Camden 1

I. RACE AND ART

1. Some artworks help form a cohesive identity for a racial group, others challenge
negative attitudes.
A. Art That Promotes Ethnic History and Values
1. Often art examines the history or values of a certain ethnic group.
2. At the turn ofthe19th C. Russian Jews were considered outsiders. Jews were:
a. allowed to live only in certain areas restricted from attending universities
subjected to anti-Semitic terrorism.
B. Ethnic History and Values
1. The solitary figure floats over the village and represents 1000s of Eastern
European Jewish refugees who fled to Russia during WWI.
2. Chagall incorporated Jewish folktales, celebrations, suffering and persecution in
his painting.
3. Marc Chagall, a Jewish artist, grew up in Russia. His paintings imaginatively re-
create Jewish village life at the turn of the
4. century in Russia. Chagall’s imagery is:
a. personal
b. a reordering of his experience
c. based on folktales, festivals, marriages, funeral practices, suffering and death
caused by anti-Semitism
C. Over Vitebsk,
1. Chagall paints a figure floating over a village.
The figure represents thousands of Eastern European Jewish refugees who fled
to Russia
a. a sense of being rootless pervades the picture.
2. The foreground space appears fractured. Chagall used Cubism to represent
instability and the strong colors of Fauvism for greater power and expression.
3. Chagall’s painting re-creates and memorializes the experiences of Jewish people
in Russia at the end of the 19th century.
4. The portraits of James VanDerZee, are a record of the Harlem Renaissance.
5. His subjects were intellectuals, merchants, and writers who demanded full
participation in U.S. culture and politics.
6. Furniture and trappings of comfort surround his well dressed sitters.
7. Their poses convey:
a. confidence
b. humor directness wistfulness
8. VanDerZee was influenced by movies and encouraged sitters to take poses from
the films. He also provided costumes and props that allowed his sitters to express
their personalities.
9. Art can promote the status and create a positive perception of a racial group.
10. In this case, the portraits show the confident, affluent people of the Harlem
Renaissance in the United States.
D. Betye Saar
1. In the 1960s Saar began collecting images of Aunt Jemima, Uncle Tom, Little
Black Sambo, and other stereotyped African American figures from folk culture
and advertising.
 Camden 2

2. She incorporated them into collages and assemblages, transforming them into
provocative statements of political and social protest.
E. Art that Criticizes Racism
1. Unflattering images of African Americans have been common in popular culture
over the past 150 years:
a. the pickaninny Little Black Sambo Uncle Tom
Aunt Jemima
F. Aunt Jemima
1. Depicts a domestic servant, “aunt” was a commonly used term of subordination
for African American domestic servants.
2. This work illustrates, and protests, the ways African Americans were often
depicted in folk art and in commercial imagery.
3. Betye Saar uses three versions of Aunt Jemima to question such images.
Oldest version, small image at the center:
a. cartooned Jemima holds a crying child on her hip
4. Jemima as a caricature
The middle Jemima is the largest figure:
a. most emphasized bright clothing black skin
5. Modern version in the background:
a. thinner
b. lighter skin
more attractive if less black
G. The Liberation of Aunt Jemima
1. The middle Jemima holds a rifle, pistol and broom, a black-power fist adds a
militant aspect.
H. TheArtifactPiece,
1. NativeAmerican JamesLunachallenged the way contemporary American culture
and museums have presented his race as extinct and vanished.
2. Luna posed himself dressed only in a leather cloth. Various personal items were
displayed in a glass case.
3. Luna challenged the viewer to reconsider what museums teach about cultures
and what is a cultural artifact.
4. Luna considers himself a warrior, using art and the legal system to fight for
Native Americans.
5. The purpose of art is often to make simple stereotypes more nuanced and
accurate.
6. Luna’s work is intended to debunk a simplistic image of Native Americans.
I. Who Is Looking Whom?
1. In the U.S., hundreds of images are produced that deal with other cultures.
2. We develop ideas about foreign or ethnic groups from
3. The position of the viewer is privileged, “consuming” images of other people
without interacting with them.
J. Buddha Duchamp Beuys, Nam June Paik takes on the gaze in relation to East and
West.
1. The title, the Buddha statue, and the television reference various parts of the
world and the consumption of culture through media, without direct contact.
 Camden 3

