On The Image Of Women Under Women Artists' Brushes

This paper discusses the differences of the image of women depicted by male artists and female artists, which is one of the focuses in the art field. Throughout the art history of both the West and China, male artists take up the greater part, with extremely trifling female artists, while female characters play the leading role in their artworks.Female art is the art that describes the body, the dress and the deportment of women. It also includes the display of the spirit and significance of women. One part of the art is about the description of the image of women. But apart from conveying the information about women, in fact, the artists show their own spirit, attitudes and judgment by means of their art images, no matter it is realistic or exaggerated.Traditionally, the social civilization and leading role of male taste determine that the image of women is described by men, a situation that has remained for thousands and hundreds of years and may even last longer. The image of women described by male artists reflects men's knowledge about women, becomeing a important part of the spiritual construction of men. It often describes a virtual world of female lives and spirit, displaying men's libido to women. Under the brushes of male artists, the images of women fall into such categories as following. For example, the Virgin Mary, they worship her; belles and peri, they enjoy them and there are even dissolute women and devils for them to curse to release their disaffection. These diff erent words are used to express men's conception and attitudes towards women, that is androcentrism.Until 50's and 60's last century, the movement of women's rights in full swing, female artists appeared on the historical stage, using their own words to express women themselves in their own way. There are magic realism female artists telling their own story; there are artists who give the right judgment to the heroines like Susaner and Zodis, and the brave girls who fight against the gender discrimination; women artists who use the body art to break out of an encirclement of the feminism art, even the women artists who explore the unconventional materials.In the past, the image of traditional women is beautiful, graceful, soft, submissive...which has been most often depicted as the feminine beauty in artworks, while in the western history of art, feminine beauty has been ideally molded as everlasting youth and fairness. Therefore, it occurs to the women artists that it's a taboo under the background of patriarchy to topple the conventional feminine image to present their real self as women. To have their own say, some choose to challenge the conventional social criteria with the most aggressive body language, singing their own bodies and confirm their libido with words of their own instead of men's. Others employ metaphoric devices to express their own feminine physical and psychological experience, exploring their and the society's attitudes towards women. It has become a power and metaphor, independent of men's dominant position, for women to express themselves in language and such devices. It's the women artists' unanimous voice to present the truth loyal to themselves in front of the public. In spite of all the hardships, they keep striving to explore their own space with sufficient courage, confidence and critical reason.