ATOMIC COWBOY - Iris G.

 Atomic Cowboy: The Daze After

Exhibit Response

The exhibition, Atomic Cowboy: The Daze After, by Japanese-American artist, Nobuho Nagasawa, is an installation that addresses the hidden human cost of the American nuclear weapons program. Created in 1992, Nagasawa’s exhibition presents the connections between the popular American wild west cowboy concept and the real consequences of atomic testing. The pieces that stood out to me are “Nuke-Cuisine,” which is a stack of “Mushroom Cloud Soup” cans, and “Cowboy’s Dream,” the black and white grid of portraits of actors from the movie .

 For me, viewing the exhibition was more of an educational moment rather than an emotional one. The subject matter of nuclear trauma is so far outside my experience that I couldn’t genuinely form an emotional connection to it. I did, however, feel a strong connection to the documented bigotry and backlash Nagasawa faced when first showing this work. As a person from marginalized communities, I can deeply understand and relate to the struggle against racism, bigotry, and the frustration that comes with it. With that being said, I’ll be going over how Nagasawa uses her identity and her art to expose issues of power, race, and the need for social justice.

Nobuho Nagasawa is an artist known for her deep research and for creating site-specific works that mix culture, history, and politics. Being born in Japan and later working in the U.S., her background puts her in the position to question the narrative of the American military and government. I believe that her installation, “Nuke-Cuisine ”, which is a tall stack of cans that Nagasawa relabeled “Cloud of Mushroom Soup”, criticizes unchecked power and cultural denial. The cans are so detailed that not a single part of it is left without referencing the nuclear bombs. Even the ingredients in the back show "ingredients" used in the making of nuclear bombs such as plutonium or uranium. The cans are also intentionally made in the style of Andy Warhol’s Pop Art, which was a celebration of American products. Nagasawa transforms this everyday American consumer item into a historical record. The number of cans in the original display equaled the number of officially announced American nuclear tests between 1945 and 1992; In the original installation, 835 cans were used to represent the 835 bomb tests that were done. By placing this dangerous history into the shape of a simple grocery item, Nagasawa shows how the nuclear threat was made normal and accepted by American culture. The artwork is showing us that just like a can of soup, these nuclear bombs were just another product on the shelf.

    While this exhibit can spark critiques of the American government and culture, Nagasawa wasn’t focused on villainizing the United States. In a Stony Brook University article, Nagasawa states “ The story I’m addressing transcends national identity. Nuclear power recognizes no borders, no ideologies, and no hierarchies of fame or privilege. It is an equal-opportunity destroyer.” This shows how her focus is on explaining how the results of unchecked military power and nuclear weapons go beyond national borders. The consequences of nuclear testing and bombings are international and can still be felt even decades after. By linking the tragedy of the atomic bombings in Japan to the contamination of American soul, Nagasawa argues that damage that affects us globally should be met with global accountability. Her identity allows her to look at this history as both an outsider and insider, which strengthens her critique of authority and American history.

The installation, “Cowboy’s Dream” is where critiques on race and social justice are the most apparent to me. This piece is a set of black and white portraits of Hollywood actors, including John Wayne, who died from cancer after filming near the Nevada test sites. The portraits are ordered by date of death and under each photo of the actors, Nagasawa lists their specific illnesses, treating the presentation as a factual record of radiation exposure. Most importantly, in the middle is a photo of one of the scenes from The Conqueror 1956, which was shot downwind of the Yucca Mountain test site. The middle picture includes information about the hundreds of Native American extras who worked on the same films and were also exposed, yet their faces are lost background, getting lost in the ocean of white faces. This immediately shows a social hierarchy when it comes to race because while the famous White-American actors' illnesses caused public concern and debate, the Native American community who lived on the land and were treated as background figures suffered the same danger, but their struggles weren't acknowledged. Nagasawa uses this direct evidence to show how systems of power decide whose suffering matters and whose bodies are seen as collateral damage for military and cultural goals.

In summary, The Atomic Cowboy: The daze After works as a powerful presentation that questions official American history. The installation effectively uses simple cultural items to show the contradiction between the heroic American myth (the cowboy) and the actual damage caused by the military and government. While the artwork’s main theme was not personally moving, its use of facts was highly educational for me and reframes how I was taught American History. Furthermore, knowing that the artist faced racially fueled criticism and professional resistance for speaking this truth resonated with me. Nagasawa’s struggle against institutional bigotry is one of many examples of how powerful systems often try to silence marginalized voices that expose their failures. That's the main message that I interpreted from Nobuho Nagasawa's exhibition.

Sources

"Nobi Nagasawa Joins Japanese Artists to Commemorate 80th Anniversary of Atomic Bombings." 20 Oct. 2025, news.stonybrook.edu/university/nobi-nagasawa-joins-japanese-artists-to-commemorate-80th-anniversary-of-atomic-bombings/.

"Nobi Nagasawa Joins Japanese Artists to Commemorate 80th Anniversary of Atomic Bombings."

