetuates White supremacy. The writer Judith Wilson is quoted in Curatorial Activism declaring “[The art world] is one of the last bastions of white supremacy-by-exclusion” (99). The lack of non-White women in the female nude contributes to the racist ideology that women of colour are less valuable than White women. Not only is every woman White, but each figure is laid upon a white sheet. The colour white has historically been a symbol of purity and virtuosity (Alder 393). This implies an innocence surrounding the White woman in the female nude. This, in relation, suggests that non-White women are abnormal and immoral, a narrative the West has employed to enforce White supremacy (Claudette). Since discourses affect our actions as well as our thinking, we can see here how art has practical implications. Historically, the female nude has produced a knowledge of sexuality that contributes to maintaining White supremacy.
Race and gender in the female nude
Running through all the patterns in the female nude are two key variables: race and gender. The relationship between the two uncovers the shortcomings of how sexuality is portrayed in the West.
The Intersection of Race and Gender in the female nude
Western sexuality limits our perception of who can be sexual and how we can be sexual. Our culture’s political dominance corresponds to sexual dominance (Hooks 58). To quote author and social activist bell hooks “racism and sexism are interlocking systems of domination which uphold and sustain one another.” (59) When racism and sexism circulate the cultural arena, the two interact and affect which bodies are represented in Western art.
If exclusively White female representations of the body are being produced by White male artists, the messages delivered about whose sexuality is valid will be warped. Anti-racism activist and feminist scholar Peggy McIntosh explains that “to redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions.” (3) I propose that to redesign our knowledge of sexuality we must first acknowledge the erasure of racial identity when discussing sex in art. In the 1970s, film theory introduced a psychoanalytic theory of looking which centred on sexual difference, known as “the male gaze” (Mulvey). The masculine point of view gazes upon the feminine subject (Gaines 60). However, this theory depends upon a binary opposition of sexual difference leaving class and racial differences largely ignored (Gaines 60). Instead, Gaines suggests that we should reframe male privilege and viewing pleasure as “the right to look.” (76) Then we can consider who historically has had a licence to “look” openly when others have had to “look” illicitly (Gaines 76). This explains the connection between racism and sexism and “looking” at the female nude. Used in the right context, art can serve to teach audiences about those connections so they can be critically aware and socially active (Hooks 63).
Historically, the female nude has served as a symbol for male privilege and domination over the apparatus of representation itself (Mercer 437). The heralded creative genius of the male artist came to be firmly attached to their production of sexualised images of women, referred to as the nude (Jones:2014 15). Racial and class differences were used in tandem with images of women to produce fetishised representations of the sexually desirable body (Jone 15). A fetish is defined as a sexual interest in an object or a part of the body other than the sexual organs (fetish Cambridge Dictionary). Art historian Amelia Jones argues that “Women are fetishized in visual representation in order to reduce that threat posed by women’s sexuality and agency to masculine subjects in patriarchy.” (12). However, I would amend this to read: those who are not male and or not White are fetishised in visual representation in order to reduce the threat posed by unregulated sexuality to those benefiting from White supremacy and or patriarchy. It’s important to note that whilst all women’s bodies are devalued in a White supremacist sexist culture, White women's bodies are valued more than those of women of colour (Hooks 62). Moreover, Black men are also subject to racist fetishisation in art, for example Robert Mapplethorpe’s photography series Black Males (Mercer). I include this to make clear that White women, whilst negatively impacted by sexuality’s discourse, still benefit from the normalisation of their sexuality not afforded to those who are not White. Whilst the gendering of the nude is paramount to its legacy, the racial identity of the nude has been widely overlooked.
