Sociology paper

Sarah Alsharqi

Deviant bodies

October 2, 2017

Bodies coin many meanings, since the beginning of humanity, bodies were represented in many attributes they could be seen as spiritual, sociological, or biological figures, we could tell many stories by just observing one’s body.

As I began my exploring the art pieces, that were displayed in the Denver Art museum, the most recurring theme that stood out to me of the 15th and 14th century was religion, it is pretty apparent how dominant religion was during that time period, and how religion influenced a lot of almost every artist’s work that I have observed.

I started from the sixth floor where they kept all of the ancient european art pieces and paintings, since the artists were most likely influenced by religion their artwork, mainly consisted of a mother holding a child, the mother being Merry the virgin and the child was jesus, whenever their was a man’s body in the picture most likely the man figure was holding a sword or was dressed in a warly fashion, it was hard to tell who the men in the paintings were supposed to be, but from my understanding they are protectors of jesus, men who had significant roles in Jesus’s life.

Bodies were seen as spiritual figures, the roles men and women were showcased in those paintings were in traditionalistic religious attributes, females; mothers; child bearers; modest; domestic, men; warriors; strong; masculine; protectors.

Aside from religious paintings, I tried to get a glimpse of family portraits of that era, interestingly I had found that women were always sitting down as opposed to men who were regularly standing up in those portraits, next to the women who is holding a child, it was very hard to find an art piece where a man for instance was holding a child, and there was no art piece that had a woman standing up and a man sitting down, I associated the standing positions to power dynamics, a man standing resembles his role in the family as the protector, as for women sitting down next to the man standing up to some extent mirrors the inferiority of the woman, needing to be protected by a man who will stand up for this family.