I. Bodies
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Sabrina Lin, Elisha Osemobor, Sydney Reaper\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Female Body\/Nudes\u00a0 <\/b>– Elisha\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n The Ashcan and Camden Town schools were art movements which occurred simultaneously in the unique time period between the end of French Impressionism\/Post Impressionism, and the beginning of the North American boom in modernist abstraction, beginning with the 1913 Armory show where DuChamp\u2019s <\/span>Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2<\/span><\/i> was first exhibited. The art of the Ashcan and Camden Town schools works in the mode of realism with clear influences from their art historical predecessors, an important genre of which was of course, the nude female form. Although the Ashcan and Camden Town schools treat their nude subjects differently, nudes allow us to understand their shared origins.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In these six paintings, we see the artists playing with the line between nude and naked. Sickert\u2019s <\/span>Woman Washing her Hair <\/span><\/i>depicts the female body artfully bent out of frame engaged in a mundane act, a different visual experience than the traditional, posed, nude. The model\u2019s supposed unawareness makes us wonder if she is not nude, but naked. This is in direct opposition to Sloan\u2019s <\/span>Blonde Nude <\/span><\/i>or Gore\u2019s <\/span>Nude on a Bed <\/span><\/i>which, although stylistically different, are idealized studies of the female form. The two images <\/span>Nude Miss Bentham, <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Clarissa, <\/span><\/i>also play with the line between nude and naked, even though these images are clearly posed, the artists emphasize the non-beautiful contortions of their bodies. Similarly, Bellows, Gore, and Gillman eschew the traditional horizontal nude and insist upon John Fagg\u2019s definition of the \u201cfleshy\u201d,\u00a0 \u201ccorse\u201d, and\u00a0 \u201cpermeable\u201d, naked body.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Within the genre of female nude there are also images of bodies performing labor. Seen particularly in the insidious connection between female bodies and prostitution. We see this in Sickert\u2019s <\/span>A Maregno <\/span><\/i>(1903), where his two sitters, Carolina dell’Acqua and a woman called \u2018La Giuseppina\u2019, are identified as prostitutes. These works make the viewer reconsider the history of prostitution as a common practice among working-class women in relation to the derogatory post-facto label of prostitute given to many of the models and actresses who sat for painters. This form of labor connects the art historical to the modern such that we consider these works a necessary transition between our discussion of Degas, and labor in the city.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sloan, <\/span>The Cot<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sickert, <\/span>La Hollandaise<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Bellows, <\/span>Nude Miss Bentham\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sickert, <\/span>Woman Washing Her Hair<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sloan, <\/span>Election Night (print)\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sloan, <\/span>Blonde Nude\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Gore, <\/span>Nude on a Bed\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Gilman, <\/span>Clarissa\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sickert, <\/span>A Marengo<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Working Bodies <\/b>– Sabrina<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIn the measure of its expansion, the city offers more and more the decisive conditions of the division of labor. It offers a circle which through its size can absorb a highly diverse variety of services \u2026\u00a0 The individual has become a mere cog in an enormous organization of things and powers which tear from his hands all progress, spirituality, and value in order to transform them from their subjective form into the form of a purely objective life.\u201d \u2014 Georg Simmel, <\/span>The Metropolis and Mental Life,<\/span><\/i> 1903<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Realism and the body is further prevalent as Ashcan and Camden Town artists explored working-class subjects. As cities and their populations rapidly expanded, metropolitan living became defined by the circuit of labor, service, and industry workers who made up the machineries of mundane, modern life. Increasing demand for basic services and amenities stood in sharp contrast to popular images of modernization and industrialization. Working women, in particular, provided a popular genre of urban spectacle, as evidenced by Sickert\u2019s laundry girl or Gore\u2019s portrait of his cleaning woman. At the same time, depictions of working bodies reveal darker realities associated with modern labor practice, such as the nameless boy shining the shoes of fashion-forward city girls for pennies, or the overladen postman collapsing to fulfill his mission. Images of laboring bodies additionally bring forth a conversation on <\/span>affect<\/span><\/i> in Ashcan and Camden Town works\u2014Bellows\u2019s painting of immigrant workers seeking work at the Brooklyn docks, for example, offers a glimpse into the interiority and mental life of their daily existence. Realism is not a neutral condition in these scenes, but rather a deliberate visual language with which these artists engage and challenge through their use of observation and abstraction. Therefore, images of labor provide more than objective documentations of bodies at work, but rather exist at the larger confluence of gender, class, and race. Depictions of working class bodies highlight complicated issues of bodily subjectivity and larger socio-political histories embodied by these individuals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Bellows, <\/span>Men of the Docks\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Bellows, <\/span>Paddy Flanagan<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Gore, <\/span>North London Girl<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Gilman, <\/span>Black Gardener<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sickert, <\/span>Laundry Shop<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sloan, <\/span>Their Appointed Rounds<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sloan, <\/span>Shine, Washington Square<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Interior\/Exterior (Public) Bodies – Sydney<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How are bodies presented within the framework of the city? For the Camden Town Group and Ashcan School, we notice the removal of the figure from its stable position within an idealized academic formula and into more vulnerable positions. Bodies rendered by artists such as Walter Sickert and John Sloan are not idealized figures, imbued with inherent meaning derived from their art historical predecessors. Bodies depicted by both groups are clear individuals, adapting to a time and space continually hurtling towards modernity. We see these bodies as framed through some sort of vision\u2013that of the artist, citizen, or city\u2013that predominates the narrative of these individuals. These artists may use either the stage of the city or the blank slate of their studio to construct a narrative of these individuals, often inserting elusive elements that resist a neat interpretation. How may artists of the time be coming to terms with figures exercising more independence\u2013in movement, dress, sexual relations, and other manners\u2013and with the increased surveillance as a body existing in a crowded city? Does the artist try to rein them in as an art object or highlight their freedom, observing their movements from a distance, or through a window?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Gilman, <\/span>Nude at a Window<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sloan,<\/span> Sunday Afternoon Rooftop<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sloan, <\/span>Sunday, Women Drying their Hair\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sloan,<\/span> Night Windows\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sloan, <\/span>New Years Eve (print)\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sloan,<\/span> A Window on the Street<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sloan, <\/span>Subway Stairs<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sickert, <\/span>A Poet and His Muse<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sickert, <\/span>Fancy Dress, Miss Beerbohm\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sickert, <\/span>The Studio: The Painting of a Nude<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Sickert, <\/span>The Honorable Lady Fry<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n —-<\/span><\/p>\n II. The Environment \u00a0Emily Jacobs, Holly Lyne, Ramiro Storni, Harrison West\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n
\nTheme:Bodies<\/a><\/p>\n
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