04/10/22 – 08/11/22
This course showed the diverse ways in which women were portrayed in Western, Asian and Japanese art, from the earliest Egyptian Graeco-Roman depictions of beauty to the goddesses of myths and legends in Japan and China; from the entertainers of theatre and the heroines of wars to the educated poets and writers of the aristocracy; from stereotypes and the perceived ‘slavery of beauty’ to individual freedoms and liberation depicted in tattoos and ‘body awareness’ throughout the world and in different cultures from Japan to Maori to Africa. Questions such as ‘What is the truth in beauty?’ were addressed through a wide ranging selection of images that inspired participants to think about how we perceive beauty, how it was portrayed in history, in the mass media, and what that meant in today’s multicultural societies.