 Westwood Gallery New York City, westwoodgallery.com/artists/43-nobuho-nagasawa/biography/.

"Nobi Nagasawa Joins Japanese Artists to Commemorate 80th Anniversary of Atomic Bombings." The New Jersey Stage, 22 Oct. 2025, www.newjerseystage.com/articles2/2025/10/22/nobuho-nagasawa-the-atomic-cowboy/.

Impressionism Post 5 - Beshoy Erian

“Work now being done on the social meanings produced by Impressionist paintings suggests a complex relationship between the new painting and the new middle-class family (to which most of the Impressionists belonged). Moreover, the decision to work en plein air and to forego the historical subjects, with the complex studio set-ups and multiple models they required, transformed the relationship between the painter’s daily life and his or her studio life; this aspect of Impressionism deserves more study for it profoundly shaped women’s relationship to the movement”.

What I understood from this quote is that impressionism was linked to changes in society as well as artistic progress. Instead of painting large, historical works in studios, many impressionists who came from middle class backgrounds chose to paint regular ordinary life outdoors. It became more widespread and common as a result. Artists' methods shifted, especially for women.

“Feminist theory has often held to the premise that the viewing field is organized for a male subject who exercises power through looking, and in this way asserting visual control over the objects of his desire (usually female). More recently, art historians have begun to explore the ways that modern women mobilized a new range of female gazes within a developing consumer society”.

From what I gathered, in the past, art was often made for men to look at, especially with women shown as objects and for desire. But as time went on, people started to study how women created their own ways of seeing and showing things, especially as society became more focused on shopping, fashion, and images. Its interesting to see how the role of women in art has changed, not just being looked at, but also reshaping how things are seen. It shows that women weren't just subjects in art, they found ways to take control and express their own views

List 5 characteristics of Impressionism. Highlight two Impressionist women artists. List the subjects they focused on and one or more characteristics of Impressionism that each of them applied in their work

-You can see the brushstrokes

-The focus on light

-Everyday things, streets, gardens, people, etc.

-Vibrant colors

-Odd angles or framing


Two women Artist Impressionist:

Eva Gonzales, her work consisted of realism and impressionism, using soft but light brushstrokes, natural light and makes a moody/delicate work


Berthe Morisot, her work consisted of scene of life, portraits, and landscapes. Uses loose and fast brushstrokes showing movement and uses vibrant colors

Atomic Cowboy Exhibition- Beshoy

After viewing the exhibition for the second time and listening to the artists talk I learned a lot about the atomic bomb that I didn't even know beforehand. There were two specific pieces that stood out to me the most and one of the two is the Nuke Cuisine, 1992 by Nobuho Nagasawa. It's a Campbell's Soup but edited to say Campbell's Cloud of Mushroom Soup.The actual installation consists of 835 Cloud of Mushroom Soup cans. It was specifically 835 cans because the number of soup cans paralleled the number of American Nuke Tests from 1945 to 1992. I like how Nagassawa used something that was probably a common household item from that time and transformed it into a symbol of mass destruction. This almost pushes the viewer to confront how nuclear violence was normalized in American Culture. Learning their were ads of trying to get people to come and watch nuclear tests from afar as something fun to do just shows how it was like.

It stuck out to me because using something so simple and normal, carried out a heavy message. Seeing the soup cans lined up made me think of how easy it is to overlook the seriousness of something when its shown in an aesthetically pleasing way. Its when you read its description, and what the label/ingredients of what the soup can say is when it starts to get real.

Secondly, the other piece was, “Cowboys Dream”. This wall installation was made up of a grid of black and white headshots of Hollywood actors who starred in Western films shot in the American Desert during the peak of nuclear testing. Under each photo, Nagasawa lists the titles of movies they were in and the illnesses they ended up getting like lung cancer and more. It's crazy to learn that nearly everyone pictured in the piece had suffered diseases from radiation. Even more of the cast eventually gets sick overtime. Seeing this piece made me realize how far the nuclear age spread, even in areas that people dont usually think about. I was surprised to learn that many Western Films were made in places contaminated by radiation. It made me question how many stories like this have been forgotten and how often entertainment hides truth.

Both Nuke Cuisine and Cowboys Dream share powerful messages about power, gender, and social justice by showing light on the hidden human cost of Nuclear power. By using familiar images and thoughts like the movie stars and soup cans, she makes the viewers confront the truths even if it's uncomfortable about culture and the past. How the media and the government shaped our understanding of power. She made them comfortable to approach but when you learn about the truths it starts to be uncomfortable, which is ironic because that's kind of how the government and other huge powers mask themselves. “Clearly we cannot dismantle a system as long ass we engage in collective denial about its impact on our lives”(Understanding Patriarchy- BellHooks). Systems caused alot of real human suffering and for a long time most people ignored or denied it. This exhibition pushes the viewers to confront these truths about power and social justice.


https://archive.org/details/UnderstandingPatriarchy

https://nobuhonagasawa.com/1992/02/01/the-atomic-cowboy-the-daze-after

ATOMIC COWBOY- Leilani Greywolf

 

Nobuho Nagasawa, Little Boy 1992

This is one of the works by Nobuho Nagasawa that stood out to me the most because it seems comical yet serious mixed in together. Its hand printed silkscreen on led, and is framed above a plate with the date, name and KT the bomb had. This is the birth certificate for the bomb Little Boy. As you can see, the birth certificate has all the information. When it was born, the place it was born in, even going as far as to name the family members and putting its “hand print” on the bottom right. 

