Art as a Mirror of Society

Paper Summary:

This paper looks at how people view art. It states that when viewing any work of art, one immediately begins to make sense of the image in terms of how it relates to the world one knows, as well as what one has been taught about history. Not only does society seem to influence the ways in which art is produced - society is often reflected in the works of art itself. Along these lines, this paper aims to answer the question of whether or not people use ancient artifacts that pre-date written culture as a means of "reading" the society that existed during that era. In the case of ancient artifacts such as the "Venus of Willendorf," ultimately modern analysis can only guess by relating the piece's history to modern ideas of what gender might have signified to ancient prehistoric civilizations. However - in the case of Manet - people are able to get a better view of the ways that society and art impacted one another through the use of primary and secondary sources. In contrast between the Venus and Manet's pieces, it can be said that the relationship between art and society is in fact conditioned by a third factor, which is the main subject of this paper - that of history. Without all the written records of the 19th century that have been kept, people might have no way of knowing what they are looking at when they study a Manet painting. Furthermore, "works" - or, perhaps more aptly, artifacts - such as the Venus thus cause people to reconsider what the true definition of art is.

Outline:
The Venus of Willendorf: Women in the Stone Age
Manet's Paris
Women in Manet's Art
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"Manet's painting was firmly rooted in Paris of the mid-19th century. It is thus not difficult for us to get a glimpse of what society was like in that time and place by looking at Manet's paintings. Looking at the Venus of Willendorf, however, does not tell us anything about the society that it is a relic of. It thus requires us to use our intellects and our imaginations in order to piece together an explanation that might satisfy us personally, but can never be held up as a firm example, as we can with Manet's paintings. Thus, it can be said that the relationship between art and society is in fact conditioned by a third factor, which has been the main subject of our inquiry - that of history. Without all the written records of the 19th century that have been kept, we might have no way of knowing what we are looking at when we study a Manet painting. This truth comes to the surface when we look at the Venus, which comes from a period that pre-dated all known forms of writing."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bachofen, J. J. 1992, Myth, Religion, and Mother Right, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
• Baring, A. & Cashford, J. 1991, The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image, Viking, New York.
• Clark, K. 1956, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
• Darwin, C. 2006, On the Origin of Species: By Means of Natural Selection, Dover Publications, New York.
• Dobres, M. A. 1996, "Venus Figurines" in The Oxford Companion to Archaeology, ed. B. M.

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