Dwayne Coleman M00240700
Essay Assignment
FNA 1930
Tutor: Stewart Martin
Figure 1 Jenny Saville, Branded.
In this essay I will be looking at the painter Jenny Saville and her painting Branded (Fig.1) I will be discussing what issues it raises, what I see in this painting I see in other artists’ work and what other writer feel and have said about the work, wether I agree or not. I will be also discussing how and why the work is so important and interesting to me and how I feel when I view this piece. It is to be hoped that in this essay I will be able to make clear my opinions on her work.
The painting that I will be referring to, is a self portrait of Jenny Saville, The grand size of 7 x 6 foot is something that I aspire to. This being a portrait interests me the most, out of any other reason that I can pick out. Saville is one the most respected portrait painters of her era, and I have been following her work ever since I realized that I wanted to be a portrait painter. Who better to do this essay on? All of her work captures me however I favor this painting in particular. I am sure that it is the amount of flesh she has managed to squeeze into the painting without making it look out of proportion or without making the colours too plain and beige. I love the boldness of her painting, they are very in-your-face, they stand out and are never shameful. The brave paintings are an inanimate role model to me, inspirations. In my own work I have looked at tabloids and how they plaster so called ‘perfect girls’ all over the media. Saville has raised ideas about what a woman should look like in her work and what is the perfect woman. Her portraits of obese women are a celebration of women who aren’t stick thin. In the work ‘Branded’ there are words that have been etched into the painting, ‘ironic’ words like ‘support’, and ‘decorative’1 shows the differences in the average woman's body and the woman's body which is on the forefront of the media. I have always liked her ideas, subconsciously putting them into play in my work. In this painting she has been brave enough to use her self as the model, I admire this. The painting makes me look at larger women in a different way. Although, I still do not find them attractive I do not look down on them in anyway, or feel that they are lower then any of the people that are not over weight.
I absolutely love melancholy tone of the whole painting. The colours are not screaming in your face but are subtle, giving the main figure a chance to shine through. I like how she has controlled to figure to become so dominating with no amount activity. I feel the painting is borderline still life, or some type of science illustration looking at the real human body. The background is cold, I imagine much like an operating theater, this was most probably not the case in Saville's mind but this is the way I view the piece. The way the painting has focused on her torso, has emphasized the figure, made the issue she is trying to put across more visible. The fact that she has used herself in the painting and has obviously ( I have saw the original image of her and she isn't a large woman), painted her self a lot larger which is a statement in itself. She must believe in herself and her own opinions so much so, that she is willing to throw herself out there on the battle ground of society, and fight for the cause of the obese female. This is what I admire the most.
Shearer West writes, ‘Saville does not draw attention to her identity in the same way as artist's such as Sherman and Emin have done’ 2 . I feel that this is correct, Saville has thrown her physical figure out there, confronting the stick like models and standing up for the overweight woman. Tracy Emin has put her self out there also, but subtly making work based on her abortion as a young woman. Just like in Saville’s painting she has thrown herself in at the deep end. With a campaign that is written all over her body. ‘Saville finds a way of making the viewer question their own body exceptions, about their own body perfections by facing the reality of an imperfect body’3 I feel that this quote is correct too. Before I learnt the meaning behind the paintings I didn't think about what I felt a perfect body was. Now being familiar to these paintings I, ( to a certain extent), support what this painting stands for. I can now see that these ‘perfect models’ are sprawled over the media. I am sure that many of the viewers that have witnessed, have thought the same thing, and admire the painting not just what it believes in but the skill needed to produce such a piece. Jenny Saville has been compared to many of the great painters, this piece has been considered to have the same ‘features’4 as Lucien Freud. Freud also paints many naked women, and has painted his fair share of overweight women. Freud has a similar colour pallet to saville, but I do not think that the same issues are raised in his paintings.
Shearer West wrote ‘The large physical dimensions of her work mean that the viewers not able to avoid confronting a body type that they may have been conditioned to find undesirable’5 I agree that the shear size of ‘Branded” is completely overwhelming, the fact that as a society were brought up, to think that women shouldn't be overweight, that to be overweight is to be ugly and undesirable. Children are bullied because of weight issues also. So when you see “branded’ people are quite shocked, and sometimes disgusted to see a naked woman of that size celebrated. The fact that it is an eight foot tall painting of an obese naked woman, and that its going against what most people in Britain believe in, doesn't sit well with a lot of viewers of this piece. If it was a painting of a glamour model, it would be in my opinion shallow, and the whole juxda position would be off balance. The British public are known for not being the most expressive about nudity, so it is shocking for it to be so popular in the British portrait world.
