Synopses & Reviews
In Eyes of Love, Stephen Kern offers a bold reinterpretation of women in art and literature. He shows that the frequent recurrence of the "Proposal Composition"in English and French nineteenth-century paintings and novels challenges assumptions about "the gaze"that women are merely passive erotic objects, while men are active erotic subjects. The eyes of women express a more varied range of thoughts than those of men, and convey more profound emotions.
Synopsis
The Eyes of Love challenges accepted theories of the controlling male gaze. Examining a pattern of gaze that recurs frequently in English and French paintings and novels of the second half of the nineteenth century, Stephen Kern contends that the eyes of women are more visible, look out into a wider world, consider a more varied range of thoughts, and convey more profound emotions than the eyes of men.
Synopsis
Eyes of Love argues against a widely held theory about "the gaze" - that women are merely passive erotic objects, while men are active erotic subjects.
"Stephen Kern focuses our attention on eyes and the meaning they convey. This simple idea, here brilliantly developed, uncovers patterns of composition which unite the French Impressionists with late Victorian artists."—The Independent
About the Author
Stephen Kern is Professor in the History Department at Ohio State University, Ohio, USA.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Meeting
2. Recreation
3. Working
4. The Nude
5. Prostitution
6. Seduction
7. Rescue
8. Marriage
Conclusion
References
Photographic Acknowledgements
Index