Politics and Aesthetics of the Female Form, 1908-1918 [electronic resource] /
Williams, Georgina.author.
This book examines the pictorial representation of women in Great Britain both before and during the First World War. It focuses in particular on imagery related to suffrage movements, recruitment campaigns connected to the war, advertising, and Modernist art movements including Vorticism. This investigation not only considers the image as a whole, but also assesses tropes and constructs as objects contained within, both literal and metaphorical. In this way visual genealogical threads including the female figure as an ideal and William Hogarth’s 'line of beauty' are explored, and their legacies assessed and followed through into the twenty-first century. Georgina Williams contributes to debates surrounding the deliberate and inadvertent dismissal of women’s roles throughout history, through literature and imagery. This book also considers how absence of a pictorial manifestation of the female form in visual culture can be as important as her presence.
1. Introduction: Women in the Frame -- 2. The Reshaping of Society and the Rise of the Avant-Gardes -- 3. Inside and Outside the Frame: The Female Figure as Subject and Artist -- 4. The Politics of Aesthetics and the Woman Question -- 5. From Presence to Absence: Exploiting Female Sexuality in Visual Culture -- 6. A Visual Genealogy: Tracing the Threads as Nodes Within a Network -- 7. Women in the Frame: To Be Concluded -- Index.
This book examines the pictorial representation of women in Great Britain both before and during the First World War. It focuses in particular on imagery related to suffrage movements, recruitment campaigns connected to the war, advertising, and Modernist art movements including Vorticism. This investigation not only considers the image as a whole, but also assesses tropes and constructs as objects contained within, both literal and metaphorical. In this way visual genealogical threads including the female figure as an ideal and William Hogarth’s 'line of beauty' are explored, and their legacies assessed and followed through into the twenty-first century. Georgina Williams contributes to debates surrounding the deliberate and inadvertent dismissal of women’s roles throughout history, through literature and imagery. This book also considers how absence of a pictorial manifestation of the female form in visual culture can be as important as her presence.
Great Britain—History.
Women.
Social history.
Europe—History—1492-.
Civilization—History.
History of Britain and Ireland.
Women's Studies.
Social History.
History of Modern Europe.
Cultural History.