Women's Role in Art
Of the nine paintings by Feynman presented in the February issue of Physics Today (1989), six of them are drawings of one woman. From those figures, it is not difficult to see Feynman was following the well-established tradition in art. Let us see how other artists used women.-
Ancient Greeks established the tradition of using female bodies to
create three-dimensional art objects.
-
Renaissance artists transformed those three-dimensional
objects two dimensional paintings.
- Leonardo Da Vinci observed
that ladies are more than their physical appearances. You should read
their minds.
- Indeed, the women became more than their appearances. French
impressionists used them quite successfully to represent affluent
lifestyle. Then there comes the Picasso revolution.
- According to Picasso,
a charming woman looks like this statue on the Campus of Princeton University.
Picasso is addressing something profound beyond the appearance of woman, but
I am not able to say anything about this statue other than I like Picasso, as
indicated in my art pages.
Yet, it is well known that Picasso in his early years was a strict conformist.
His ladies looked like Venus, and his bulls looked like bulls. What went wrong
with him or what went right with him? People are still studying this important
evolutionary process.
- Would technologies have impacts on future forms of art? Motion pictures!
Can you tell who this lady is? She is Vivien Leigh who acted as Scarlett O'Hara in the Gone with the Wind. If you compare these two images, we are led to the Old Testament again. A man cannot be complete without a woman. Likewise, a woman cannot be complete without a man. This is the basis for modern cinema art. These days, life without cinema is unthinkable.
- There was another technological revolution. Digital cameras and
internet webpages! This allows everybody to become an artist. You
do not have to be a professional artist to produce artistic photos.
In ancient Greece, it took the entire life of one artist to construct
a statue shown on this webpage. These days, one can take 1000 photos
choose one which best expresses what you want to address.
In addition, it is possible to transmit your chosen photos to everybody wishing to see. Thanks to internet technology, this is a trivial job.
In the meantime, we can have the following observations.
- The museum buildings of this world are too small, and the ultimate museum should be the entire world if not the entire universe.
- Art objects with life are far more precious than static objects which cannot talk back. When I photograph men or women, I record their hearts and minds. When Feynman was drawing pictures, Feynman must have had this in mind.
copyright@2007 by Y. S. Kim, unless otherwise specified.
Photos from the Gone with the Wind are from the "Story of the Gone with the Wind" (National Publishers, New York, 1967).
