Alice Gribbin's essay makes art feel like something I can simply meet—no pretense, no academic scaffolding, just my lived experience, my senses, my eyes. She reminds me that engagement itself is enough, that I don't need permission or authority to have a relationship with what I see. Her argument feels both revelatory and inevitable, as if she's articulating something so fundamentally true that it's been waiting just beneath the surface of our conversations about art. Art isn't a puzzle to be solved or a text to be decoded, but a living experience to be encountered with full attention and open perception.
This essay inspires and reassures in equal measure. In 2017, I abandoned an MA in photography at a highly-regarded college. Everything, I was told, was power swaddled in discourse. My male gaze, and every other datum of myself, was ipso facto suspect. No amount of sackcloth and ashes would be sufficient. I didn't pick up a camera again until last summer. For the previous years, taking pictures had been re-upsetting, a shutter release for unhappy memories.
Thrilled to see this serious discussion about the potential for figurative work, which has been problematized in all the ways you describe. I work with a figurative sculptor who creates work in a wide variety of styles and IMO treats the subject with respect and dignity. He focusses more on male figures, but when he chooses to portray the female it is for powerful reasons. This video covers an installation he did of a suspended kinetic sculpture at a local hospital. We've received incredibly moving feedback from patients who find the artwork empowering and soothing as they navigate their health journeys. https://youtu.be/ZBShqgyvuNM?si=eVBOBMPURHqUdkZa
He doesn't tend to pursue 'beauty' in his figures, but I see his work as striving for potentiality. In some cases I think that the less refined, less realistic style that he often sculpts can offer a broader interpretive bandwidth than the more classical ones. It's always a fine balance.
I get a front row view to seeing how he grapples with people's assumptions about the 'gaze' and the different ways male and female forms land to the viewer. It's incredibly fraught, but it's clear to me that our collectors and visitors get a lot of value from seeing humanity reflected in their artwork in an embodied way.
Fantastically written. Bookmarking it so I can come back and re-read later. And I love your counter to the discussion of the male gaze. Much to think about!
As complete and devastating a misunderstanding of John Berger as I’ve ever encountered. The argument here is bizarre and full of false dichotomies. The notion that looking and visual pleasure are somehow neutral, divorced from issues of power, agency, privilege and ideology is nonsense. Berger, and others like him, aren’t telling us not to use our eyes or gain pleasure from the act of seeing. Quite the contrary. They want us to see more clearly, to look beyond the surface, to understand when we look, rather than be seduced by what we see into a kind of passive, voyeuristic fantasy of visual consumption. To dismiss dedicated scholars, life-long art lovers and makers like Berger, as kill-joy theorists is a gross misrepresentation, academically lazy and disingenuous.
I am glad I live more or less removed from the discourse of the modern world with regards to art and enjoy it more in the way you describe it, viscerally, religiously, as an encounter with the sublime human form and our highest potential. Thank you for this wonderful piece of writing that i will refer to again.
(they put up a colourful reproduction of Klimt's "medicine" mural in Vienna last year, which I very much enjoyed seeing in person)
My thoughts precisely. Not only does Berger, in his examination and critique of the function the nude in European oil paintings, refuse to employ such petty absolutism wherein the nude is exclusively for some oppressive male consumption, he quite literally gives examples where this is obviously not the case (I remember Reubens specifically). Unserious and though-stopping work by an author more interested in exalting her own taste than engaging with curiosity and critique.
I enjoyed this read. I do believe it’s not an either/or situation, but rather both/and. The human body is amazing in its own right — idealized or not. However, agency is relevant and a component in representation.
I find the first-person plural here bewildering. Is the author using the royal “we”? For example, to whom does this refer: “We are greedy and honest.” I don’t see myself in that. This peculiar stylistic choice made it very difficult for me to follow the argument.
This was a riotous evisceration of everything wrong with the way we’ve been trained to talk about art. The merciless takedown of Berger and his descendants, the gleeful disregard for academic handwringing, the refusal to pretend art exists for some committee-approved discourse-industrial complex: chef’s kiss.
Also, the sheer nerve of dismissing half a century of feminist critique with “their hang-ups are not ours” is so audacious I almost stood up and clapped. Not that I disagree. The whole piece reads like a smirking rebuke to the idea that art exists to be “questioned” rather than witnessed. Loved it.
