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My investigation of women artists and their status in society today as a result of the feminist movement, revealed issues which, I felt, were multifaceted. This necessitated an exploration of many aspects in order to arrive at a fairly satisfactory conclusion as to whether the revolt and the aggression on the part of the feminists had borne any fruit, either generally in everyday life, or artistically. It has proved most stimulating and informative. I think that the need to assess oneself as a woman, working within a male-dominated creative environment is a very necessary process and one which has been most beneficial to me. The subsequent research revealed that a radical, thematic change had occured within the feminist movement at the start of the Eighties; a fact of which, till recently, I was largely unaware. What I discovered was that the militant, feminist approach of the Sixties and Seventies had given way to a more realistic involvement brought on partly by the economic recession and the effects as well of earlier feminist movements, leading to a relaxation on the part of the younger generation. The Violence had faded. Hard times curbed the excesses of the movement and took it along the road to practicality. Dovetailed to this and seeming to run concurrently was the phenomenon of the demise of the Modern Art Movement. These changes described were not only artistic and feminist, but cut right across the board. involving all facets of life. To take one as an example. the political with conservatism reinstating itself in America not merely as an alternative but as a worthwhile direction in itself. Other issues included the sociological, historical, biological, and cultural; all closely interwoven and therefore requiring some generalisations at times. Previous to becoming involved with my topic, I had been reacting to pre-conceived ideas laid on me as a student in the Sixties and Seventies - a militant, aggressive approach acquired as a protective shield, to deal with the masculine environment which denigrated in varying degrees mine and fellow female artists work, sometimes overtly, sometimes subconsciously. This discrimination, is usually denied as ever having existed by the men involved. It shows a lack of awareness of what, we, as female art students, were subjected to. This is one of the main reasons why I undertook this subject; partly out of interest and perhaps partly as some sort of catharsis.

It would be wrong to suggest that this essay is in any way a comprehensive study of brutal sculpture. Certainly not. There have been many deliberate omissions for reasons which become clear in the text. Very briefly, omissions of certain sculptors and their work are largely due to my wish to avoid repetitive ideas and images. My view in this essay is to provide a cross-section of ideas and works, whereby the reader might gain some insight into the varied nature of this kind of sculpture. Thus, there seemed very little need for endless similarities of concept and expression. It was the diversity which I felt was important. The chapter which discusses concepts of beauty is also not a comprehensive study. This subject demands more than a humble essay to do it any justice. However, my reasons for touching the vague and controversial outline of these concepts were, primarily, to suggest that notions of beauty as the sole criterion in the judgement of art are too limiting, and, consequently, to introduce the concept of vitalism, which I believe is more valid. Finally, I wish to mention the personal motive behind this work. Over the years, I have witnessed the emergence of brutal elements in my own work, which I found disturbing at times. I have never been able to answer satisfactorily the criticism I've received. All I knew was that these things came from a very deep source. It is with this in mind that I embarked on this project, hoping to achieve two things. Firstly, to provide an objective survey of an important development in art, and, secondly , to answer some of my criticism. Foreword, p. 1.

In this essay eroticism will be examined as it appears in some twentieth century representational styles. The decision to concentrate on the representational styles is based on the fact that eroticism is by nature incompatible with the non-representational or non-objective movements in art. This incompatibility is rooted in the knowledge that eroticism is intrinsically and fundamentally a human experience and could therefore find expression only in an art which is concerned with human experience, i.e. experiences which refer to man, his nature and his relation to Nature. It would be oversimplified and grossly inaccurate to equate the nonrepresentational with the abstract, abstraction being an element present in all art to a greater or lesser degree. However, when abstraction has reached the stage where it can define its aims, as, in the words of Kandinsky, "widening the separation between the domain of art and the domain of Nature", (Lake & Maillard: A Dictionary of Modern Painting, p. 1) then it may also approach the realm of the non-representational. When Michel Seupher states, "I call abstract art all art that does not recall or evoke reality", (Lake & Maillard: A Dictionary of Modern Painting, p. 136) abstract and nonrepresentational art becomes fused into an inseparable unity. Erotic expression will then be incompatible with this degree of abstraction. Intro., p. 1.

[From Introduction]. Prior to 1800 advances made in painting could often be accredited to the advances made in paint technology. Since the beginning of the last century however, paint technology has stabilised, moved into the background and allowed the artist to create with the medium rather than be dictated to by it. This stabilising of art technology has also generated a lack of interest in technique, leading in turn to a number of painting techniques being lost. In some ways we know less today of the oil medium and its correct use than was known to Jan and Hubert Van Eyck and their followers. However, if this lack of concern with technique has produced a large number of valid artistic statements which are unlikely to survive physically, it also means that the hoardes of painters who painted technically perfect paintings with no valid art statement have dwindled as well.

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That period in Canada, between 1935 and 1955, which encompasses a pre-war depression, a world war, a post-war period of disillusionment, and the beginning of a time of affluence and intellectual expansion, has left an impressive fund of poetry recording the emotional response of Canadians to the turbulence of these years. At the beginning of this period, the poetry is asserting its independence from the derivative poetry of the earlier Canadian poets, and the end of the period, has already introduced the new mythopoeic mode which dominates the recent literary scene. The major themes of the poetry of this period are directly related to the historical events of the time. In Chapter I, the poetry of social protest is examined in detail. A group of exclusively critical poems, unexperimental in technique, is balanced by a group of more sympathetic ones, employing more of the characteristics of the new poetry. Many poems of social protest indicate an enduring hope for a better future, but those poems dominate this tradition, which incorporate a decidedly revolutionary program. The ultimate solution, however varying the degrees of action may be, is man's own responsibility. Chapter II presents poems inspired by World War II. The initial distrust of the war is replaced by despair. The loss of love, life, security, and meaning is explored in introspective, sensitive poems, as concerned with the emotions on the battlefield, as those in the empty home. The hope for a better future is found in love, courage, or endurance, and the final victory evokes both faith and distrust in its reality. The psychological interest in the individual in a postwar world has produced a number of poems examined in Chapter III. By this time, the poets are already employing new forms with comparative freedom, and this poetry reflects the flexibility demanded by an interest in the complexities of human psychology. The tensions between the need for people, and the need to be alone are as convincingly presented as those between the desire to be loved, and the desire to be independent. The tedium of daily existence creates its peculiar cyclic metaphor, manipulated by many of the poets in a variety of ways. The psychology of abnormality preoccupies a few poems, but a fairly general statement of faith in humanity is characteristic of all of this work. In this chapter, the psychological responses in several of Pratt's poems are examined, along with a brief discussion of his relationship to the rest of the Canadian poetry. Chapter IV examines the poetry which very definitely uses myth as structure, and discusses, very briefly, the mythopoeic poetry after 1955. The favourite structural myth, the fertility cycle, is accompanied by the various aspects of the quest myth. A curiously ironical inversion of the apocalyptic vision indicates that the Canadian mythopoeic poets cannot be expected to be conventional. This study leads to the ultimate conclusion that the Canadian poetry of this twenty year period is a related, but disunified group of fragments, directly connected with the chronological events of the period, but never merging into a clear stream of poetry which flows through these years. The chief reasons for this are explored in the conclusion. A. selective bibliography of the poetry published in Canada between 1935 and 1955 is appended. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate