Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Jan. 14, 2003: Museum Hijinks

The only Georgia O'Keefe was displayed in a hallway near a door, where it is not only easy to overlook but probably faces numerous temperature changes.

The female Impressionists, such as Mary Cassatt, were displayed in a dark nook that was easy to overlook.

The few women's paintings were scattered here and there throughout the museum. Even fewer of those had signs explaining anything about the artist or the work. They were practically anonymous.

There were women in the museum, to be sure. That is, if you count the many nudes that we saw. In this area, women clearly outranked the men. Outstripped them, I guess you could say.

But although these nudes were frequently of larger women than society currently finds acceptable, they were still unrealistic: large, curvy women with minuscule waists and perky breasts.

To give you an example of what I'm talking about, here's one of the museum's prized paintings: The Bathers by Renoir.

Nice plus-sized women, yes. But look at those perky breasts! And they didn't even have plastic surgery back then! Artist's license?

Here's what the painting might look like if it showed more realistic women.

All right, so I'm no Renoir. But you get the idea. And they're still beautiful, right?

But this illustration just goes to show that even in the days before media, women's bodies were held to unrealistic standards. But what about the men? Keeping in mind that it's primarily men's artwork that gets displayed in museums, did they set unrealistic standards for themselves?

Take a look at Michelangelo's David.

Cute, isn't he? Muscular, yes. Nice hair, too. But putting this in the gentlest possible terms, it would be a rare, rare man who wouldn't look at this statue's attributes and feel better about himself.

Putting this in the crudest possible terms, talk about a teeny weenie! I mean, how old is David? Five?

Thinking about this topic, and about the virtual invisibility of a real woman's voice in mainstream art museums, I was not at all surprised when we visited the Brancusi section of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and I saw this sculpture, Princess X:

Yeah, that just about says it all.

Other thoughts on the Philadelphia Museum of Art:

April 15, 2003 - Dance Dreams of Degas

November 17, 2003 - Culture Break

June 2, 2004 - Impressions of the Sea

Moral:
If you want to build web site traffic, include the terms "perky breasts" and "teeny weenie."

Copyright 2003 by Alyce Wilson

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