As an artist myself the subject of the figurative nude whether in painting or sculpture is an act of intense focus on planes, perspective, value and composition. The act is a study. The outcome is an expression of that study, channeled through how the artist sees the world. Art will naturally stimulate such discussions because to be human is to perceive through the lower senses until such time as they joined by a higher consciousness. The following article Art, Perception and The Piss Christ highlights the use of perception in art and how it creates debate and dissension. https://open.substack.com/pub/gavinchalcraft/p/art-perception-and-the-piss-christ?r=s3qz0&utm_medium=ios
I rarely write comments. But I am compelled to do so here. I studied art history at university in the 80s and I vividly recall a tutorial dedicated to Manet's Olympia. In our small group of around 10 were two vicious feminists. They tore into the painting. They decreed that Manet hated women and that this work was pure misogyny. Their agenda was all that mattered. They weren't interested in technique, skill, feeling or aesthetics. I disagreed but (sadly) lacked the confidence to argue. 40 years later, this idiotic way of appraising art is the default. It's everywhere. It's wrong. And it's really f**king BORING. I really hope the tide is turning. Thanks for writing a wonderful essay.
“Vicious feminists”? ‘Olympia’ is a fascinating painting but not primarily because of its technique or ‘aesthetic’. I wasn’t in your seminar but I hope there was some discussion about the exchange of looks in the painting (and in other Impressionist pictures), and the assumed identity of the viewer. Some knowledge of the sexual politics of late 19th century Paris is useful in understanding Manet’s work, surely? Or are you arguing that it’s enough for a 21st century viewer to just look at ‘Olympia’, completely divorced from its historical context?
It is noteworthy that in antiquity, the nude was mass-reproduced on coins through molds and dies, whereas books—lengthy written works—never were. This suggests that the mass production of the nude predates the mechanical duplication of literature by at least a millennium. Notably, both coinage and texts required initial craftsmanship, but only the former lent itself to mechanical reproduction rather than laborious reiteration. Given the sophistication of Greek science and philosophy—evidenced by artifacts such as the Antikythera mechanism—this absence of mass-produced texts seems less a technological shortcoming than a reflection of cultural priorities. While the nude emerged as the quintessential public image, scientific and philosophical writings remained singular, rare, and perhaps intentionally esoteric.
This is great. A much more academic essay to my own, which really is about two of my current projects: the female gaze and portrait of a man. I’m wondering what the female gaze might be in mine… can send you the link if you’re interested or you can find it somewhere in my profile I’m sure
Alice Gribbin's essay makes art feel like something I can simply meet—no pretense, no academic scaffolding, just my lived experience, my senses, my eyes. She reminds me that engagement itself is enough, that I don't need permission or authority to have a relationship with what I see. Her argument feels both revelatory and inevitable, as if she's articulating something so fundamentally true that it's been waiting just beneath the surface of our conversations about art. Art isn't a puzzle to be solved or a text to be decoded, but a living experience to be encountered with full attention and open perception.
This essay inspires and reassures in equal measure. In 2017, I abandoned an MA in photography at a highly-regarded college. Everything, I was told, was power swaddled in discourse. My male gaze, and every other datum of myself, was ipso facto suspect. No amount of sackcloth and ashes would be sufficient. I didn't pick up a camera again until last summer. For the previous years, taking pictures had been re-upsetting, a shutter release for unhappy memories.
Thrilled to see this serious discussion about the potential for figurative work, which has been problematized in all the ways you describe. I work with a figurative sculptor who creates work in a wide variety of styles and IMO treats the subject with respect and dignity. He focusses more on male figures, but when he chooses to portray the female it is for powerful reasons. This video covers an installation he did of a suspended kinetic sculpture at a local hospital. We've received incredibly moving feedback from patients who find the artwork empowering and soothing as they navigate their health journeys. https://youtu.be/ZBShqgyvuNM?si=eVBOBMPURHqUdkZa
He doesn't tend to pursue 'beauty' in his figures, but I see his work as striving for potentiality. In some cases I think that the less refined, less realistic style that he often sculpts can offer a broader interpretive bandwidth than the more classical ones. It's always a fine balance.
I get a front row view to seeing how he grapples with people's assumptions about the 'gaze' and the different ways male and female forms land to the viewer. It's incredibly fraught, but it's clear to me that our collectors and visitors get a lot of value from seeing humanity reflected in their artwork in an embodied way.
Thank you for your article.