As funny and cute as it may seem, this is sadly something that really happened. This is the bomb that fell upon the people of Hiroshima. People may not understand the comical side of this art piece. Some may. People cope with jokes, this could be a form of it. That’s what I believe, because “smiling and happiness can be good medicine.” Maybe not to everything of course, but because this is something that happened so long ago, there's not much we can do but to remember the event that sadly happened. I believe that this event was equally affecting both sides of the war. Japan and the USA. It affected innocent people who were probably unaware until Japan struck Pearl Harbor. Many people on both sides also tried to make light of the situation despite there being war. 

Nagasawa’s piece “How to survive a Nuclear war” represents that. 

I believe it was made on silkscreen too, and is seen through which I believe makes it stand out more. The women are all dolled up, placing food on the counter to make dinner perhaps. This could also be what men want to come home to after the war. A pretty woman making food. But in reality we can see through it all, there's no pretending, no making the situation better. No matter how much people tried, it wasn't working. 

Nobuho Nagasawa, How to survive a Nuclear War 92

On the bottom, it’s stated that canned food that hasn’t been opened is safer to eat after an atomic bomb and food in a closed fridge too. It is like there is some false hope there that someone could cling onto and not just some fun survival fact there. 

Even the picture shows foods that were able to be eaten safely, and not just food being placed out. The canned food, the bread and the milk. 

To some people this may seem like some. Pretty lady making dinner. I see it as turning a blind eye to war, making things better when in reality things aren’t going well and it is easily seen. I believe these art works are amazing and are portrayed very well. Comical and serious. These themes for art isn’t for everyone. In fact it is still hard for people to get over this event because Japan only sent one bomb, while the USA sent one to Hiroshima and one to Nagasaki. 

I once watched a documentary that was so powerful that the shockwave burned people. There is some art and pictures of a bunch of people jumping into a river trying to cool themselves from the intense heat they were suffering. so this isn't something that can be easily forgotten in hasty. 

ATOMIC COWBOY exhibition response

 Nuke-Cuisine is constructed from hundreds of standardized soup cans (in this iteration 120 at NJCU, though originally the work referenced 835 — the number of announced U.S. tests 1945-1992). New Jersey City University+3New Jersey City University+3SBU News+3 The labels are altered: “Cloud of Mushroom Soup” replacing familiar Campbell’s imagery, the mushroom cloud motif referencing nuclear explosions. The cans are stacked in a pyramid form against a wall; the physicality of the “mass” of cans signals a catalogue of destructive events. Displayed alongside are printed data-walls of bomb names/dates and cookie-cutters shaped like soldiers scattered on the floor (in earlier versions) — creating an environment where consumer objects (cans) and military history collide. Nobuho Nagasawa+2Westwood Gallery NYC+2

In visiting this piece, I felt the banal everyday object (the soup can) turned into a memorial for mass destruction — the comfort of consumer imagery twisted into a reckoning with death, radiation, and the banalization of lethal force. It invites the viewer to consider how nuclear power and testing have been treated as part of “business as usual,” hidden behind domestic or pop-culture façades. The work evokes the themes of power, war, identity (especially indigenous and film-industry “downwinders”), and social justice by pointing out how certain communities (Native Americans, desert inhabitants, film extras) are vulnerable and overlooked.

Cowboy’s Dream, by contrast, uses portraiture: familiar macho Western actors and the largely invisible Native American extras. Nagasawa lists under each face the dates, films, illnesses. The display highlights how the cowboy mythology (of rugged American masculinity) overlapped with the nuclear testing era — the desert, the “cowboy” aesthetic, the machismo of film culture, and the actual deadly exposure of people. The message here is potent: the heroic “cowboy” image conflated with the very sites of atomic experimentation, the Norman-rockwell West overlaying real human suffering, environmental injustice, and the invisibility of radiation’s victims. It foregrounds race (Native extras used in Westerns exposed to fallout) and gender (the male cowboy icon), and power (military/industrial state, entertainment industry) intersecting with injustice (health impacts swept under the cultural celebration of heroism).
Nagasawa’s own identity — Japanese-born, working in the U.S., literally addressing the atomic bomb legacy as well as U.S. nuclear tests — surfaces in the way the works ask broader questions of humanity, memory, and accountability: she writes that “nuclear power recognizes no borders, no ideologies, no hierarchies … it is an equal‐opportunity destroyer.” SBU News The exhibition fits into art history by aligning with activist installation art, site‐specific/cultural memory work of the 1990s onwards, and by reworking pop‐iconography (soup cans à la Warhol) into politically charged memorials.
Connection to class readings
From John Berger: “Every image embodies a way of seeing. Even a photograph.” In Cowboy’s Dream, Nagasawa uses photographic images of actors to display how the “way of seeing” the West is constructed (heroic cowboys) — but re‐orients it to show radiation victims, thus subverting the original gaze.
Also from Berger: “The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.” GradeSaver Nuke-Cuisine confronts this — we “see” consumer imagery of soup cans, we “know” about nuclear tests, but the work unsettles how those are connected, forcing the viewer to rethink what they knew.
From bell hooks: “Some people act as though art that is for a mass audience is not good art, and I think this has been a very negative thing.” QuoteFancy Nagasawa draws on mass culture (Hollywood, soup cans, Western mythology) and makes work for public and activist contexts; she challenges the divide between “fine art” and mass culture, using accessible imagery to critique power & injustice.

