The Power of the Gaze in Modern Art

THE POWER OF THE GAZE IN MODERN ART NAME INSTRUCTOR COURSE DATE The Power of the Gaze in Modern Art Modern art has put much emphasis on the gaze. Now, more than ever, the focal point of art images lies in the gaze. Kripts argues that the gaze can disempower or empower a subject depending on the message that one wants to send. The focus on the eyes lies in the fact that they have the power to desire, intimidate, and observe and it is continuously used to serve a purpose. Some variables are considered when manifesting the power of the gaze. It is important to consider whether one is the object or the subject of the gaze. The gaze can be considered either active or passive and depending on the context; it can help to draw different emotions. In this essay, I am going to look at the power of the gaze in modern art.[Krips, H. (2010). The politics of the gaze: Foucault, Lacan and Žižek. Culture Unbound: Journal of Current Cultural Research, 2(1), 91-102.] Meaning of Gaze In film theory, gaze has been used to refer to the way that people look at an image. It also refers to the way people look at their objects or subjects in any given text. The concept of gaze determines how the audience views the characters and people that are presented before them. The rise in postmodern social theory and philosophy saw a rise in the concept of the gaze. There are several forms of gaze. The first is the spectator’s gaze which refers to the gaze of the people viewing an image. The second is the intra-diegetic gaze which refers to the gaze of one person that has been depicted at another person. The third type of gaze is the direct gaze which is the gaze of a person that has been depicted in a text. These people are normally the subject. The final gaze refers to the “look at the camera” which is the way the camera itself looks at the people. Gazes can be taken at different angles. The most common angles are the oblique and the front angles. In the oblique angle, the subject is normally parallel to you while in the front angle, the subject is in front of you. When high angles are used, it is meant to make the subject look smaller than they are, but it makes them look less powerful or superior. Some people argue that high angles show that the person has more power over the person that has been depicted. Low angle shows that the person depicted has more power over the viewers and the person producing the image. The look on the camera is what makes the gaze, and it is the filmmaker or the photographer that is responsible for it. Gaze helps to have some form of relationship with the text. The shot that has been taken will determine the kind of relationship that is built. The kind of shot taken gives a different meaning to a gaze. Therefore, a gaze must establish a relationship between the viewer and the subject.[Kleminski, A. (2006). CSI: The new face of the male gaze. Global Media Journal, 5(9), 1-14.] A gaze can have power, especially when the object looks at us straight in the eyes. It is the one that catches the most attention and creates an atmosphere of seriousness. We also have social gazing and intimate gazing. Social gazing helps to create a calmer environment and gives an invitation to the other party. Some gazes appear to invite intimacy. This has been used on most cover magazines and films to draw the attention of the viewers to the sexuality of the women covered. While there is a great attempt to move from this practice, it is a big doubt if this will be possible because even the public is more attracted to the female gender in their near nude form, sexily looking at them. Art will not be able to separate itself from the gaze. Therefore, the argument that the concept of the gaze derails art is a little misplaced. However, the concern is whether the spectator's gaze should continue to be a part of the art. In our societies, our social structures are determined by our economic relations. When one owns the money, it would be assumed to have autonomy and power. The power associated with the male sex has seen women left a little behind in terms of their representation. Even in art, they still make up a significantly lower number. For this reason, “gaze” has been used continuously in the art to give women some kind of power. In art, the gaze is continuously used as a way of communicating. The gaze is used continuously to transmit information and make the viewer arrive at an assumption. The gaze has become important in establishing a link between the viewer and the art object being viewed. It gives the viewer the ability to hold some kind of power of what they are viewing. The rise of modernism as seen much focus placed on the visual medium. Feminists argue that art was historically the domain of men. In most artwork, the women are normally nude while the men are clothed. The men seem to have some kind of authority while the gaze of the women appears as an invitation. The way the female sex has been portrayed in paintings has been to serve the pleasure of men mainly because all the paintings were done by men. In this regard, the male gaze seems to tell the women how they are supposed to look if they want to be approved by the males NOTEREF _Ref2538941 \f \h 2. Further, it appears to tell the women that their body is not their own and it is entitled to the men around them for pleasure and desire.[Bowles, K. (2009). Is the male gaze theory evident in audience members of today’s society viewing modern ballet and high modernist/post modern dance challenging the existing assumptions? (Doctoral dissertation, University of Wales Institute Cardiff).] The Male Gaze According to Mulvey In the article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Mulvey talks about how the most popular cinemas tend to show patriarchal views by using the male gazes through psychoanalysis method. She tries to explain why men in these movies tend to react the way they do. Her work can be compared to that of Carter with her novel “The Bloody Chamber.” While Mulvey put much focus on explaining why men react the way they, Cater tends to go further by analyzing why men react to different gazes. Mulvey notes that we are in a world that is dominated by sexual unbalance where the pleasure gained in looking has been split between the female/passive and the male/active NOTEREF _Ref2538594 \f \h 2. She further notes that the male gaze “projects its fantasy” into the figures of the female which has to be styled accordingly to fit what would be desirable to the male. In the traditional pattern, women are normally looked at and displayed in a coded appearance so that they can have a strong visual impact that can draw an erotic response from the male. According to Mulvey, the way modern films are constructed to assume that the male observer is heterosexual. Therefore, scopophilia (the pleasure gained in looking) and the urge to meet the sexual needs of the heterosexual observers is the role that women are given today. In modern art, women are also expected to gain pleasure from watching, but for them to gain this pleasure, they must watch as if they are men NOTEREF _Ref2538594 \f \h 2. Therefore, this gives the women the role of passive objects of the “male heterosexual observers."[Mulvey, L. (1989). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. In Visual and other pleasures (pp. 14-26). Palgrave Macmillan, London.] On the other hand, males are active subjects. The pose that women take should display their bodies to meet the pleasures of the males. Most poses taken by ladies focus on their expressions that are meant to acknowledge that they are being stared at. According to Muley, the cinemas today act as the medium for the male subjects to continue their dominance over the female subjects. The male subjects can easily identify with the dominant gazes of the camera. The male gaze is allowed to fantasize upon the female figures who are immobilized and idealized. Therefore, the women are supposed to be looked at, and as such, they are put on display. The gaze of the women is both regulated by the male and the camera. Therefore, the female can only identify with themselves as objects. Therefore, according to Mulvey, the cinema is dominated by a gendered gaze that determines the person that sees and the person that is, and that the gaze is used by the males to continue their domination.[McAllister, M. P., & DeCarvalho, L. J. (2014). Sexualized branded entertainment and the male consumer gaze. tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique. Open Access Journal for a Global Sustainable Information Society, 12(1), 299-314.] The Gaze Today Concern on the implications of the gaze has increased in the twenty-first century. Most p...