Women

I wonder why Frank suggests turning the sound off? Although it is good that way too:

Comments

[Heidi]

I think the music is lovely, as is the video.

[Frank Paynter]

For me the 18th century strings create a framework that is distracting. The aural matrix freezes the visual in a largely inappropriate context. I know what I mean by that, opaque as it seems! :-)

Jean, I wonder if you would find the same cloying balance of sexism if you turned the sound off. Probably. The subjects chosen for the work were not madonnas or women of age and stature, but rather young and generally beautiful women. Regardless, beauty is where we find it, and I can imagine a montage of landscapes morphing in and out of each other that would be quite nice, but different from the montage of generally privileged white female subjects we are treated to here.

Reducing all of the paintings represented here to head-shots certainly shifts the work to an intention different from that of any of the individual artists. It strips out wonderful detail that is extraneous to the digital artists needs.

All-in-all I think the graphic content here is striking, but the sound track seems an afterthought.

[Jean]

Yes, I wonder why, since it is lovely Bach and certainly not intrusive>

A friend sent me a link to this recently and a long discussion ensued.

I'm hugely impressed with the film technically and aesthetically, but I can't say I enjoyed watching it.

I find the blending of all the women's faces into one face, one deeply provocative gaze, and the way they all seem to loom towards me as if for an aggressive, unmutual kiss really quite unpleasant and upsetting.

It's like an apotheosis of everything one fears about the ultimate sexism of Western paintings of women through the ages: the male gaze on woman as a sexual object.

In fact, I know and like a number of the paintings featured, and individually they strike me as much more than that, but I do not like the overall effect achieved here.