In conclusion, these works by Nagasawa challenge us to see how identity, race, gender, power, and social justice are entangled with cultural mythologies, nuclear histories, and environmental vulnerabilities. They ask us: Who is unseen? Who is exposed? How does popular imagery hide or reveal systemic violence? They invite reflection, not comfort — and thereby fulfil the purpose of art as critical, socially engaged—just as Nochlin and others have argued. ATOMIC COWBOY exhibition response

Post 5: Impressionism (Lina)

 Chapter 8 Quotes and Responses

Quote 1:
“The Pavilion was not a true exhibit of women’s art,” declared Elizabeth Cady Stanton, because it did not include samples of objects made by women in factories owned by men.

This quote exposes how women’s creative labor was often minimized or excluded from official recognition. Even when women produced art or goods in professional settings, their work was not valued equally or publicly acknowledged, reinforcing gendered divisions in the art world.
Quote 2:
“Critics were quick to challenge the displays for their lack of ‘quality’ and women once again found themselves confronting universalizing definitions of ‘women’s’ production in a gender-segregated world.”

Chadwick shows how women’s art was judged by biased standards that dismissed it as inherently inferior. These critiques reveal how institutional and cultural structures worked to confine women’s artistic identity within limiting stereotypes rather than judging their work on merit.
Five Characteristics of Impressionism
• Loose, visible brushstrokes.
• Focus on light and its changing effects.
• Use of pure color and optical blending.
• Everyday, modern subjects (urban life, leisure, domestic scenes).
• Painting outdoors (plein air) to capture natural light and atmosphere.

Berthe Morisot
• Subjects: Domestic interiors, women and children, family life, and garden scenes.
• Applied Impressionist Traits:
• Used quick, light brushwork and bright color to capture fleeting light and mood.
• Painted intimate domestic subjects with the same sensitivity to light as her male peers painting outdoor scenes.
Mary Cassatt
• Subjects: Motherhood, female relationships, and domestic interiors.
• Applied Impressionist Traits:
• Employed loose brushwork and subtle color harmonies to depict indoor lighting and reflection.
• Used modern composition and perspective (influenced by Japanese prints) to create immediacy and psychological depth.

Post 5 - Impressionism - Iris G

Mary Cassatt, Summertime, 1894

Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in A Blue Armchair, 1878

Berthe Morisot, Woman at Her Toilette, 1875-1880

Berthe Morisot, Self Portrait, 1885

Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot were two impressionist artists from the 19th century. Both of them made paintings focusing on the ordinary and private lives of women, particularly upper middle class. They also focused on relationships between mothers and their children and domestic scenes and scenarios.

As impressionists, their paintings consist of loose brush strokes, unblended colors, and a focus on ordinary and everyday things like people and scenes. These scenes also felt fleeting, like they were captured in the moment.

Impressionist were able to get this effect by using a bright color palette and painting from life, typically outdoors. They'd rush to keep up with the natural change in light, and so their strokes were quick and unblended. This gives the painting movement by making it less grounded or solid looking.

H.W. - 2 Quotes from readings and responses 10/15

Chadwick (class text)

Devotion to her art and devotion to home and family are her consuming passions, but after first choosing art, Persis discovers that as a True Woman she cannot deny her feelings and her desire for domestic life.

It makes me very uncomfortable that the idea of being a "true woman" is so heavily linked to being a wife and mother, and that there's this widely held belief that this is a natural or instinctive desire that all women have. Even though we're in the 19th century, people still believe these things today sadly.

The building’s (The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876) existence as a segregated display area had been contested from the beginning. “It would, in my opinion,” wrote the Director of Grounds, “be in every respect better for them to occupy a building exclusively their own and devoted to women’s work alone.”

If I understood the situation correctly, then I think I understand the conflict here. The Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, is finally giving women artists some needed exposure. However, the building also segregated the women artists and their art from other buildings and museums. The director said it was out of respect and was better for "them" to be separate, but that just creates division between people. It reminds me of when I went to a gallery or museum where they dedicated a single wall to queer Artists, in an entire building full of different art. I was happy to see it, but also disappointed that it was pushed to a sad corner, almost like it was left out or thrown in last second.

