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Etched images of the human form in relation to society and environment

The vitality of the human figure has been an unending source of curiosity for artists from the beginning to now. Although many artists have focused their creativity to searching for the perfect, in fact, beautiful, human form, others have striven to convey the human experience within the spirit of their own era. The latter is true of this creative project, which has addressed the following problem: hog: could large-scale intaglio printmaking be used to 02arify the negative impact our rigid contemporary notion of beauty can have on individual women? The project was inspired by the work of Kaethe Kollwitz, German artist of the early 20th century whc used her technical drawing skills to translate her knowledge of war and famine shattered women into forceful lithographs and etchings. The insight she Portrayed vividly combined her intensely personal vision the Vicious events of her times: social commentary at its finest.The significance of the project has been, first of all, its benefit to myself, the artist. The journey which I undertook through historical research on Kollwitz; conceptual investigation of women and rigid norms for beauty; and extension of my technical expertise as an etcher-has produced insights about creating art that are invaluable to the mature artist. The second significance involves the viewer, whom I hope reconsiders the images of women displayed in contemporary society.The project’s five large-scale etchings of the female figure portray in a series my ideas about roles women are expected to assume in contemporary American society. These ideas unfolded especially during the creation of the first and second etchings.The report of the project deals extensively with the drawing and etching techniques used for each print; a description of each of the works; the ideas which inspired the content of the works; how these ideas were transformed into visual images; and the technical competencies that I acquired while working through each plate. / Department of Art

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/185196
Date January 1995
CreatorsSteele, Nancy Joanne
ContributorsBall State University. Dept. of Art., Johnson, Sarojini Jha
Source SetsBall State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Formatvi, 92 leaves : ill. (some col.) ; 28 cm.
SourceVirtual Press

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