2. Paik turns around cultural dominance and replaces it with a potentially

confusing but also open playing field of cultures meeting cultures.
II. GENDER ISSUES
1. Every culture defines acceptable behavior for women and men. Artwork gives us
clues about social restrictions and, often plays a part in making them.
A. Art and Ritual Perpetuating Gender Roles
1. In the early 20th C., before foreign influences, men dominated women among
the Sepik people of Papua New Guinea.
2. Art and rituals reinforce and dramatize this relationship.
3. Tambaran rituals took place in decorated cult houses.
Men saw their rituals as creating men from infants, usurping women’s
procreative power.
Many South Pacific peoples believed a person’s being was built through a
lifetime of ritual experiences.
4. The paintings and carvings were created in order to pass power on to younger
men.
5. Painting from a Cult House is an artwork associated with Tambaran rituals.
B. Gender Reflected in Art and Architecture
1. Gender roles are often revealed in art and reflected in architecture and fashion.
C. The Abduction of the Daughters of Leucippus,
1. Rubens depicts what was considered masculine and feminine during that era.
2. The figures represent ideal body types.
3. The women’s body:
a. voluptuous
b. soft
c. fleshy
d. occupy domestic interiors
4. These qualities were considered sexually attractive and a sign of health and
wealth.
5. The men:
a. darker skinned
b. muscular
c. occupy the outdoors
6. The painting also represents gender behavior.
7. Men:
a. bodies
b. privilege over women’s expressions subdued and
c. determined
8. Western art history has many examples of the female nude providing pleasure
for male viewers, legitimized because it was “art.”
9. Women:
a. learned to be helpless
b. relied on social structures to protect their virtue
c. more emotional
d. are unclothed and displayed
D. Oath of the Horatii,
 Camden 4

1. Jacques-Louis David represents a scene from the history of ancient Rome.

2. Heroic actions are a mark of masculinity, reinforced by the women’s passivity.
3. In a moment of male bonding, the 3 brothers become a single force.
4. Gender indicators:
a. male attire-angular lines
b. female attire soft curves
c. men hold weapons
d. women are concerned with children.
5. The images reflect the “reality” of gender roles and create that “reality.” They
spring from existing social conditions, but they also reinforce those conditions.
6. Another indicator of masculinity is the use of classical architecture, popular
during the French Revolutionary era.
7. The use of classical elements in art and architecture
a. at this time formed a style called Neoclassicism
b. a revival of Greek and Roman aesthetics
8. This painting illustrates an event from Roman history, it shows the kinds of
behavior that reflected femininity and masculinity in 18th C. France.
9. What makes one style masculine and one feminine?
10. The architecture of the Horatii was considered manly, while the Hall of Mirrors
was considered feminine and elegant, nothing inherent in these styles requires
them to be understood in this way.
11. In another situation, the Horatii might be seen as bare and oppressive and the
E. Hall of Mirrors seen as uplifting and imaginative.
F. Rococo
1. The nobility favored decorative architecture called Rococo. Rococo elements:
a. walls and ceilings dissolve in curves
b. curves dissolve under nature based decoration
c. reflecting mirrors
d. crystal
e. silver
f. ceiling appears as open sky, birds flying from branch to branch
G. Critiquing Gender Roles
1. Gender roles are accepted and seem natural within a culture but when there are
political or social changes, the roles can become controversial.
2. People change their bodies to enhance their femininity or masculinity by:
a. Dieting
b. plastic surgery
c. implants
d. scarification
e. bindings that mold body parts
H. Hung Liu
1. Liu’s painting addresses her Chinese heritage.
2. Much of her work is based on historic photographs--mediated images--Her
pictures, often done in series, combine traditional Chinese imagery with personal
identity.
3. Artist Hung Liu examines the practice of foot binding.
 Camden 5

4. Many Chinese women’s feet were bound from birth distorting them into small,
twisted fists that were sexually attractive to men.
5. Bound feet ensured that women remain subservient.
6. Liu ties oppressive gender practices to broader political repression.
I. Trauma,
1. The woman publicly shows her bound feet
a. erotic in private,
b. public exposure was a shameful.
2. Below a dead Chinese student, killed by the Chinese government in Tiananmen
Square.
3. Liu sees the killings in Tiananmen Square as a shameful event for China
J. The Guerrilla Girls, a collective of anonymous women artists and arts professionals
protest the fewer exhibitions, jobs, and lower pay for women artists.
1. Guerrilla Girls in masks show up at galleries and museums where women were
underrepresented.
2. Their purpose is to cause exposure, embarrassment, and, eventually, change.
3. Art can point out inequities between genders within a culture.
III. CLAN
1. A clan is a group of people joined by blood or marriage ties.
A. The Extended Family
1. Art helps solidify extended families:
a. by making major ancestors available to the living clan members
b. by depicting important events in the clan’s history
c. by acting as an important element in rituals
2. Ancestors - have a major impact on the prestige of the living.
3. Ancient Romans believed their ancestry was tremendously important. They
preserved portraits of their ancestors and venerated their memory.
4. At first, ancestor portraits were death masks, made with soft wax.
5. Around the 1rst C. BCE, affluent Romans had copies of death masks made in
marble.
B. The Statue of Togata Barberini
1. Is an example of Roman portrait sculpture made for worship.
2. He is holding portrait busts that boast of his lineage.
3. To the Zapotec people of Mexico, ancestors were so important that the living
interred the dead in tombs under their houses and consulted them on problems.
4. By displaying their ancestors’ leg bones, rulers ensured their right to rule.
C. Portrait Heads
1. From a tomb in the town of Lambityeco, in Oaxaca, are life-size heads sculpted
in stucco.
2. They likely represent the founding parents of a clan, both were important as
lineage was traced through the male and female sides.
3. Ancestors provided legitimacy for rulers in this ancient culture and were
consulted on difficult matters.
D. Clan History
1. Art is instrumental in preserving clan history.
E. Interior House Post
 Camden 6

