B (1)

In Ancient Greek culture, the classical idealized human body was presented vividly through sculptures and paintings. Among men, masculinity was a crucial aspect that was synonymous with all the naked sculptures done in the Greek culture. A good example is The Laocoonwhich displays a masculine male together with his sons. However, even though they are physicallydisabled, they struggle to ensure that they overcome the snake that threatened their lives. Since the father appears masculine with a broad chest, one can conclude that he was highly likely to protect his sons. In all these sculptures, the figures were either naked or half-naked. In this culture, nakedness was viewed as the best way to show the vital parts that make up the human body both in males and females, which also distinguish the two sexes.On the side of females, “Venus de Milo”portrayed a standing nude woman who showed a slender body that was viewed as an ideal female body although she had no arms. The hands seem to have been cut off when she was still young since the wounds appear to have healed completely.

B (2)

Nowadays, the way celebrities are being depicted tends to suggest that they are a reference point for beauty. Mostly, female celebrities such as Kim Kardashian affect the way young girls want to be considered as beautiful through weird forms of dressing that expose a large section of their skin to the public. I think that even though this is viewed to be sexy and the new normal, there is a need to ensure that the young or adolescent girls value dignity and dress up well while avoiding the use of makeup to appear beautiful in the eyes of the public. Unfortunately, this does not seem to happen in a world that mainstream media also rallies for such dress codes and the description of beauty. Compared to the 1950s and 60s where a person’s identity was tied to his or her job, nowadays, men and women would like to look like celebrities due to the development of social media which brought out the narcissism behavior. I believe that this is also a factor of a white-washed popular culture among both women and men. Similarly, men are attracted to masculine men who have well-built, athletic bodies while most of them despise the overweight ones. This, therefore, has affected the depiction of the ideal human body in the current world.

B (3)

In the 21^st century, we rarely see artworks with missing limbs or damaged body parts. However, this was common in the Ancient Greek whereby disabled art was viewed as a way of explaining how some parts of the human body went missing after an incidence such as war. In my view, after seeing the disabled art for the first time, I believed that the loss of arms and limbs was as a result of war (Jackson 31). This is because many soldiers in different parts of the world have been rendered disabled after being wounded in wars or conflicts. Thus, I considered the representations from the Disability Visual Slide Show and the given article as outcomes of accidents. A good example is “Venus de Milo” done by Alexandros of Antioch, which represents the goddess of love (Moore 103). The curved body is accompanied by hands which appear to have been cut off. Regardless of this, the body seems to be okay, and I concluded that this was done intentionally to show how beauty exists among those who are disabled and that the face and the soft skin of a woman lead to the idea of appearance and the sexual attraction that they command. Another artwork is “Laocoön and His Sons” done by Agesandro, Polydoros and Athendoros. The disabled characters struggle to fight off a snake and the masculine father figure is the center of attention and he helps his sons. This goes against the claim the people with disabilities are not able to defend themselves.

B (4)

In disability aesthetics, it is evident that the artists fail to recognize the representation of a healthy body. Instead, this form of art helps the views to understand how disability is seen from the chosen perspective which breaks away from the norm. After checking the slide numbers #8, #9, #10 to #11 from The Disability Aesthetic Slide Show, I found out that one feels some sympathy towards the subjects compared to the situation in healthy ones (Disability Aesthetics 1). Also, when the sculpture portrays a disabled figure, the viewers turn to other aspects of beauty aside from the health or the entire body. For example, in the “Venus de Milo,” although the woman does not have hands, her facial representation show how she is beautiful and seemingly calm. The sculpture attracts the attention of the viewers more than when she was a healthy lady. This shows that disability aesthetics have a different way of approaching elements of beauty and this could easily be drawn from the ideology that perfection does not exist in nature. Therefore, it tells us to recognize those who suffer from various physical disabilities in their lives and most of the artworks are done by immobilized artists.

Works Cited

Disability Aesthetics 1. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHyvnGA-jOY&t=2s

Jackson, Cassandra. “Visualizing Slavery: Photography and the Disabled Subject in the Art of Carrie Mae Weems.” Blackness and Disability: Critical Examinations and Cultural Interventions (2011): 31-46.

Moore, Leroy. Black Art History 101. (2016).

Moore, Leroy. Black Disabled Man Music Video Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwMzyHdJFfc

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