The omittance of sexual difference when talking about race in art theory erases the sexual identity of people of colour. Visual artist Lorraine O’Grady states that “the not-white woman as well as the not-white man are symbolically and even theoretically excluded from sexual difference.” (O’Grady 56) This was true of the traditional art theory I read when conducting research on the female nude. In the Encyclopaedia of Comparative Iconography, the chapter ‘Naked/Nude’ explicitly details the impact of sexual diffference up until page 646 where the nude in African art is introduced (Heleniak). At this point the subject is described as the “naked African”, reducing the subject's identity to their race (Heleniak 646). Comparatively, the use of the phrase “the female nude” in this chapter omits the racial identity of the subject as White. In art theory, when a subject is gendered they are assumed to be White, whereas when a subject is not White they are denied a gender and a sexuality. Intersectionality has been withheld for the White subject only. Art critic Hal Foster outlines how primitive art, a derogatory term for African art, is articulated by the West as “a spectacle of savagery” lacking cultural complexity (Foster 196). One of these complexities is sexuality. Contemporary work produced by not White artists is vital in making visible the sexuality of the not White subject. This, in turn, will provide a knowledge of sexuality which doesn’t centre the experience of the White subject.
Manet’s Olympia
Fig 6 Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863. Oil on canvas, w1900 x h1300 mm. Musée d’Orsay.
Olympia was completed by impressionist painter Manet in 1863. Manet, alongside fellow artist Degas, is responsible for the transition to the modern female nude (Heleniak 646). Art was brought into modernity as Manet explicitly painted a sex worker as opposed to veiling her identity as Venus. There are two subjects in this painting: the prostitute, a White woman, and her maid, a Black woman. Yet, historically only one subject has been remembered - the White woman. The Black woman who modelled as the maid was called Laure (Murrell). Laure’s presence in Paris is telling of the era. This painting was completed just 15 years after the final French abolition of territorial slavery in 1848, creating a small but highly visible community of Black people in Paris (Murrell 2). However, Laure is anything but visible in art history.
Rather art historians have omitted Laure from their retellings of Olympia. In the history of Western art, Black women have not been subjects deemed worthy of attention (Murrell 3). When art historian John-Paul Stonard critiqued the nude, specifically the representation of Olympia, he wrote about the “link to capital and the commodification of the body” without any acknowledgement of race (Stonard 320). For a time period so influenced by colonialism, and the abolition of slavery being a recent memory, it’s alarming to side step the Black maid in the painting. There is an interplay between the iconography of whiteness as “purity” juxtaposed against the “impurity” of the Black woman (Claudette 55). This allows the White women to exercise sexuality whilst remaining innocent and moral by Christian standards, the dominant religion of the West. In contrast, if it were Laure naked on the bed, her body would of been fetishised as hyper sexual. Instead she has been stripped of personhood all together. The racial attitudes of White historians, like Stonard, are no different from those of society at large (Berger 25). Thus, historian Maurice Berger explains “it is the inherent racism of Western culture that has given the writer permission to erase Laure from the surface of Manet’s painting.” (25)
If Laure was sexually recognised she may not have been erased from art history. Feminist scholars Lintott and Irvin suggest “a persistent failure to apprehend another’s sexiness can be tantamount to a failure to recognise them as a subject—as a person.” (300) In the 19th century Black women were not culturally considered “sexy”. As sexuality is a crucial element of selfhood, being considered sexy can enhance one’s sense of self (Cahill 300). Ann Cahill, scholar of philosophy of the body, contends that when the “sexualising gaze” skips over you as a sexually invisible subject your full personhood is denied (300). The female nude has rendered the non White woman sexually invisible. This perpetuates racism, as the post colonial histories of Western art have been recorded in a way that sustains the myth of White cultural supremacy (Murrell 3). It is only when Manet’s Olympia is seen as a bi-figural work, representing issues of both race and gender, that we can unpick how sexuality has been used as a tool to discriminate in the West.
Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon
Fig 7 Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907. Oil on canvas, w2439 x h2337 mm. MoMA.
Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was completed by Picasso in 1907. A group of prostitutes are represented by five female nudes (Heleniak 646). Both the cubist style and the presence of multiple naked subjects is a departure from the classical nude.