Ch. 6 & 7 quotes 10/08

Anatomy, physiology, and Biblical authority were repeatedly invoked to prove that the ideal of modest and pure womanhood that evolved during Queen Victoria’s reign (1837–1901) was based on sound physiological principles.

This sounds very familiar, because to this day we still deal with this. These exact arguments are used against women and also trans people in so many aspects of our lives and by people who want to police and control what we can and cannot do, and how we exist. It's frustrating and exhausting to see that these arguments are still being used today when they're so outdated and flawed.

“Does it pay, for a young lady of a refined, godly household to be urged as the only way of obtaining a knowledge of true art, to enter a class where every feeling of maidenly delicacy is violated, where she becomes so hardened to indelicate sights and words, so familiar with the persons of degraded women and the sight of nude males, that no possible art can restore her lost treasure of chaste and delicate thoughts...?”

Professor, this made me want to stop reading because it infuriates me to no end. Anyway, this quote shows someone, a member of the public to the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Academy, trying to pretend to care about the "sensitivities" and delicacies of women, when in reality they're simply trying to enforce their control over what women should be allowed to do.

Guerrilla Girls

"You could be used to symbolize democracy e.g. the statue of Liberty, but you weren't allowed to vote.."

This is something I remember questioning when I was young and a freshman in highschool. Why is it that women and female bodies were used to represent strong influential ideas and symbols, but actual women weren't seen as strong or influential? We have the statue of Liberty, Manifest Destiny, Lady Justice, etc. Which are well known powerful statues and symbols of freedom, equality, discovery and yet real life women weren't given these things as people.

During the decade they spent together, she helped him with some of his most important commissions and created most of her own best work. Their sculpture expressed an overt sexuality that became Auguste's claim to fame the history of modernism. But that same eroticism in the work of a woman was shocking and indecent. Camille lost commissions because of it.

It's very depressing to read that this happened to Camille Claudel. She was young, got involved with a man a lot older than her, and he took advantage of her in both her company, her body, and her skills. In the end, she was left to die in an asylum, which weren't great when it came to humane practices. She never got the fame she deserved as a female artist because people thought that as a woman she shouldn't have been creating art so sexualized, yet Auguste Rodin could get away with it because men weren't held to the same standards.

POST 5 - Impressionism HW 10/15 - BinChao Yang

 Chadwick, Chapters 6

Not only was it widely believed that too much book learning decreased femininity, exposure to the nude model was thought to inflame the passions and disturb the control of female sexuality that lay at the heart of Victorian moral injunctions.

    - Nude models are a controversial topic in art education. Understanding the human body is crucial to learning about art, so requiring nude models to display their bodies in class is often seen as vulgar, degrading, and insulting. However, understanding the human body is crucial, and this has sparked controversy.

Women were presented as morally and spiritually superior to men, and given primary responsibility for managing the home, but their lives were tightly restricted in other ways. The middle-class ideal of femininity stigmatized many groups of women as deviant—those who remained unmarried, who worked, or were slaves, or immigrants, or social radicals.

    - Women are often treated differently in life. Some things that are normal for men are not normal for women. But despite this, woman still actively fight against injustice and help each other.

 Chadwick, Chapters 7

In emphasizing the split between“work”and“home,”and centering salvation in the latter, the cult of domesticity also established the American home as a refuge from the desecrations of the modern business world, a place where spiritual values could be cultivated, and a measure against which to evaluate women’s cultural productions.

    - Although some women participated in the work force, most women remained confined to the home and continued to serve only the family.

Needlework and painting were considered appropriate handicrafts for women and during the first half of the century women are well represented among American folk artists. Little formal training was available and many women, like Eunice Pinney, were self-taught amateurs who worked at their art whenever they had free time.

    - Although needlework and painting are considered to be the most suitable handicrafts for women, this still cannot stop women's passion for artistic creation, and they can still use their spare time to Self-taught.

Guerrilla Girls 47-57

“The 19th century saw the war to abolish slavery in the U.S. and the beginning of women's long struggle for equality. At the same time, male painters began to obsess over and objectify the naked female body as never before. Consider how many prostitutes and mistresses they painted , and how tew suffragettes.

    - Women were treated unfairly in the 19th century. Male artists viewed depicting female nudity as art and even desire, attempting to objectify it, something most women were unwilling to do. Many female artists had to fight for equal rights and to be taken seriously.

Chadwick, Chapters 8

Alcott’s comments reveal the conflicts still facing the woman artist caught within an ideology of sexual difference which gave the privilege to male expression and often forced women to choose between marriage and a career.

    - Marriage limits women's pursuit of art, as they often cannot find a balance between career and family. Pursuing art may lead to losing marriage, and pursuing marriage may lead to losing art.

“It would, in my opinion,” wrote the Director of Grounds, “be in every respect better for them to occupy a building exclusively their own and devoted to women’s work alone.” To others, the presence of a separate exhibition facility for women at the Exposition signaled an institutionalizing of women’s productions in isolation from those of men. 

