Frances Muldoon
Deb Todd Wheeler
Comparative Analysis
October 5, 2013
The
Reclining Nude
“The framed image
of a female body, hung on the wall of an art gallery, is shorthand for art more
generally: it is an icon of western culture, a symbol of civilization and
accomplishment” (Nead) Throughout history the reclining female nude has
appeared countless times over the centuries. Men created the vast majority of
these paintings. However, the doors have now been opened, and women have the
power and authority to create their own interpretations of the female nude, and
all that it entails.
It is interesting
to find however that although this door is open, many female painters avoid the
integration of the female nude into their paintings.[1]
They choose to avoid the subject matter that has so long been denied to them. However,
one female painter, Lisa Yuskavage is exploring and exploiting all that the
female nude has to offer.[2]
I will be comparing Lisa Yuskavage’s feminine interpretation of the female nude
to fellow painter John Currin and his masculine approach to the same subject.
I will be
exploring two paintings from these artists, which are two different takes on
the reclining nude. The first Lisa Yuskavage’s Reclining nude (2009), the second John Currin’s Anniversary Nude (2008). I will expose the similarities, and question
the differences between these two paintings, and ask the question; does gender
matter when painting the female nude?
The first work I
will examine is Lisa Yuskavage’s painting Reclining
Nude (2009). While the title and
position of the female nude reference art history Yuskavage takes her young nude
out of the bedroom or studio and into an overgrown and sticky green patch of
some fantastical forest. The viewer may first notice the contrast between her pale
body and the bright and deep greens surrounding her in this lush and fertile
landscape. Her perky breasts accentuated by their nearly white tone, appear to
be the evidence tan lines. The girl reclines backward onto a large tuft of
unruly bright green grass – an expression of relaxed indifference on her face.
Her vagina and candy yellow pubic hair face the viewer directly, legs splayed
lazily. Her torso twists away from us. Two long socks, one green one yellow are
the only articles of clothing the girl wears.
Yuskavage’s nude
is not alone in this world. As one delves further into the painting one notices
the figure of a baby, sitting behind and to the side of the main figure. It
sits upright, cross-legged, with its fat fists in lap. It is the color of the ground on which it
sits, contrasted by the deep green background. Upon further inspection several
small green, marble like balls are present, as they are in many other Yuskavage
paintings. They have been aptly related to “ripe breasts” (Lovelace 84). As the marbles recede into the background they
morph into bean like shapes, leading to what appear to be two tiny figures with
a minute basket. This may be a reference to the Handsel and Gretel fairy tale. [3]
The short brush strokes of grass beginning at the bottom of the canvas, curve
up and around, partially encasing the girl, the strokes becoming longer and
wilder as they curve up and finally over the nudes head.
In John Currin’s
“Anniversary Nude” (2008) the female nude is positioned quite like Yuskavage’s.
She lays back, body relaxed, legs similarly splayed, also exposing her vagina
directly to the viewer. Currin’s nude similarly sports only one accessory, a
long pearl necklace which is doubled around her throat and continues down over her
pale and plump breast’s, over a slightly fleshy belly to the women’s
fingertips, were she is toying with them somewhat seductively. However the
expression of her face is not one of come hither sexuality, as her pose would suggest
but rather a pleasant, yet pitiable direct stare, an expression of ignorant
confidence. This is a look not uncommon in Currin’s Paintings. “As abject as
female sexuality becomes in Currin’s paintings, the supposedly dictatorial gaze
is what is truly pathetic” (Schwabsky 83).
The composition of
“Anniversary Nude” is quite striking. The nudes limbs have been all but been amputated
by the canvas edges. Even the figures hand, which toys with the string of pearls,
disappears behind her torso for a moment. Her remaining arm is cut off near the bicep
and reenters the canvas as only a hand. Her legs are not pictured much past her
vagina. The nude’s sexual body parts are present while her limbs are not
pictured. In Reclining Nude only part
of a single foot disappears into the lush green grass. The fabric the figure
lays on in Anniversary Nude is a pale
white, at times blue, the pale body and fabric are contrasted by a rusty orange
wall behind the figure, similar in color to the dull red brown hair of the
nude.[4]
Yuskavage and Currin’s
similarities do not end with their choice in subject matter. Both attended Yale
University and received their MFA in 1986. Both borrow from pop culture images
and pornography[5] and
both artists deal with stereotypes in their work (Schwabsky).
The question
remains, if they are similar in so many ways, why do their paintings feel so different?
It could of course be argued that this comes down to stylistic choices,
differing color pallets and personal preference. But it seems far more likely
that the differences are deeper, that it is not only their gender, but also the
experiences associated with their differing gender that makes the paintings unique.
