From earliest childhood she has been taught and persuaded to survey herself continually.Īnd so she comes to consider the surveyor and the surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman. Whilst she is walking across a room or whilst she is weeping at the death of her father, she can scarcely avoid envisaging herself walking or weeping. She is almost continually accompanied by her own image of herself. But this has been at the cost of a woman's self being split into two. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. Presence for a woman is so intrinsic to her person that men tend to think of it as an almost physical emanation, a kind of heat or smell or aura. Her presence is manifest in her gestures, voice, opinions, expressions, clothes, chosen surroundings, taste - indeed there is nothing she can do which does not contribute to her presence. But the pretence is always towards a power which he exercises on others.īy contrast, a woman's presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her.
His presence may be fabricated, in the sense that he pretends to b capable of what he is not. A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you. The promised power may be moral, physical, temperamental, economic, social, sexual - but its object is always exterior to the man. If it is small or incredible, he is found to have little presence. If the promise is large and credible his presence is striking. A man's presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies. While I looked at the woman's reflection, I saw that the mirror was a very dark purple and black, indicating that the room behind her was dark.According to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome, the social presence of a woman is different in kind from that of a man. For example, outside of the window is very light so there are many shades of yellow and white used to represent that, while the room that the woman is in is actually very dark. Ĭolor to portray different shades of light coming through the woman's window. The short diagonal brushstrokes are smeared together to form a picture of a woman glancing at her reflection through a handheld mirror while sitting at her vanity. This piece is roughly 3 feet by 3.5 feet, and has a lot of texture due to the oil paint that is used.
This painting captures a lot of natural light, colorful gardens, and a contrasting violet and yellow color palette. Sunbath shows a young woman in tranquility while deep in thought.
To experience this demystification for myself, I faced hundreds of paintings and began this process by choosing a painting by Edward Richard Miller, titled Sunbath. Berger claims that the way to demystify and make these paintings speak is to learn to ask "the right questions of the past" (167). When interpreting paintings, it is important that the silence is removed so that the viewer is no longer mystified by the silence and stillness and is able to successfully form a relationship with the artwork. However, to demystify and interpret a meaning depends on what questions the painting is approached with in order to turn a silent painting into one that intrigues the viewer and entices conversation. Art is mystified, meaning that it is impossible to understand art and know its history without also understanding the present, and that whatever we see corresponds to our perspective and what we previously know about our art experiences. Art tends to be a pleasure that one must interpret for themselves by getting the art to speak.
In John Berger's "Ways of Seeing," he discusses the mystification of art.
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