    - Although female artists have a building entirely of their own that is dedicated to displaying their artwork, it also distinguishes female artists from male artists, limiting the dissemination of their works.

List 5 characteristics of Impressionism

- Quick, loose brush strokes

- Vibrant/Pure Colors

- “En plein air” 

- Relative color

- Clearer picture from further away

Marie Bracquemond, Tea-Time, 1880

This piece depicts a serene scene, with figures seated around a table, engaging in conversation. Vibrant colors and soft light envelop the setting, creating a warm atmosphere. Bracquemond’s attention to detail shines through in the way she captures facial expressions and gestures. The composition reflects a harmonious balance between the subjects and their surroundings, enhancing the everyday experience of social gatherings.

Berthe Morisot, Psyche, 1867

Morisot applies the brushstrokes very loosely. Stripes and specks draw the pattern of the floor covering. Attributes, such as the mirror and the sofa on the right, are out of focus. The large mirror with the high frame, which is cut through the top of the painting, gives the impression of a painting within a painting.

post 5 & chapter 8 quotes - Jahkai

 Chadwick Chapter 8 

"Alcott's comments reveal the conflict still facing the women artist caught between the ideology of sexual difference which gave the privilege to male expression and often forced women to choose between marriage and a career

Women being forced to choose between domestic roles and fulfilling their artistic potential. Social norms made it so having both was out of the norm. A lot of promising women artist were forgotten or never reached their peak.

"If sweetness and light were ever expressed in architecture, we find them in miss haydens building"

Women artists were usually praised in terms that were seen as "feminine" terms instead of being judged in the same way that men were. They would call a man's work something like "innovative" and a woman's "gentle". Even keeping their work in those boundaries that they are placed in. Not taking them as serious as men.

Impressionism

- Expressive Brush Strokes

- Vibrant/Pure Colors

- Outdoors

- Lighting

- Unblended Colors

Berthe Morisot

Her work usually revolved around the regular private lives of women. Their everyday lives, women with children, gardening etc. Characteristics of impressionism that she used was expressive brush strokes, outdoor scenes, light and pure colors. 

Young Woman Knitting (ca. 1883)

Eva Gonzalès

Eva's used a lot of interior scenes, depicting women & children in quiet, indoor areas. She would make art of women sewing or in gardens. She used characteristics of impressionism like loose brushstrokes, certain lighting, color, natural moments & a style that was different from what was taught.

The Maid ( 1865 – 1870)

Beshoy- POST 4 - 17th and 18th Century

10/1

Ch.4 Quotes

“Court appointments exempted women from guild regulation during the Renaissance and they provided women artists with an important alternative to academies and other institutions which increasingly restricted or prohibited their participation. As gentlewomen and painters, women’s social and professional lives were elided; their presence at court both affirmed the breadth of court patronage and ensured that educated and skilled women were available as teachers and attendants”.

The quote above shows how women artists in the Renaissance had greater freedom thanks to court jobs. Women were accepted in the courts, but they were excluded from art schools and guilds. Women who were at court were able to showcase their artistic skills and high status. This allowed them to continue earning money and respect during a period when many doors were shut for them. Working at court gave women a way to become professional artists.

“The Protestantism of Dutch art eliminated the Blessed Virgin as a female model, while the lack of a strong Neoplatonic movement in the North prevented the identification of female form with ideal beauty in painting. Instead, the imagery of the home assumed a central place in Dutch iconography—as a microcosm of the properly governed commonwealth and as emblematic of education and the domestication of the senses. The well-ordered household, a condition for an orderly society, consisted of the family, their servants and belongings. Within the home, the primary emblem of the domestic virtue that ensured the smooth running of society was the image of a woman engaged in needlework, sewing, embroidery or lacemaking”.

The quote shows how Dutch art was shaped by culture and religion. Dutch painters valued the home and family over religious or idealized beauty. A woman working with needlework symbolized a righteous and peaceable society. It showed how women's responsibilities were linked to keeping order in the home and outside the home. They stopped using Virgin Mary as the perfect women in their art but same time didnt want to show women as symboles of the ideal beauty.


Ch.5 Quotes

“As long as the woman artist presented a self-image emphasizing beauty, gracefulness, and modesty, and as long as her paintings appeared to confirm this construction, she could, albeit with difficulty, negotiate a role for herself in the world of public art”.

This quote shows how women artists were super limited by expectations. For them to be accepted, they had to fit the society's norm or idea of a woman, both in how they behaved and how they painted. Which even after doing all that, gaining recognition in the art world was a challenge.


“In England, as in France, painters had to negotiate between aristocratic and middle-class taste, and between amateur and professional classifications. Although there was a strong amateur tradition for both sexes, women continually found their artistic activities equated with their femininity. For women aspiring to history painting and Academy membership, “unnatural” ambition had to be mediated by strict conformity to the social ideology of femininity”.

