Women In Art

There are many places around Saint Louis full of art, any piece of which could be analyzed and critiqued through a feminist lens. However, I think it is important, as students of SLU, to analyze the art directly on our very campus. There are statues all around campus outside, and even more pieces of art inside almost every building. I focused on the statues outside throughout our campus due to my sheer familiarity with them from seeing them all the time. I have pictured here this statue between Griesideck Hall and Grand Boulevard. This statue is right there in the open and is seen by thousands throughout any given day. It is fairly simple, however upon analysis one can notice that it may be too simple, meaning it gives directly into every stereotype that it realistically could in this situation. I understand that the purpose of this particular assignment was to analyze women in art, however even the man's depiction goes along with what we've learned. The man and woman have a child, and as expected, the woman is holding the child. Going beyond that, the woman appears to be rather fixated on the child, certainly depicting her likely nurturing relationship with the child. Additionally, the man in the statue is holding the woman. The women looks directly at the child she is holding, showing possession to an extent but also love and concern. The man is holding the woman, certainly in a manner that could hint at possession, but is also looking away. This doesn't need to be entirely interpreted as negative, but if not, then it most likely must be interpreted as the man looking into the distance either intuitively (displaying curiosity and intelligence that the woman is not) or literally watching for danger (implying that the woman needs protecting). It is assumed that the woman will protect the child and the man protects the woman as the sole owner of his very family. In my opinion and experience, the most important thing when it comes to complete awareness isn't critiquing the obvious, but consistently analyzing everything in order to notice the little thing that others may not. This statue is right there in the center of campus, and certainly seems harmless (and I'm sure it never had any harmful intent), but is absolutely riddled with stereotypical gender based undertones.