Art History Lecture

Serious Topics

Virtuous bodies, liberated bodies: the representation of bodies in the 19th and 20th centuries. From the 19th to the 20th century, the representation of the body evolved alongside social transformations. In the 19th century, the bourgeoisie imposed strict control over female, working-class and peasant bodies through rigid dress codes, including crinolines, corsets and dark clothing, reflecting moral restraint and social hierarchy. The 20th century marked a break: social changes liberated silhouettes, shaped by sport and shortened fashions. Art also changed through Cubism, African influences and Freudian discoveries about the unconscious; the body became a creative medium in its own right in contemporary art, as a vehicle for expression and assertion. Each era thus reinvents the image of the body, between constraint and emancipation.