This quote kindve piggy back rides the first one. It explains how women artists were judged more harshly than men. Even when they had talent and wanted to be professionals, their work was often dismissed as a hobby. For them to succeed in serious art, they had to carefully follow society's rules about how a woman should act. This shows how hard it was for women to get into the highest levels of the art world without being critcized.


Guerrilla Girls- Quotes

“The 19th century saw the war to abolish slavery in the U.S. and the beginning of women's long struggle for equality. At the same time, male painters began to obsess over and objectify the naked female body as never before. Consider how many prostitutes and mistresses they painted , and how tew suttragettes.Women who became artists-like Mary Cassatt, Rosa Bonheur and Edmonia Lewis-had to fight to be taken serously. They were succes: stories, managing to live as they chose (often by traveling as far from • home as they could). But the era abounds in horror stories, too, like Camille Claudel's”.

This quote shows the double standards women faced in the 19th century. Women were fighting equality, male artists continued to portray them mainly as sexual objects. A few women who became respected artists had to push against society norms at the time, leaving their homes and countries. Some like Mary Cassatt became a well known but a lot of others like Camille Claudel were treated unfair and even suffered.

POST 4 - 17th and 18th Century - Subject

 

Mary Delaney, Flower Collage, 1774–88

Mary Delany was 70 years old when she began making lifelike paper flower collages on black paper. Although she began her most important work late in life, she impressed both the art world and the scientific community. Especially at a time when women had limited recognition, her talent and creativity earned her a rare praise, even from big male artists like Joshua Reynoalds at the time. He described her work using words like, “perfection and outline, delicacy of cutting, accuracy of shading, harmony, and brilliance of colours”.

Post 4 17th and 18th Century, Mya Germain.

 QUOTES:

Chadwick:
[Chapter 4]
1. "Court appointments exempted women from guild regulation during the Renaissance and they provided women artists with an important alternative to academies and other institutions which increasingly restricted or prohibited their participation."
Response:
Women History digs deep. It shows that women have been trying to adapt further in old times. That adaption being slow but getting the move on.

2. "Although we know of no women painters engaged in landscape and history painting during this period, the spread of humanism and the educational and domestic ideology of the Protestant Reformation increased literacy among women in the North and their participation in the visual arts."
Response:
At least women could create art in certain instances.
[Chapter 5]
1. "Never had a culture been so immersed in the pursuit of qualities later derided as “feminine,” namely artifice, sensation, and pleasure."
Response:
It feels like women of the past had to run on routine. Not as much freedom that we get nowadays.

2. "As long as the woman artist presented a self-image emphasizing beauty, gracefulness, and modesty, and as long as her paintings appeared to confirm this construction, she could, albeit with difficulty, negotiate a role for herself in the world of public art."
Response:
This further explains the adaption that women kept enduring. Women started creating art behind royalty, where they get benefits too.

Guerrilla Girls:
1. "Academies evolved from guilds, which, beginning in the Middle Ages, provided a network for artisans to get training and jobs."
Response:
It's nice to have the small history lessons on how arts been around.

Artwork:

First Great Seal of Elizabeth l, 1559.
Response:
This Artwork catches my interests because what's displayed on it. The detail is incredible and it looks like it's on stone or some kind of object you could carve. Also the age of which it came from is fascinating to look back on.

Post 4 17th and 18th Century & HW - Jahkai

Guerrilla Girls

"While the male academics were off painting the "important" subjects of war and the gods, most women artists of the 17th and 18th centuries kept the home fires burning, perfecting the areas where they were allowed to excel"


Classic example of women not being to excel through artistic methods. Even though some women kept pushing through and made "heroic" efforts to beat men at their own game. But this talks about how women are still being pushed to stay at home.




Chadwick Chap. 4




“By the seventeenth century, Northern European art was dominated by new, middle class ideals reflecting the growth of commerce and the Protestant Church.”

This quote puts religious & social context on the art that was being made back then. This art could’ve pushed more women to want more opportunities.




“The dutch translation of Cesare Ripa's well known Iconologia in 1644 introduced a wide variety of allegorical female figures into northern art"




Ripa's Iconologia was like a sourcebook, and through this sourcebook women became images through. Like justice & wisdom, becoming visuals of these symbolic meanings.







Chadwick Chap. 5




"As long as the woman artist presented a self-image emphasizing beauty, gracefulness, and modesty, and as long as her paintings appeared to confirm this construction, she could, albeit with difficulty, negotiate a role for herself in the world of public art."




This quote shows progress, but not any good type of progress. Women could now get into the world of public art, but after building such a flawless record of what they do, having to be this perfect model.




"For women aspiring to history painting and Academy membership, "unnatural" ambition had to mediated by strict formality to the social ideology of femininity."




Women had no room to be creative, which is why I choose this quote, this quote shows the box women were put in even though they were able to create art. Still being stuck behind those social ideologies.






Francoise Duparc late eighteenth century

This painting shows a women knitting, not being romanticized, she's in plain clothing with a natural light. She's a human, the everyday low-class woman. Not a god or a high ranking noble, but someone people can relate to and recognize as an everyday person. It shows that women are hardworking and overlooked.

