Reading Response 1

If Greek sculptors had based their work on the population, instead of the ideal, how different would our society be today? Could we see the Nude Woman (Venus of Willendorf) for what it is, a fertility symbol, or would we still see it in distaste? Our western society’s concept of ‘good’ art usually incorporates idealness, something not anyone could achieve. On Instagram, you can see a majority of popular models are the ‘ideal’ body type of our society, thin. We love the Mona Lisa because she is beautiful, not because of the skill of the artist, but because we see her physical appearance as ‘ideal’. That’s a reason society felt so outraged when Duchamp released L.H.O.O.Q, not because he had defaced a replication of a famous painting, but because it felt as if he was insulting her, by adding facial hair he had made her no longer beautiful, which our society considers being an insult. Without the influence from Greek artists, I would like to believe we would base our art from the general population, which would further cement the idea that “everything is art”. Without representation in the arts, you can’t consider someone like you to be art, therefore you yourself is not art. Some might say this would take away the awe of seeing art, of seeing the beauty in it. I disagree, I think you would just see that awe on a more daily basis, without having to travel to the Louvre to see a painting, you can look at someone else, or even yourself, and feel that awe.

“The Power of Art.” The Power of Art, by Richard Lewis and Susan I. Lewis, /Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2014, pp. 7–15.