“Art Has Always Been a Mirror of Society. Art Reflects Society, Art Criticizes It, and Art Always Offers Solutions to Problems in Society.”

2710 Words11 Pages
“Art has always been a mirror of society. Art reflects society, art criticizes it, and art always offers solutions to problems in society.”Senam Okudzeto A civilization is constructed of numerous societies, where people with differing characteristics abide by shared customs, laws and philosophies. Subsequently, each individual faces a compromise to their ideals and Art is the bi product of this suppression, a challenge to and analysis of the surrounding community. Despite a piece of work being unchanged in itself, these continual alterations produce a vast array of expressionism, from feminist critics to Peter Rubens, whose work mirrored that of the majority of societal views. In particular, this essay will be focused around the human form, and the impact that the concept of 'idealism' has on the Artist in relation to their era. I will assess the progression from the late 16th century, where the voluminous female is projected as an image of aspiration, while this same form is almost satirised by Jenny Saville as she 'wasn't interested in admired or idealized beauty’(The Guardian, Suzie Mackenzie, Saturday 22 October 2005). Saville aims at criticising the modern image being projected by Bernando Torrens, and instead of portraying the female form as an image of beauty she hyperbolises their features to a grotesque nature to shock the viewer into realisation of the extent of their self exaggeration. Influenced by the male perspective of women, Saville portrays not how women have been painted as sexual objects in previous art history but aims to 'paint women as most women see themselves'(The Independent, Hunter Davies, Tuesday 01 March 1994). Her youth coincided with the aerobics and diet obsession of the 1980’s, this era in particular epitomized the influence of media. For the first time the fashion trends were influenced by body image, further increasing
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