1. Is one of 4 posts carved for the Raven House of the John Scow clan of the
Northwest Coast Kwakiutl.
2. The Raven House was a lineage house; built when a new lineage was founded
because of death or marriage.
3. Art is a vehicle for clan cohesion. Sculptures like these were featured in lineage
houses and were prominent in ritual feasts when the leadership of the clan
changed.
F. Interior House Post
1. symbolism:
a. thunderbird represents a chief
b. curved beak and curved ears suggest supernatural powers
c. extra eyes on the wings and torso, imply power
d. below the thunderbird is a bear, associated with an elder or a
e. high-ranking person
2. This diagram illustrates the kinds of outlines that are basic to the design of
Pacific Northwest art.
G. Art Used in Clan Rituals
1. Clan ties are strengthened through rituals, art is an essential part of rituals.
2. The Asmat engage in elaborate rituals to pass on the life force of the deceased
clansmen to the rest of the group.
3. Carved poles called Bis or Bisj Poles, represent deceased clansmen, now called
ancestors.
4. Large sculptures such as these are associated with rituals that enhance male
power and fertility.
5. Art, ritual, and clan identity are intertwined among the Yoruba people.
6. The Epa Festival is held every other year for three days in March to promote
fertility and the well-being of the community.
H. The Epa Headdress called “Orangun”
1. used in masquerades to honor the family.
I. The Nuclear Family
1. In industrialized societies, the clan has dwindled to the nuclear family.
2. The relationships between members of a nuclear family are investigated in this
sculpture.
3. Marisol’s figures are blocks of wood, drawn on minimally carved, each
maintaining its own separateness while interlocking with the group.
4. The shoes and doors are found objects.
J. The Family
1. contrasts with the affluence of the nuclear family
2. commonly presented on U.S. television in 1962.
K. Sail Baby by Elizabeth Murray, which is an abstract painting about family life.
1. Three rounded canvases suggest the bouncy energetic bodies of infants or
children.
2. The bright colors recall the palette of childhood.
L. Baby Makes 3,
1. Expands the definition of the family. The image created by General Idea
presents a homosexual approach to the nuclear family..
 Camden 7

2. The work both pokes fun at the idea of the happy nuclear family and shows how
gays and lesbians re-create family and social structures
IV. CLASS
1. A group of people sharing the same economic, social, or ruling status comprises a
class.
2. Class boundaries are rigid in some cultures, in others, people can easily move up
or down the social ladder.
3. Art and class structure can be linked
a. by depicting members of different classes with distinctive
b. body styles and poses
c. by showing the environment, activities that mark members of a certain class
d. art can be a status item, possession indicating the class of the owner.
A. Class Status and Body Styles
1. In ancient Egypt, the body was sculpted in different ways, depending on the
person’s class.
2. Upper classes, were depicted in formal, standardized ways that indicated
importance in the social hierarchy.
3. The 4 gigantic statues at the Temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel, are examples of
official images of the pharaoh.
4. Images of the pharaoh denote his class:
enormous in scale
a. he is semi-divine
5. Repetition of the image reinforces the his grandeur and divinity
a. seated pose is frontal, composed,
b. symmetrical expressionless face,
c. staring eyes look outward in timeless serenity he body is flawless,
d. frozen in idealized,
e. youthful prime
f. projects of this kind were costly, r
g. einforcing the status of the highest classes.
6. Contrast, the Seated Scribe, with Ramses II
7. Contrast, the Seated Scribe, an Egyptian court official: lesser rank than the
pharaoh
a. sculpture is limestone,
b. inexpensive
c. more lifelike,
d. less eternal and permanent
e. less formality and idealization
f. pose is more relaxed,
g. the figure,
h. cut away from backing stone face is expressive and personalized,
i. not eternally calm and divine intelligent,
j. alert,
k. aware
l. body shows the effects of age
 Camden 8