Picasso has combined two scenes in this painting: the brothels of Barcelona and the collection of tribal artefacts in the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro, in Paris (Foster 181). The stylisation of the prostitute’s faces were based off of African masks in this collection. The racial aspect of these masks are fetishised in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon to signal the sexual desirability of the bodies on display (Jones:2014 15). As mentioned before, in reference to Olympia, it is the whiteness of the female nude that allows the subject to remain sexually permissible. African art has been appropriated and used in contrast to the female nude’s whiteness to imply promiscuity. There are two problems at hand which demonstrate the conjoined nature of sexism and racism in Western sexuality. Art historian Carol Duncon expresses that “the women of modern art, …have little identity other than their sexuality and availability, and, often, their low social status.” (111) Women are valued primarily as sexually available bodies via the female nude. However, is it racial cues, not sexual difference, that are used to insinuate the sexual activity of the subject. In both cases, the representation of the female body and the representation of the non White body are othered to establish Western sexuality as male and White.
Whiteness
It is scarcely acknowledged in art history that the racial identity of the female nude is White. It was striking in my research that whilst the sexual difference of the body was considered at length there was rarely any consideration or even acknowledgement of the race of the subject. Murrell calls this “institutional blindness” (3). The failure of Western culture to recognise ‘White’ as one of many racial identities, as opposed to the default.
White people in the West possess the privilege not to think of themselves in racial terms (Carbado 193). Art historians only considering sexual differences in ‘the female nude’ is enabled by this privilege. O’Grady muses “I suspect most African Americans who are not in academy would laugh at the idea that their subjective lives were organised around the sex drive and would feel that ‘sexuality’, a conceptual category that includes thinking about it as well as doing it, is something Black people just don’t have time for.” (59) Historically, knowledge of sexuality has derived from White privilege and male dominance. The goal of reframing Western sexuality would be to validate the sexual experiences of all intersectional identities. Each subject should be considered worthy of pleasure, respect and freedom of choice. To create this knowledge of sexuality, autonomy must be returned to the body. The subject should be in control of whether their body is represented as sexual or not. Rather than the representation of their race and gender determining their sexual availability and value.
It is the work of White male art historians and critics that has defined how sexuality appears in the female nude. Through their creation of the historical document they fail to recognise their own cultural biases and the racism it engenders (Berger 25). Moreover, discourse on the female nude ceases to acknowledge that White women attain many privileges in Western culture not afforded to those who are not White regardless of gender. Berger urges students of race to “examine the source of power, instead of its victims'' (26). I have used Foucault’s theory of power to examine art as an institution. Deconstructing systems of power in the female nude will set us on the path to redefining sexuality in the West.
The contemporary female nude
We have looked at the female nude of the past, now we turn to the female nude of the present. I will analyse two contemporary iterations of the female nude, the first by Zanele Muholi and the second by Amanda Ba. These artists are part of a wider movement in curatorial activism to keep “continuously undoing, unlearning, unravelling” the old Western art canon and step into “imagining otherwise,” in the words of curator Renée Mussai (Abel-Hirsch).
Muholi’s Flesh II
Zanele Muholi is a queer South African visual activist and photographer. Since the early 2000s they have documented Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex peoples live’s (Yancey Richardson). Their aim is to “re-write the black, queer and trans history of South Africa for the world to know.” (Yancey Richardson) Muholi makes visible those who tend to be ignored by those in positions of power (Tate). By documenting lives often excluded by the canon, Muholi breaks open what can be expected from the female nude.
Fig 8 Zanele Muholi, Flesh II, 2005. Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper, w446 x h600 mm. Tate.
Flesh II is a photograph taken by Zanele Muholi in 2005. A voluptuous naked Black woman fills the frame of the image. She is sitting in the bath, her hand placed over her groin like the women of historical female nudes. However, unlike the historical female nude, this figure's head is cropped out of the image. This creates an intimate yet respectful nude (Greenberg). The identity of the subject is concealed, leaving their dignity and privacy intact (Greenberg). Having seen many representations of the female nude as sex worker or mistress, the vulnerability and normalcy of this image is soothing.
Muholi’s focus is less on the individual and more on the collective experience (Greenberg). The title Flesh II draws our attention to skin and the sensation of touch. The subject is touching themselves, it is not explicit whether this is sexually or if they are washing themselves, but the ambiguity is perhaps equally important. The viewer is not here to watch but to relate to the experience of connecting with your body. Flesh II represents sexuality as an internal experience based on pleasure, instead a lusting drive after an idol, like Venus. By focusing on the sexual self Muholi provides a knowledge of sexuality which does not rely on the sexual stereotypes of any social group. This female nude is not sexual because the subject is Black or female. Rather the feeling of the image is personal, raw and soft summoning associations that the viewer can relate to their own sexual experiences.
