Unit 7: Our World – Nature, the Body, Identity, Sexuality, Politics, and Power
In this unit, we explore how artists express and interpret our world. If nothing else, visual art provides an avenue for self-expression. As a primary source of inspiration, artists express attitudes, feelings, and sentiments about their environment through personal experiences, social interaction, and relationships with the natural world. In short, art helps us perceive and react to our place in the world. In Unit 1, we referred to description as one of many roles art adopts, but description is often imbued with the artist's subjective take on the world. In this unit, we examine how art operates as a vehicle for human expression – a kind of collective visual metaphor that helps us define who we are.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 2 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- explain how using animals and other natural phenomena in art offers clues to cultural differences; and
- explain how political art uses nature, the body, identity, sexuality, politics, and power for public reflection.
7.1: Identity
We typically associate identity in art with forms of portraiture or representations of human bodies and faces. Artists convey information about their human subjects through expression and pose. We often respond directly to art's language of identity based on our familiarity with human representation in our everyday lives. Sometimes, deeper cultural meanings are obscured and require additional narrative and analysis for understanding. In this section, we focus on art and identity, which is a recurring theme in this course.
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Read this chapter for an in-depth discussion on this aspect of art. Make sure you can identify the ways artists use identity as a source for their material.
7.2: Self-Portraits
Self-portraits indicate an artist's inward gaze as they present a view of themselves to the world. The representation of self may bear a close resemblance to sensory experience (such as a photograph based on similar optical principles as the eyes), or they may seem highly abstract (for example, when an artist uses patterns of DNA sequences to reflect a new kind of contemporary portrait of the self). Part of our role as those who experience art is to come to grips with the kinds of self-knowledge we can obtain from works of art.
7.3: The Natural World
Nature and the objects of nature (such as landscapes, animals, or flora) have been a source of artistic inspiration for as long as history. Think of the animals depicted in cave paintings in France many thousands of years ago. This natural subject matter can range from highly-idealized and stylized imagery, such as animals representing gods and the force of nature, to a very different kind of aesthetic treatment, such as in scientific illustrations grounded in the accuracy of representation.
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Read this article, which introduces how the natural world has inspired artists throughout time.
7.4: Social, Collaborative, and Political Art
Artworks are often grounded in themes, such as when an artist wants to make a particular or generalized statement about their social or political situation. For example, they may borrow from thematic material to challenge certain political beliefs or activities. During artistic forms of social discourse, debates rage about sex and power, politics and violence, and nature and the body. Artworks take creative positions in the public space. You can see examples in almost every form of artistic expression, including poetry, plays, film, murals, paintings, and popular music.
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Read this text which describes the role art can play in society and how artists often collaborate to amplify and extend the reach of their message.
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Read this text which explains how artists often depict their experiences in politics, conflict, and war in their works of art. They become documents, signifiers, and symbols of power, remembrance, culture, and national pride.
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Wartime typically gives rise to memorials that serve as vessels of remembrance of those who died. These memorials provide touchstones for families, friends, communities, and entire nations to grieve. As works of art, they offer a public space to honor and remember the lives and sacrifices of those who fought during the war. Read this text to see some examples.
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Artworks that engender ideas of peace and tranquility take many forms. View some excellent examples in this text.
Unit 7 Assessment
- Receive a grade
Take this assessment to see how well you understood this unit.
- This assessment does not count towards your grade. It is just for practice!
- You will see the correct answers when you submit your answers. Use this to help you study for the final exam!
- You can take this assessment as many times as you want, whenever you want.