The myth of woman through painting
Roy Lichtenstein, Woman in in bath, 1963, exhibited at the
Thyssen-Bornemisza museum in Madrid
It is generally believed that a myth is a popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or ocurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural ideal. Thus, we can consider that women have become a myth through paintings, because they were, and they still are, a source of inspiration for many artists. Thereby, women could be seen as heroes for artists, a hero being the protagonist of a novel or a poem and, in this particular case, a work of art. Pop Art aims to integrate erotic metaphores into paintings. This movement emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s. On the one hand,it was a groundbreaking movement derived from television advertising or comics. On the other hand it was clearly oriented towards the past in its eagerness to connect with tradition, many artists are reinterpreting . According to this, they've chosen to represent women just like ancient artistic movements did. Woman is turned into an object of desire.
Woman in bath was realised by Roy Lichtenstein in 1963. The artist used primary colours (blue, red and yellow) to represent a daily scene in a comic-strip style. The feminity of the woman is emphasized thanks to her red and pulpy lips, her blue eyes and her curly hair. Contrary to older paintings like The bath of Venus by Boucher, her nudity is only suggested, which increases her sensuality. This work of art could illustrate the Myths and Heroes notion because it shows how woman is a myth in a painting context, being that artists use them as the core of their paintings. We can associate this lady to the figure of Venus, the incarnation of the ideal woman. Indeed, Venus was often represented with water around her, which can be considered as a metaphore of woman because of its fluidity and purity, hence the choice of Lichtenstein to represent a woman in a bathtub. However, Lichtenstein wanted to bring novelty to this myth by not giving any name to this particular woman so that every woman could identify herself with this incarnation of beauty. Thereby, the artist's goal may be to criticize the banality of appearances, being that the myth of beauty has to be necessarily embodied by a pulpy woman, with long hair and be half naked. Everybody has the same vision of the perfect woman, whereas every single woman has her own beauty.
Pop Art has been an important movement because of its ideas : it wanted to break with the past but also to reflect on art and on reality, on art and tradition, and on art and museums. A source of inspiration for Pop artists were the myths provided by Hollywood studios, also known as the "myth-making machine". They've chosen to reinterpret these myths in their own way, just as Lichtenstein does with the myth of woman. I personnally believe that Pop Art made art evolve, but above all, it helped us change our point of view on very famous myths. Pop Art contribued to "modern mythology", bringing novelty to very-known myths by using different forms and painting techniques like collages, comic-strips or stencils.