Post 4 17th and 18th Century - Chapter 4 + 5 Guerrilla Girls- Leilani Greywolf

 Chapter 4

Quote 1: “She also is known to have had three male students, which means she had a good reputation.”

Quote 2: “some women artists tend to emulate Frans Hals, but the vigorous brush strokes of the master were beyond their capability. One has only to look at the work of a painter like Judith Leyster to detect the weakness of the feminine hand.”

Response: Judith was good. If she was able to not only teach a male student, but three of them, she must’ve been good. However it was quickly degraded, and judged by of course a man. Perhaps she wasn’t aiming to have the same brush strokes as Frans. In fact I am sure she was aiming to have her own unique style, which again, was quickly degraded. 

Chapter 5

Quote 1: “To cross dress in public she had to get a permit from the French police, signed by a doctor, and renewable every six months.”

Quote 2: “She hunted, smoked cigars, and rode her horse astride through the streets of Paris.” 

Rosa decided to take a role of a man. She didn’t want to be denied freedom while on vacation with Nathalie. On top of that she was able to go beyond, being able to sell her paintings for a fortune. Dressing in drag allowed her to gain things that women weren’t really allowed to have. She fully took on being a man as she smoked cigars and hunted. She even trained herself to use a rifle to be able to defend herself and anyone else. 

Rosa Bonheur, 1852-1853, Horse Fair

This painting that Rosa Honeur has painted is beautiful, The meaning of the painting is to show the raw energy and power of the horses and how their handlers handle them, and it shows as you can see clearly how wild the horses are and how some of the handlers are having a are time handling them. 

Post 2, Middle Ages Ch.1 quotes, Mya Germain.

 QUOTES:

Chadwick

1. "Within the convent women had access to learning even though they were prohibited from teaching by St. Paul’s caution that. a woman must be a learner, listening quietly and with due submission."

It's enlightening to hear how Women were treated. Less freedoms but it seems women were still trying to create an impact or be seen more. 

2. "Although traditional art history has omitted women from discussions of the productions of the double monasteries, there is considerable evidence that by the eighth century powerful and learned abbesses from noble families ran scriptoria in which manuscripts were copied and illuminated."

It's interesting that history has had women on the back burner. 

Guerrilla Girls

1. "There are records of women in Rome heading workshops producing sculptures and painting, usually after the deaths of their artist husbands."

I'm glad to hear that women even back then were still trying to create art. That says a lot even if they were creating art after their husbands died. So who was really the heavy lifter.

2. "Few of these artists signed their work, so it's not easy to attribute specific works to individual artist. Instead it is patrons, whose names were recorded, who get the credit. For once, male artist are as forgotten as the females"

That's semi surprising. Who would've thought. Maybe during that time they weren't looking for some recognition, wish we knew the significance.

Post 4 - 17th and 18th Century - Iris G

Artwork from readings

Judith Leyster's, The Proposition, 1631

The painting is of a man and a woman. The woman is wholly focused on her needlework. She doesn't even look at the man who has his hand on her and seemingly offering her a bunch of coins. The woman's face looks focused and at peace. It's likely she's intentionally ignoring the man, who is wearing a smirk while asking her for sexual services. The focus is mainly on her as she's more in the middle and her colors stand out more than the man's. She's not being sexualized in the painting, which is interesting since the painting is showing her being sexualized by the man wanting to pay for sex. 

This painting by Judith Leyster, portrays this woman not as a seducer or sex object, but as a person who tries to peacefully ignore the unwanted advances of a man. It shows how the woman is virtuous and modest and that it is the man who is being immortal and sinful.

H.W. - Quotes from readings and responses 10/01

Chadwick (class text)

As gentlewomen and painters, women’s social and professional lives were elided; their presence at court both affirmed the breadth of court patronage and ensured that educated and skilled women were available as teachers and attendants.

To paint everyday life is to paint the activities of women and children, as well as those of men; and to record the realities of domestic spaces, as well as to aggrandize public, historical, religious, and mythological events.

This criticism of northern painting as lacking symmetry and harmony (that is, mathematical proportion and ideal form), and as therefore inferior to Italian painting and worthy of the admiration only of women, the pious, and the uneducated, draws striking distinctions between the painting of northern and southern Europe.

The organization of cloth production by entrepreneurs (“drapiers” wealthy enough to afford the purchase of raw materials which they then jobbed out to spinners and weavers) encouraged a strict division of labor and the use of women and children as a means of keeping wages low.

Guerrilla Girls

Thelma Johnson Streat(1912-1959) was the first African-American woman whose work was collectedby The Museum of Modern Art in New York. She was also probably the first artistto dance in frontofher painting atthe museum.

There's still a materials hierarchy, with oil paint on canvas at the top. Other media-like sculpture, drawing, photography, installation, and performance-are not quite as prestigious. Ironically, this has made it easier for women to make it in these fields.