ABSTRACT
37,000 years of art history will be examined to observe the many ways women’s bodies have been experienced and portrayed in Western culture. Thoughts, feelings and fantasies about women, and especially the manner in which they are divided into absolutes and opposites (e.g. good or bad; weak or powerful, seductive or innocent) will be illustrated. Themes such as nudity, relationships, birth, and fertility will be explored. The art of Picasso, Matisse, pre-historic Egypt, Hellenistic, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, and nineteenth and twentieth century Western European art will all be presented. Greek art uses images of females, such as Hera, Aphrodite, Athena, Demeter, Persephone and Medusa, in order to illustrate the ways women have been depicted in art for the past 2500 years. Psychoanalytic understanding of female psychology will be part of the discussion about the Greek goddesses. Idealized or ordinary depictions of women were created depending upon the civilization. The splitting of women into categories will be clearly depicted in images from more recent civilizations.