By photographing from and within the lived experience of the Black LGBTQIA+ community, Muholi queers the female nude subverting oppressive visual and sexual norms (Jansen 19). Flesh II creates new visual principles for the female nude to adhere to. It promotes respect and denies objectification. Muholi calls the people in their photographs participants instead of subjects (Greenberg). This honours the human connection between artist and model and overcomes the historic fetishisation of the nude participant. If the female nude was once a “spectacle” which implied an objectifying gaze, Muholi in contrast evokes “the spectacular”' as reinvention (Jansen 20-1). This is not token representation. The artist insists “we exist in the visual archive to teach people about our history, to re-think what history is all about, to reclaim it for ourselves.” (Jansen 19) This teaching consists of reclaiming power by streaming a new knowledge of sexuality - covering race, gender, sexual orientation, and nationality - to the public from marginalised persons.
To be able to teach this knowledge, visibility is required. Mussai states that Muholi combats erasure with remedial visuality (Mussai 58). She goes on to imagine what this visuality achieves “a recuperative archive for the future - a site of being, belonging and becoming.” (Mussai 58) The exhibiting of Muholi’s work in Western institutes such as MoMA, Tate Modern and the V&A is vital in transforming the West’s knowledge of sexuality (Yancey Richardson). To redefine sexuality, is to bring this “site of being, belonging and becoming” into the present. Foucault argued for the importance of “micro-events”, like exhibitions, as they have ripples and wider interactions which will have “macro-consequences.” (Lynch 23) This means that local actions, like the exposure of Flesh II, have the ability to help reverse Western restrictions on sexuality and inform new inclusive sexual norms.
To reverse the West’s restrictions on sexuality we must remove Eurocentrism from the female nude. The historic female nude is one of many “European homages to the ideal of White beauty” which implicitly devalorises the sexuality of people of colour (Shotat and Stam 322). In the past we have seen “the mythical norms of Eurocentric esthetics” replicated time and time again in the female nude (Shotat and Stam 322). The strong link between art and the self imply a level of self-consciousness if you don’t fit the mould of White Western sexuality. Muholi’s work deviates from these “mythic norms” by capturing the beauty of queer Black persons in photography. As noted previously, Foucault believed where there is power, there is resistance (Lynch 24). Given the Western construction of dark bodies as ugly and bestial, resistance takes the form of affirming Black beauty and sexuality in art (Shotat and Stam 324). Flesh II is a key example of how the narrative surrounding the female nude can shift when we critically consider race in tandem with sexuality. Of course Black is only one of many racial identities not represented in the female nude. A multitude of racial identities and nationalities must become part of the female nude for Western sexuality to be severed from whiteness.
Ba’s Sublime Reconciliation
Artist Amanda Ba takes us up to the modern day. She is a Chinese American painter who describes their work as “psychological, psychosexual and psychoactive.” (Arsenal art contemporain) The female nude has housed a long line of young women, however we rarely hear from the young woman herself. Ba is in their early 20’s so it’s no surprise that their view of sexuality differs considerably from historical modes of representation. Their focus is on queerness, race and diaspora which is embedded in a feminist approach to the female nude (Blonde).
Fig 9 Amanda Ba, Sublime Reconciliation, 2021. Oil on canvas, w1320 x h1016 mm.
Sublime Reconciliation is a painting completed by Amanda Ba in 2021. A naked Chinese woman wrestles with a dog, both are painted in red. The colour red allows Ba to reference race without having to be concerned with the realistic aspect of skin tone (Blonde). Red figures are typical of Ba’s work. She explains that “when you bathe a figure in coloured light, if it's monochromatic, you can not tell what colour they originally were.” (Blonde) The subjects appear more like sculptures, especially with the rippling muscles in Sublime Reconciliation. Suddenly the female nude is starting to resemble the male nude. Michelangelo’s men exist in a different context to Ba’s women, however, they’re on even footing in terms of the character attributed to the subject. Race is an aspect of this female nude, but it has not been used as a visual cue for the sexualisation of the subject. Instead the red draws enough attention to features which indicate the racial identity of the figure, but is such a surreal colour scheme that the subject exists outside of the othering of the West.