Fantastically written. Bookmarking it so I can come back and re-read later. And I love your counter to the discussion of the male gaze. Much to think about!
hell yeah
you are a hero
As complete and devastating a misunderstanding of John Berger as I’ve ever encountered. The argument here is bizarre and full of false dichotomies. The notion that looking and visual pleasure are somehow neutral, divorced from issues of power, agency, privilege and ideology is nonsense. Berger, and others like him, aren’t telling us not to use our eyes or gain pleasure from the act of seeing. Quite the contrary. They want us to see more clearly, to look beyond the surface, to understand when we look, rather than be seduced by what we see into a kind of passive, voyeuristic fantasy of visual consumption. To dismiss dedicated scholars, life-long art lovers and makers like Berger, as kill-joy theorists is a gross misrepresentation, academically lazy and disingenuous.
I am glad I live more or less removed from the discourse of the modern world with regards to art and enjoy it more in the way you describe it, viscerally, religiously, as an encounter with the sublime human form and our highest potential. Thank you for this wonderful piece of writing that i will refer to again.
(they put up a colourful reproduction of Klimt's "medicine" mural in Vienna last year, which I very much enjoyed seeing in person)
My thoughts precisely. Not only does Berger, in his examination and critique of the function the nude in European oil paintings, refuse to employ such petty absolutism wherein the nude is exclusively for some oppressive male consumption, he quite literally gives examples where this is obviously not the case (I remember Reubens specifically). Unserious and though-stopping work by an author more interested in exalting her own taste than engaging with curiosity and critique.
Good to see new writing from you, Alice!
I enjoyed this read. I do believe it’s not an either/or situation, but rather both/and. The human body is amazing in its own right — idealized or not. However, agency is relevant and a component in representation.
I find the first-person plural here bewildering. Is the author using the royal “we”? For example, to whom does this refer: “We are greedy and honest.” I don’t see myself in that. This peculiar stylistic choice made it very difficult for me to follow the argument.
This was a riotous evisceration of everything wrong with the way we’ve been trained to talk about art. The merciless takedown of Berger and his descendants, the gleeful disregard for academic handwringing, the refusal to pretend art exists for some committee-approved discourse-industrial complex: chef’s kiss.
Also, the sheer nerve of dismissing half a century of feminist critique with “their hang-ups are not ours” is so audacious I almost stood up and clapped. Not that I disagree. The whole piece reads like a smirking rebuke to the idea that art exists to be “questioned” rather than witnessed. Loved it.
As an artist myself the subject of the figurative nude whether in painting or sculpture is an act of intense focus on planes, perspective, value and composition. The act is a study. The outcome is an expression of that study, channeled through how the artist sees the world. Art will naturally stimulate such discussions because to be human is to perceive through the lower senses until such time as they joined by a higher consciousness. The following article Art, Perception and The Piss Christ highlights the use of perception in art and how it creates debate and dissension. https://open.substack.com/pub/gavinchalcraft/p/art-perception-and-the-piss-christ?r=s3qz0&utm_medium=ios
I rarely write comments. But I am compelled to do so here. I studied art history at university in the 80s and I vividly recall a tutorial dedicated to Manet's Olympia. In our small group of around 10 were two vicious feminists. They tore into the painting. They decreed that Manet hated women and that this work was pure misogyny. Their agenda was all that mattered. They weren't interested in technique, skill, feeling or aesthetics. I disagreed but (sadly) lacked the confidence to argue. 40 years later, this idiotic way of appraising art is the default. It's everywhere. It's wrong. And it's really f**king BORING. I really hope the tide is turning. Thanks for writing a wonderful essay.
“Vicious feminists”? ‘Olympia’ is a fascinating painting but not primarily because of its technique or ‘aesthetic’. I wasn’t in your seminar but I hope there was some discussion about the exchange of looks in the painting (and in other Impressionist pictures), and the assumed identity of the viewer. Some knowledge of the sexual politics of late 19th century Paris is useful in understanding Manet’s work, surely? Or are you arguing that it’s enough for a 21st century viewer to just look at ‘Olympia’, completely divorced from its historical context?
It is noteworthy that in antiquity, the nude was mass-reproduced on coins through molds and dies, whereas books—lengthy written works—never were. This suggests that the mass production of the nude predates the mechanical duplication of literature by at least a millennium. Notably, both coinage and texts required initial craftsmanship, but only the former lent itself to mechanical reproduction rather than laborious reiteration. Given the sophistication of Greek science and philosophy—evidenced by artifacts such as the Antikythera mechanism—this absence of mass-produced texts seems less a technological shortcoming than a reflection of cultural priorities. While the nude emerged as the quintessential public image, scientific and philosophical writings remained singular, rare, and perhaps intentionally esoteric.
This is great. A much more academic essay to my own, which really is about two of my current projects: the female gaze and portrait of a man. I’m wondering what the female gaze might be in mine… can send you the link if you’re interested or you can find it somewhere in my profile I’m sure