|
Description:
|
This study investigates how well Lacanian psychoanalytic Gaze theory integrates with traditional art historical approaches , and evaluates the interpretive potential of this combined method when applied to western figurative paintings . Gaze theory's flexibility and adaptability are explored in three diverse situations and the meanings it uncovers are compared to those produced through iconography and iconology . Finally , the integration of Gaze theory , historical context , and iconography creates a "nuanced Gaze" capable of embracing the individuality of artist , audience , and subject , while encompassing the evidence offered by the painting as a unique object .
Chapter II focuses upon Titian's Lucrezia Romana Violata da Tarquinio (ca . 1568 - 1571 ) , which depicts a man and woman from a legendary Roman story ; Chapter III considers John Singleton Copley's double portrait Mr . and Mrs . Thomas Mifflin (1773 ) ; and Chapter IV examines Mary Cassatt's quasi -portrait of a solitary introspective woman , Study of a Woman with a Fan (Miss Mary Ellison ) (ca . 1878 ) , viewing the painting against a contextual screen built by first considering several Cassatt works in which Mary Ellison appears anonymously in a theater loge . Among the issues considered within these three chapters are the role of narrative , gendered subject -object relationships , public and private space , and both social and artistic desire .
Employing the nuanced Gaze as a method for interpretation exposes the painted image , not as a seamless representation , but rather as a crafted surface whose inconsistencies mark traces of desire . The nuanced Gaze also illuminates how an individual composition combines with historical context to reveal the gendered and social positioning and interaction of internal and external "viewers ," a cast of gazing characters that includes the painted subject (s ) , the artist , and the work's original audience . For each of the artworks studied in this investigation , the meanings discovered through the application of a nuanced Gaze theory are richer and more complex than those produced by iconography or unmodified Gaze theory alone . This result indicates that the nuanced Gaze does form an effective tool for interpreting western figurative paintings |