Besides the red, the racial identity of the subject is paramount to the charge Sublime Reconciliation has as a female nude. Writer and editor Louise Benson states “Ba paints Chinese subjects as a direct challenge to the predominantly white art history canon.” (Benson) It's intentional that Ba juxtaposes her paintings against the legacy of the female nude. Regardless of subject matter, “to occupy space in (and against) the Western Art Industry as an Asian American woman is a radical thing.” (Benson) However, when Ba’s identity is combined with the discourse of the female nude, her work becomes a potent political statement ripe for reconsidering sexuality. Benson affiliates the rise in figurative painting amongst POC artists to the reclamation of the history painting genre (Benson). History painting has always been allegorical but it has also always been White. New figurative paintings made by POC artists, like Sublime Reconciliation, can reveal attitudes to sex previously concealed by the White washing of art history. In the case of the female nude, the morals surrounding sexuality can become de-racialized by this expansion of the canon.
What draws me to Ba’s work is her eye for intersectionality. Race is one of many facets of the self carefully considered by the artist. Whilst the use of red deviates from the typical representation of race in the female nude, her positioning of the subject deviates from the typical representation of women. The figure's vulva is fully visible. This breaks tradition as the genitals of past women have been hidden from sight, often covered by a hand. Historically the vulva has been “too horrible to depict,” perpetuating hatred for women's bodies and sexuality in Western culture (Duncan 120). This painting normalises women as sexual agents instead of framing them as castrated men. The subject's genitalia is permitted to be visible without inviting the sexualisation and objectification of the subject. This helps to reverse discourse that assumes Western women are inferior to Western men. (Hall 189) Thus, Sublime Reconciliation has transformed the representation of gender and race in the female nude.
A unique part of this female nude is the interaction between the woman and the dog. Ba is interested in post humanist theory which revolves around the idea of deconstructing the owner/owned hierarchy (Hingley). This is typically thought about between animals and humans, however it can be extrapolated to think about gender and race in context to the female nude. Historically, the female nude has supported cultural phenomena like colonisation and marriage. Both of which play on the ownership of people dependent on their race, nationality and gender. Ba’s levelling of the dog, even in terms of scale, with the women is a strong call for the removal of hegemonic social structures. In reference to Ba, Benson comments “Animals and humans enact their basest instincts under the artist's unwavering gaze.” (Benson) The ability to be sexual is perhaps one of our most universal instincts shared between animals and humans alike. This is poignant as the sexuality represented by Ba is not affiliated to any race or gender or even the human species. The ability to be sexual has been emancipated from social identifiers, which are traditionally organised in Western power structures as superior or inferior. Race and gender can co-exist with sexuality in the contemporary female nude without informing the sexual valuation of the subject.
Conclusion
The way we consider sexuality needs to be radically reframed in the West. The female nude has made us think about the body as an object. An object that is valued depending on the sexual prejudices of the gender, race and nationality of the item. The body as an object is viewed from the vantage point of an “other,” which can be sexualised without tarnishing yourself with the same sexual expectations. A shift must take place where we also consider what it is to be in your own body as it is lived in and perceived by yourself. (Jones:2006 20) Art has consolidated the West’s discourse on sexuality. A discourse which labels the body of “the other'' as distinctly different from your own. This allows for sexism and racism to run riot, as sex is proposed as way to use an object, the body, as an end to your own means. Sex in art has become synonymous with the sexually desirable body rather than the experience of sex itself - pleasure, touch, companionship. Foucault raises concern that the West’s science of sexuality has fixated on desire over pleasure (Foucault). This results in an external and superficial understanding of sexuality, which becomes increasingly toxic when certain genders and races are affiliated with certain sexual characteristics. Hartsock suggests that imposed otherness should be transformed into self defined specificity (Hartsock 171). When the female nude is a portrayal of the self rather than the sexually desired, power can be restructured in more egalitarian ways.
