The Body

The figure is an essential outlet for the exploration of emotion and identity within art. Throughout art history the figure has been reinterpreted in several areas, as well as falling into the pitfalls of idealization (84). According to Robertson and McDaniel "Cultural ideals dominate the representation of bodies in art even though few real bodies resemble the images." This foundation of idealized beauty has been a launching point for many modern artists to re investigate the standardized notions of human perfection. Nancy Davidson approaches the contradiction of beauty with giant weather balloons outfitted suggestively with clothing and accessories normally reserved for accentuating "idealized" bodies (86). Feminism has played a large role in redefining the ideas held about women's bodies, whether it be ideas of sexual desire or reproduction. Often explicit, artists like Marlene Dumas and Annie Sprinkler use shocking images or performance art to force the viewer to demolish mentally embedded notions of women (89).

Part of the problem with modern ideas of body image can be linked to the media's perpetuation of fashionable body types. "For example," writes Robertson and McDaniel, "...although contemporary Americans make a fetish of the slim female body and well toned male body, in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe, an ample body was most admired as evidence of a person's wealth and power.(86)" Modern art has made an effort to deviate from only using fashionably slim models and includes a variety of body types. (86) On the other hand, Vanessa Beecroft successfully created a commentary of modern body image by using nude and partially clothed models with the same body type, resulting in a homogenized crowd of women with little variation in individuality(87). Art such as this has helped open the debate on what can be describe as ideal and beautiful in regards to the human figure, which may one day spread into the popular conscience.

McDaniel, Craig and Jean Robertson. Themes of Contemporary Art: Visual Art after 1980. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc., 2010. 84-89.