Author Archives: Sigifredo Gil

Blog Post #2

As John Berger states throughout the video, the paintings in the Renaissance era are merely submissions to the male eye and really just a sight for the man viewing these paintings. While yes, the paintings of the women depicted in the paintings shown were pleasuring and stimulating the male audience, I’d refute that women today are being objectified similar to the ones in the painting. Now, especially in the world of social media and the modern world, women have more of a say and are free to do as they please. If they are posed in a way where they’re half naked, it’ll be due to their confidence. A woman who’s confident dresses how she wants to dress, not because of how a male views them. Or perhaps it’s what they rely on for their livelihood. Take modeling as an example. Women certainly do have a say over their images in the media, but it is definitely still determined by the male gaze. Men, whether we like to admit or not, have had our eyes caught by women on screen or tv who we find attractive. Almost kind of worshipping the view in a sense, whether it be a news reporter, an advertisement, etc. As photographs, images, movies, music videos, or portraits nowadays still tend to show women in a state of nudity, John Berger’s idea of sexuality within the images still in fact plays a role as the Renaissance paintings depict. Around the 11:30 minute mark of the “Ways of Seeing 2” video, images of women making eye contact to the viewer of the images are almost, if not, seducing in a matter where the audience is gravitated heavily.

Blog #1 – Sigifredo Gil

Based off the “Entering the Conversation” introduction written by Gerald Graff & Cathy Birkenstein, their whole outlook/idea of the author using a certain format for writing their thoughts and also gravitating the reader by making certain points where, even if it is an opinion or statement that may seem foreign to the reader, they are your thoughts and not just sentences formed to cater to the one reading. As in pages 5-6, using the template had students skeptical due to it potentially impacting their creativity, but the template is just a base of how you’re going to go about your writing. It’s similar to artists who use auto-tune in a sense. Yes, it helps improve the sound of the artist, but also the artist is the one who needs to be molding it into a work of art and perfecting it. At the end, it’s your work and how you put it into play.

“The power to look” and “How art can help you analyze” give great points of how in our own perspectives, we see things very black and white. Our analytical and interpretations of paintings, or situations can tend to be small when in fact a lot more could lie beneath the surface. For example, in “The power to look” a cop/doctor looking at the painting of a train going through a fireplace will be just that. But what else is it? What compelled the artist to draw that? It gives a broader view to the audience and it makes you think it’s more than what the eye sees.

Hello!

Hello everyone. My name is Sigifredo Gil but I’ve always gone by Sigi (si-gee) – g as in guitar. I’m 24 years old, Brooklyn born and raised and I’m majoring in psychology. I am taking this journey of college later in life but It’s a marathon not a race, right? I was looking forward to meeting you all personally but maybe in the future 🙂 I love to eat, work out, and learning new things every day. I look forward to working with you all and professor Fess this semester!