To progress we must do away with hierachical power structures which allocate some people more or less sexual freedom than others based on their bodies. A knowledge of sexuality must be taught outside of “the country club of Euronarcissisum and privilege.” (Shotat and Stam 345) This requires “othered” people to be the makers of history instead of the objects of those who have made history (Hartsock 170). I am protesting against the homogenization of the female nude rather than the genre itself. The visibility of intersectional identities in the female nude evokes the political necessity of sharing the critique of domination and the burden of representation (Shotat and Stam 346). In the art world, representation should not be a burden but a collective pleasure and responsibility (Shotat and Stam 346).
Carbado states “the identification of privileges is not enough. Resistance is also necessary.” (Carbado 198) Understanding how power operates in the female nude is important. However, if we are to change sexual norms, knowledge about non male and non White sexuality must be publically accessible in art institutions. Thus, exhibiting work by artists, like Muholi and Ba, is an act of resistance against the racism and sexism that permeates Western sexuality. This resistance has been led by curators, for example Renée Mussai has created compelling exhibitions, featuring Muholi’s work, at the gallery space Autograph, in London. The more female nudes by previously “othered” artists that get circulated and celebrated, the closer we get to creating an alternative knowledge of sexuality which harnesses constitutive power.
The ability to be sexual should enhance your quality of life. All bodies contain beauty, are worthy of respect and have a capacity for pleasure. The vitriol of Western sexuality has resulted in violence, loss and shame surrounding sex. By consuming art which doesn’t conform to patriarchal White supremacist cultural values, we can move towards a matriarchal culture. A culture characterised by inclusion, participation, collaboration, understanding and respect (Escobar 13). Whilst not referring specifically to sexual desire, in Designs for the Pluriverse Escobar says “it is our desires which determine the kinds of worlds we create.” (Escobar 13) Through Foucault’s theory of power we can understand how the female nude influences what we desire. If the contemporary female nude implies that we should desire pleasure and autonomy, over standardised ideals of White womanhood, we are creating a better world.
Bibliography
Abel-Hirsch, Hannah. ‘Renée Mussai reflects on 2020.’ 1854, 24th December 2020. Web 1st May 2022.
https://www.1854.photography/2020/12/renee-mussai-reflects-on-2020/
Alder, Shane. “Whiteness.” Title: Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography. Roberts, Helene E. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1998.
Allen, Sarah. Nakamore, Yasufumi. Zanele Muholi. Tate Enterprise, 2020.
Arsenal art contemporain. ‘In Conversation with Amanda Ba’ You Tube, 30th July 2021. Web 22nd April.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78hvcg8TBZg
Art Fund. 2021.
https://www.artfund.org/supporting-museums/art-weve-helped-buy/artwork/27/the-toilet-of-venus-
Art In Context. February 4th 2022.
https://artincontext.org/titian-venus-of-urbino/
Baldwin, James. I Am Not Your Negro. Vintage Books, 2017.
Barthes, Roland. Empire of Signs. Anchor Books, 1983.
Benson, Louise. ‘Seeing Red in the Beautiful-Grotesque Paintings of Amanda Ba.’ Elephant, 19th July 2021. Web 25th April 2022.
https://elephant.art/seeing-red-in-the-beautiful-grotesque-paintings-of-amanda-ba-19072021/
Berger, Maurice. White: Whiteness and Race in Contemporary Art. Distributed Art Publishers, 2004.
Blonde. ‘Studio Sessions- Amanda Ba’ You Tube, 30th June 2021. Web 25th April 2022.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU6C3i619jA\
Bordo, Susan. Pp 13-33. ‘The Body and the Reproduction of Femininity: A Feminist Appropriation of Foucault.’ Gender/Body/Knowledge Feminist Reconstructions of Being and Knowing. Editors:Bordo, Susan R and Jaggar, Alison M. Rutgers University Press, 1989.
Cahill, Ann. Sex Objects and Sexy Subjects A Feminist Reclamationof Sexiness. Lintott, Sheila and Irvin, Sherri. Pp 299-317
https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1164&context=fac_books
Carbado, Devon W. Black Queer Studies. Duke University Press, 2005.
