Throughout my blog I have tried to come up with witty titles for my posts. And with the degree show coming up soon, I didn’t want to leave my titles to the last minute. I want them to mean something. Looking back through old sketch books and dissertations it gave me the incentive to continue with traditional paintings portrayals of the female nude and make then relevant to my work.
Traditionally paintings of the female nudes were not given real identifiable names. This was because they were representations of what the male perception of beauty was. An indulgent of what society perceived to be the ideal beauty. Generally, these images of women were considered mythical. Given the Title of a goddess i.e. the Virgin Mary or Venus. Painted with smooth porcelain like skin, and a perfectly framed figure, angelic faces, small breasts and no bodily hair, the ultimate purity of a woman. These paintings were accepted on the basis that they were unidentifiable as real women. But if the woman in the painting resembled any individualization of a real person, the painting would be frowned upon, and rejected by society. Such images were discriminated and considered vulgar because the audience could relate to, or identify the woman.
The women I am creating are considered to be unreal. Sociality does not see them as real women because they do not compel with the norm. Virgin Mary and Venus are a little dated and have been used excessively.
Next step was to researching the name Venus and Mary revelled that the name stems from names of goddesses. Widening this search revealed a variation of ancient cultures.
Now that I have a starting point and meanings behind my titles that relate to my work I could concentrate on creating my images and referring back to the names once complete to decide which Goddess name best represents my image.