‘In Branded, Saville produces a similar effect, at the end of the twentieth century. The body formerly hidden from has been fully exposed to the viewer.’6 Here Sidonie Smith is saying that Saville exposed the large human for to the public. Wether or not the public was ready for it didn't matt
er to saville. In the quote before it say thats the body had been formerly ‘hidden’ i feel is true but only to the extent of the overweight woman. Skinny, fake breasted, botox injected women was all already out there, Saville just put the over weight woman on the map.Figure 2 Lucien Fruid, Naked Ambition , 1995
In this painting as I said before I see and other people see Lucian Freud's essence, in his ‘Naked Ambition’ (Fig.2) you can see hints of the same colour pallet, and you can see that it is also and overweight woman. Even-though Branded was painted before Naked Ambition you can clearly see where Saville has got her inspiration from. Saville has used different ways of painting in her painting, she has used splashed, dynamic brush strokes, bold colours, but in Branded it is a much smoother style, remembering that the painting was produced right at the beginning of her career and her style has obviously developed since then. The painting looks more like a Renaissance painting. Were there was not a sight of stick thin women, with fake attachments and photoshop.
The painting makes people realize the realities of what is out there, there are obese women, why can’t they be seen as beautiful. In the painting Saville is tugging on her own flesh. I feel that is saying something “this is real” or “ I am all human” the gesture of her tugging on her own flesh is the only action happening in the painting, it is quite subtle but shouldn't be missed. The painting doesn't just make us look at female form differently and make us reassess what we think beauty is, but it also makes us question ourselves, and wether we are beautiful, and weather we have been shallow, and ignoring, women of that size all our lives.
Figure 3 Jo Spence, Exile.
In Generations & geographies in the visual arts By Griselda Pollock. Saville’s Branded is compared to Jo Spences photograph titled Exiled (Fig.3), I feel that both works are expressing very similar emotions, both have writing on their bodies, both are making a statement about appearances and what is the true idea of beauty. One is a painting and on is a photography, one is an idea expressed on to a canvass, and one is a photo of a real life woman. I do not feel that it matters what medium you are trying to put your ideas across maybe be some ways are more powerful than others. Maybe a photo is more powerful because it is like you are looking at the subject for you self. I feel that this painting is just as powerful as any photograph, it is so large how could it not be? The painting stands up for women and and defend people to be individuals and not be ‘perfect.' I do not see why some people may find it offensive, or disgusting, when the paining as fighting for people to be who they are.
I feel that the painting at it time, was a quite a breakthrough, it was clearly openly advertising obese women. The overweight naked woman wasn't really to be scene in popular culture, but the painting was a large risk and it was a gutsy move. Other artists had painted naked women in the past, Lucien Freud, Stanley Spencer and Da Vinci but none of them were painting super obese, deformed women, and saying that this is also beauty.
The YBA’s (young British Artists) were getting highly recognized around the time branded, was released. Saville was considered a ‘leading Young British Artist’ her work was inevitably getting more known and popular. Young artists were been given a chance to prove themselves as professional artists. All of Saville's work was brought by Charles saatchi. This goes to show how good her work really is.
I have looked at why the work is important to me, and have looked at what emotions it has raised for me. I have looked at what other writer have considered about this piece and wether I felt the same way or not. I feel that i have brought up some ideas of what issues it has raised and what I can see in this what I see in other artists. It is to be hoped that I have made my points clear and persuaded you the reader to think about some of my ideas.
Bibliography
en.wikipedia.org
google.com
Jenny Saville
By Jenny Saville, John Gray, Linda Mochlin, Simon Schama
Edition: illustrated
Published by Rizzoli, 2005
Generations & geographies in the visual arts: feminist readings
By Griselda Pollock
Edition: illustrated
Published by Routledge, 1996
Portraiture
By Shearer West
Edition: illustrated
Published by Oxford University Press, 2004
Interfaces: women, autobiography, image, performance
By Sidonie Smith, Julia Watson
Contributor Sidonie Smith
Edition: illustrated
Published by University of Michigan Press, 2002
Notes
1Portraiture By Shearer West (Oxford University Press), 2004, page 214
2 Portraiture By Shearer West (Oxford University Press), 2004, page 214
3 Portraiture By Shearer West (Oxford University Press), 2004, page 214
4 Portraiture By Shearer West (Oxford University Press), 2004, page 214
5 Portraiture By Shearer West (Oxford University Press), 2004, page 214
6 Interfaces: women, autobiography, image, performanceBy Sidonie Smith, Julia Watson (University of Michigan Press), 2002