Duncan, Carol. Civilising Rituals inside public art museums. Routledge, 1995.
Escobar, Arturo. Designs for the Pluriverse. Duke University Press, 2018.
Feder, Ellen k. “Power/Knowledge.” pp. 55-68 Michel Foucault Key Concepts. Editor: Taylor, Dianna. Acumin Publishing Limited, 2011.
‘Fetish’. Cambridge English Dictionary. Web 1st April, 2022.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fetish
Foster, Hal. RECODING Art, Spectacle, Cultural Politics. Bay Press, 1985.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality Volume 1 An Introduction. Penguin Books, 1990.
Gaines, Jane. “White Privilege and Looking Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film Theory.” Cultural Critique, no. 4, University of Minnesota Press, 1986, pp. 59–79, https://doi.org/10.2307/1354334.
Greenberg, Kerryn. “‘Flesh II’, Zanele Muholi, 2005.’ Tate, March 2019. Web 20th April 2022.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/muholi-flesh-ii-p81294
Hall, Stuart. ‘The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power’ Formations of Modernity. pp 185-225
https://analepsis.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/hall-west-the-rest.pdf
Heidegger, Martin. “The Age of the World Picture.” 1977.
Heleniak, Kathryn Moore. “Naked/Nude.” Title: Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography. Roberts, Helene E. Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1998.
Hingley, Olivia. ‘“I have an aversion to the traditional idea of beauty”: Amanda Ba on her purposefully unsettling paintings.’ It’s Nice That, 6th April 2022. Web 26th April 2022.
https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/amanda-ba-art-060422
Hooks, Bell. YEARNING race, gender, and cultural politics. South End Press, 1990.
Jansen, Candice. ‘The Queer Spectacular: Zanele Muholi and Visual Redress’ Zanele Muholi. Editors: Allen, Sarah. Nakamore, Yasufumi. Tate Enterprise, 2020.
Johnson, Claudette. ‘Issues Surrounding the Representation of the Naked Body of a Woman’ 1991. Sexuality Documents of Contemporary Art. Editor: Jones, Amelia. Whitechapel Gallery and the MIT Press, 2014.
Jones, Amelia. Self/Image Technology, Representation and the Contemporary Subject. Routledge, 2006.
Jones, Amelia. Sexuality Documents of Contemporary Art. Whitechapel Gallery and the MIT Press, 2014.
Kauffman, Alexander. “Manet, museum, modernism: Michel Foucault and modernist art history.” Journal of Art Historiography. No 22. June 2020.
https://arthistoriography.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/kauffman.pdf
Korsmeyer, Carolyn. Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. 12th March 2021. Web 15th April 2022.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-aesthetics/
Lynch, Richard A. ‘Foucault’s theory of power.’ pp 13-26. Michel Foucault Key Concepts. Editor: Taylor, Dianna. Acumin Publishing Limited, 2011.
Lintott, Sheila and Irvin, Sherri. Sex Objects and Sexy Subjects A Feminist Reclamationof Sexiness. Pp 299-317
https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1164&context=fac_books
McCouat, Phillip. “From the Rokeby Venus to Fascism”. Journal of Art in Society. 2016
McIntosh, Peggy. “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. Peace and Freedom, 1989.
https://psychology.umbc.edu/files/2016/10/White-Privilege_McIntosh-1989.pdf
Mercer, Kobena. Visual Culture: the reader. SAGE publication, 1999.
Mulvey, Laura. ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ Screen. Vol 16, No 3, Autumn 1975. Pp 6-18
Murrell, Denise. Posing Modernity The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today. Yale University Press, 2018.
Mussai, Renée. ‘Letter III: The Archive Other/wise’ Zanele Muholi. Editors: Allen, Sarah. Nakamore, Yasufumi. Tate Enterprise, 2020.
Nead, Lynda. THE FEMALE NUDE Art, Obscenity and Sexuality. Routledge, 1992.
O’Grady, Lorraine. ‘Olympia’s Maid: Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity’ 1992. Sexuality Documents of Contemporary Art. Editor: Jones, Amelia. Whitechapel Gallery and the MIT Press, 2014.
