Untitled (#228), from the History Portraits series
Cindy Sherman. Rome, Italy. 1990 C.E. Photograph
She draws attention to the staged and often mannered nature of historical portrait paintings, while also playfully mocking the discipline of art history.
Theme:
Feminism, Identity, Past/Re-imagination
Form:
Seems to be a 7ft high oil painting of Biblical heroine Judith holding the head of Holofernes (16th century Europe esc) - actually photograph recreating the scene
Function:
Photographs feel familiar and original, contemporary and classic, and create a feeling of unsettled anxiety in the audience. (Story of Judith, a woman using her sexuality to kill Holofernes, also provoked anxiety)
Content:
Judith looks out at audience, head of Holofernes in right hand, dagger in left; dressed in red (lust, seduction, and blood), blue, and green drapery in front of a curtain of brocaded/patterned fabric; head tilted slightly to left and stands on carpet of green grass w/ flowers (Botticelli esc) - makeup is tacky, fabrics are cheap and head looks like a Halloween mask (gives away); head and feet are cropped - Judith can't be contained by image
Context:
Known for embodying/enacting images from popular media - photographed herself as Judith (devout widow who saves Israelites from Assyrian general by befriending him and visiting his tent one night while he is drunk - decapitates him) - created History Portraits in Rome, but only referenced reproductions in books (utilized only what's available to any person); Feminist Movement in America - never intentionally made feminist art; not self-portraits
MODERN PAINTING AND SCULPTURE
- 1950's = new medium = acrylic
- dry faster
- dont change color when dried
- BUT they crack faster
- oil is still preferred
- also many abandoned the canvas for a computer screen
- marble carving = dead
- modern forms of sculpture are faster to produced and reproduce
- assemblages: sculptors made of objects
- installations: large assemblages; can take up a whole room
- NJ born = American
- artist = photographer, subject, costumer, hairdresser, and makeup artist for each
- FUNCTION comments on gender, identity, society, and class distinction
- modern light on great masters FORM
- uses old master paintings as inspiration
- CONTENT: Judith decapitating Holofernes = this image inspiration
- richness of costuming and setting = commentary on late 19th C versions of the story
- richly decorative drapes = background
- Judith lacks emotion / reaction to the murder
- Holofernes = mask like, alert, nearly bloodless
- Monticello, Thomas Jefferson
- Dancing at the Louvre, Ringgold
- The Swing, Shinobare