8. CONNECTION The Egyptians were not the only people to create idealized images
of their leaders.
B. Class Activities and Lifestyles
1. Art records lifestyles of the rich and famous but also the lower classes.
2. In many cultures, art is used to define people of high rank.
3. In Europe portraits were often records of those in high positions. Only the
wealthy could afford to commission an oil painting.
4. This painting depicts the family of the Spanish monarch. In addition, because
the painting is a large and costly item, possessing it is another indicator of status.
C. Las Meninas
1. Means “Maids of Honor”
2. position:
a. her exalted
3. At the center is Infanta Margarita, in the painter’s studio.
4. The Infanta is not painted with a crown, but we understand location at the
center of the picture
a. light floods her white dress all mark her as the most important figure
b. presence of servants is also a sign of rank
c. the painting is ten and one- half feet by nine feet, a physical object this large
is a sign of rank
5. Class was also indicated by its members’ activities.
D. The Swing shows frivolous sexual escapades of the French aristocratic class mid
18th C.
1. They enjoyed wealth, privilege and had few responsibilities, Most of their power
had been assimilated by the king and their duties assumed by the middle class.
2. The aristocracy was transformed into a leisure class.
3. Rulers in many cultures are often distinguished by crowns and elaborate dress.
4. Dress and other paraphernalia are often a sign of rank.
5. Crowns are worn by high-ranking chiefs. Rank is apparent through dress by:
a. the shape of the clothing or headgear
b. the materials used
c. the decorative symbols
E. The Working Class and Middle Class
1. In cities, dense populations provide opportunities for commercialization and
specialization for merchants, skilled workers, laborers, restaurateurs,
entertainers, household workers, and others.
2. This new class was distinct from the nobility and from traditional farm laborers.
F. The Kitchen Maid shows a maid in a modest home in the Netherlands of the 17th C.
1. In this painting, the working class is elevated in dignity.
2. The mundane tasks of pouring milk and arranging bread seem almost sacred.
3. Vermeer often painted ordinary scenes from everyday life, a category of
paintings called genre painting.
4. This was part of an overall tendency in the Netherlands of the 17th C. to
emphasize and elevate middle class domestic life.
5. Compare The Kitchen Maid with Spring Festival Along the River
 Camden 9

6. A painting this size was undoubtedly commissioned by a member of the

aristocracy, and so this image represents an upper-class concept of ideal middle-
class life.
7. The wealth of details speaks of the bustle and hard work of the merchant class in
China.
G. La Grande Jatte records the increased affluence and leisure of the middle class in
Western countries.
1. The painting shows a collection of strangers outdoors on a holiday. Unlike
villagers attending a local festival, the groups do not know each other.
2. The figures are proper, composed, and orderly. Details of middle-class dress are
carefully recorded.
3. This painting depicts the middle class enjoying increased leisure time in Europe
at the end of the 19th century.
4. The painting reflects the growing emphasis on and awareness of science. Seurat
was influenced by the science of color and optics, he painted with small dots of
intense colors laid side by side in a style called Pointillism.
H. The Poor
1. Art provides a record of the poor, their way of life, their struggles.
2. Art itself, however, is a luxury, so in some cases artworks represent how the
more affluent classes saw the destitute.
I. Migrant Mother, Nipomo Valley,
1. Is one of many workers who were starving at a migrant camp.
2. The woman’s face and pose express both strength and desperation.
3. Her skin, clothes, and hair show signs of poverty.
4. Fear and uncertainty permeate the scene, we see the emotional ties of the family
and the fear of the children.
5. This is one of the most famous images of the Great Depression.
J. Art Objects That Indicate Class Status
1. Different kinds of art are often indicators of class.
2. Art objects are made for and reflect the needs and tastes of specific classes.
3. Historically in Japan, classes were kept rigidly distinct.
4. The ruling class = imperial family and the warriors.
The very poorest = the peasants.
A middle class of urban dwellers began to emerge in the mid-1600s.
5. They each developed their own cultural spheres, and art styles.
6. The warrior rulers commissioned large screens, sliding doors, and wall paintings
to lighten and decorate the dark interiors. Uji Bridge, is an example of one of
these screens.
K. Ukiyo-e
1. Prints were modest in size and produced in large numbers, the cost was within
the reach of the middleclass.
2. The ukiyo-e prints were eclectic in style, combining Japanese, Chinese and later,
Western styles.
3. Ukiyo-e prints showed generally one of three subjects:
4. Kabuki actors beautiful young women landscapes
5. Color woodblock prints were a favored art form of the Japanese merchant class.
 Camden 10

6. Komurasaki of the Tamaya Teahouse is an example of a ukiyo-e print.

L. Watts Tower,
1. Was made by a working-class man for a working-class neighborhood in Los
Angeles.
2. Simon Rodilla labored for more than thirty years to erect a nine-part sculpture,
more than 100 feet high.
3. Rodia was not academically trained as an artist, and his work does not reflect
the major art trends of his day.
4. His work was not made for an upper-class audience. As a result, many critics
place Watts Towers in categories outside of fine art.
5. These towers were built by a working-class man in his spare time, over a span of
33 years.
6. It has been variously described as folk art, outsider art, or naive art.