Parker, Rozsika. Pollock, Griselda. Old Mistresses. I.B. Taris & Co Ltd, 2013.
‘Passive’. Cambridge English Dictionary. Web 29th March, 2022.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/passive
‘Power’. Cambridge English Dictionary. Web 14th April, 2022.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/power
Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies An Introduction to Researching with Visual Materials. Sage Publications, 2016.
‘Sexuality’. Cambridge English Dictionary. Web 27th March, 2022.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sexuality
Shotat, Ella and Stam, Robert. Unthinking Eurocentrism, Multiculturalism and the Media. Routledge, 2008.
‘Sleeping Venus’. Google Arts & Culture. Web 27th March, 2022.
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/sleeping-venus/xgFm1GCECrnfQA?hl=en
Stonard, John-Paul. “Kenneth Clark’s ‘The Nude. A Study of Ideal Art’, 1956.” The Burlington Magazine, vol. 152, no. 1286, Burlington Magazine Publications Ltd., 2010, pp. 317–21, http://www.jstor.org/stable/27823159.
Tate. ‘Zanele Muholi – ‘In My World, Every Human is Beautiful’ | Tate’ You Tube, 21st September 2021. Web 20th April 2022.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEgf1XmtWCo
Taylor, Dianna. Michel Foucault Key Concepts. Acumin Publishing Limited, 2011.
‘Venus of Urbino’. Google Arts & Culture. Web 27th March, 2022.
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/venus-of-urbino-tiziano-vecellio/bQGS8pnP5vr2Jg?hl=en
Walters, Margaret. The Nude Male. Paddington Press, 1978.
Williams, Raymond. Keywords. Fontana Press, 1988.
Wilson, Judith. Title: Curatorial Activism. Reilley, Maura. Thames & Hudson, 2018.
Yancey Richardson. Web 20th April 2022.
https://www.yanceyrichardson.com/artists/zanele-muholi
Images
Figure 1
Giorgione, Sleeping Venus, 1510. Painting, w1750 x h1085 mm. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Old Masters Picture Gallery).
‘Sleeping Venus’ Google Arts & Culture.
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/sleeping-venus/xgFm1GCECrnfQA?hl=en
Figure 2
Titian, Venus of Urbino, 1538. Painting, oil on canvas, w1655 x h1192 mm. Uffizi Gallery.
‘Venus of Urbino’ Google Arts & Culture.
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/venus-of-urbino-tiziano-vecellio/bQGS8pnP5vr2Jg?hl=en
Figure 3
Diego Velazquez The Toilet of Venus (‘The Rokeby Venus’), 1647-1651. Paining, oil on canvas, h1425 x w1798 mm. The National Gallery.
‘The Toilet of Venus (‘The Rokeby Venus’)’. Art Fund.
https://www.artfund.org/supporting-museums/art-weve-helped-buy/artwork/27/the-toilet-of-venus-
Figure 4
Francisco Goya Las Maja Desnuda, 1795-1800. Painting, oil on canvas, w1906 x h973 mm. Museo Del Prado.
‘The Naked Maja’ Museo Del Prado.
Figure 5
Auguste Renoir, Reclining Nude, 1883. Painting, oil on canvas, w813 x h651. The Met.
‘Reclining Nude’. The Met.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/438013
Figure 6
Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863. Oil on canvas, w1900 x h1300 mm. Musée d’Orsay.
‘Olympia’. Google Arts and Culture.
https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/olympia/ywFEI4rxgCSO1Q
Figure 7
Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, 1907. Oil on canvas, w2439 x h2337 mm. MoMA.
‘Pablo Picasso Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’. The Museum of Modern Art.
https://www.moma.org/collection/works/79766
Figure 8
Zanele Muholi, Flesh II, 2005. Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper, w446 x h600 mm. Tate.
‘Zanele Muholi, Flesh II, 2005’ Tate.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/muholi-flesh-ii-p81294
Figure 9
Amanda Ba, Sublime Reconciliation, 2021. Oil on canvas, w1320 x h1016 mm.
‘Current Work’ Amanda Ba.