Yuskavage’s notes “My work has always been about things in myself that I feel
incredibly uncomfortable with and embarrassed by” (Lovelace 83). Her work is
personal and painted from the point of view of a woman. Currin’s work is
painted from the point of view of a man, the majority point of view throughout
art history.
Two
artists who are so similarly trained, so similarly commended for their aptitude
at painting and who are both often times compared with the great masters,
borrowed from art history and have come up with two very similar but yet very unique
paintings. Currin remains more traditional in his interpretation while Yuskavage
creates a more fantastic realm for her women. In Reclining Nude Yuskavage creates a woman’s interpretation on what
was for so long a subject unique to male artists. Currin in Anniversary Nude merely continues with
what has been traditionally acceptable for men.
I believe that we
will not truly know the answer to the question, does gender matter when
painting the female nude, until more female painters begin to and continue to
deal with the erotic.[6] At that time we may know more concretely if
the similarities and differences in these two paintings is simply stylistic or
if it is deeper and based on gender. It is my opinion that Yuskavage has a
fresher and more interesting take because this is a previously unexplored avenue
for the female painter.
Works
Cited
Buszek, Maria Elena. "Chapter
8." Pin-up Grrrls: Feminism, Sexuality, Popular Culture.
Durham: Duke UP,
2006. 352+. Google Books. Web.
Currin,
John. Anniversary Nude. 2008. Sadie Coles HQ, London. Timeout.
Web. Sept.
2013.
Nead, Lynda. Art, Obscenity and
Sexuality. New York: Routledge, 1992. Amazon.
2001.
Web. 1 Oct. 2013.
Lovelace, Carey. "Lisa
Yuskavage: Fleshed Out." Art in America 89.7 (2001): 80-85.
Web.
<http://www.careylovelace.com/articles/LisaYuskavage.pdf>.
Schwabsky, Barry. "Picturehood
Is Powerful." Art in America 85.12 (1997): 80-85.
Web.
<http://www.claireoliver.com/press/30/09_ArtInAmerica_1997.pdf>.
Whitehead, Jayson. ""What
Kind Of Thing Am I Looking At?" An Interview with
Painter Lisa
Yuskavage." Gadfly Online. Gadfly Productions, Apr. 1998. Web. 29
Sept. 2013.
<http://www.gadflyonline.com/archive/April98/archive-yuskavage.html>.
Yuskavage,
Lisa. Reclining Nude. 2009. David Zwirner Gallery, New York. Artnet.
Artnet Worldwide Corporation. Web. Sept.
2013.
Images
John Currin Anniversary Nude 2008
Lisa Yuskavage Reclining Nude 2009
[1] “Actually, it is a rarely discussed fact that, with
exceptions, there is almost no history of women painters providing their own
interpretations of that staple of Western art history, the female nude. In the
1970’s, Joan Semmel and Sylvia Sleigh were known for series depicting the nude
from the women’s point of view, but one has to go back to the 1940s Surrealists
such as Leonora Corrington, Frida Kahlo and Dorothea Tanning to find women
painters depicting the female body with erotic overtones.” (Lovelace)
[2] “Certainly, in treating hypersexualized images of
women, the artist is entering an artistic territory where few other women have
dared to tread, an unsettling realm full of free-floating lust and troublesome
sexual politics, with few reassuring moral landmarks and a history laden with
images reflecting male desire.” (Lovelace)
[3] Yuskavage states in an interview “I love Greek myths,
fables and fairy tales, and they always have a moral. I'm sure everything does
have a moral. What's great is that sometimes the morals are really twisted. You can take a moral out of anything. The morals of my painting
are whatever any particular viewer would see in it.”
[4] “Currin puts the viewer in an overtly voyeuristic
peephole position that is implicitly subservient even as its male adolescent
fantasy is being fulfilled.”
(Schwabsky)
A distinctly male point of view.
[5] “Of course, the original purpose of such sexual
iconography was to describe, even to stimulate, male desire, but Yuskavage cops
them for her own psychosexual ends.” (Lovelace 84) Yuskavage is perverting what
was created for male pleasure and twists it into something uniquely confusing
for the viewer.
[6] “In Photography, performance and installation art-
mediums with much less history to contend with- women artists seem to have felt
more freedom to engage this subject matter. But the closer one moves to
traditional genres, such as sculpture, the more it seems women artists avoid
erotic overtones. Even such body-conscious artists in the 1990’s as Kiki Smith,
Rona Pondick, Janine Antoni, Annette Messager and others influenced by
Surrealism, treated the body not in terms of the erotic but rather as the
abject, emphasizing dysfunction, fragmentation, even abuse . . .” (Lovelace)
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