Blog Assignment #1 - Gender in Art and Ads

There are three reasons for the idolization of women in art and the exploitation of women in advertisements. It has to do with the subtle difference between art and design, the changing societal norms of the perfect female figure, and the market's exploitation of these two observations.

The first reason states that there is a fine line between formal art and art created from design. Formal art tends to be tied to an author, creating a line of respect for the work and the details of that work. Design, even though it is technically considered art, is more informal and is often used for selling a product or a service. In other words, an advertisement might be an art, but it isn't as memorable due to the fact that the art is not connected to a particular artist. As a result, if there is no respect for the artist that created that memorable logo for a particular product, anything within the design can be used and exploited for marketable purposes.

The second reason states that the epitome of the perfect, beautiful woman changes over time. However, this evolutionary change does not change a work of art that was created in a different social context. In other words, the beautiful woman in a painting created in the 1600's might not appear as beautiful in our society. As a result, one might idolize a painting created in the 1600's even though he or she might not find that woman beautiful. One might argue that this reason wouldn't apply in current day art. However, knowing that the majority of the art that we view comes from different social contexts and time periods, it seems reasonable that that idolization or veneration of the female could be applied to current day art simply because we are used to doing it with most other art from different contexts. In other words, because I am used to venerating women in old art, I will do the same in current art.

The third reason is market's exploitation of the perfect woman in order to sell a product. Since there is not much respect in design on account of there being no recognizable author of a logo (for example), it would seem perfectly reasonable to use that same design (since there is minimal or no respect for it) to sell a product. The best way to sell that product would be by using the epitome of the perfect woman for market exploitation. Even further, one can use respected art and replace the out-of-date woman with today's perfect woman in further hopes of selling a product.

In summation, idolization of women in art comes from being in a different social context where beauty had different standards. It also comes from respect of the author and the work - like a female portrait - that stems from that author. Exploitation of women comes from advertisement and its lack of recognizable authorship, resulting in a minimal result for the work. This paves the way for market exploitation, specifically by selling a product by means of today's standard for the perfect woman.