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Kissing in Modern Art: Gender and Equality Lechelle Calderwood, Bachelor’s Student, Art Second Place, Student Research Colloquium 2001 Kissing is a conjunctive experience where both parties put in equal effort and receive pleasure. Is this visually evident? Do artworks of kissing show this equality among partners, and if so, in what ways is it manifested? Artworks offer a view of society through the artists’ eyes, often reflecting some of the social practices surrounding kissing. If kissing is defined as the connection of mouth to mouth, same to same, then how do gender differences come into play? Are man and woman shown as equals in portrayals of kissing? What can be inferred about the society that created the artwork and the society that is revering it? This paper will focus on images of kissing in terms of gender relations, and will also attend to some of the related issues that these images raise. Many of the same questions will be used to analyze the artworks: Do the subjects take on roles as kisser and the kissed? Who is the dominant figure? Is the gender of each subject clear or ambiguous? How do these images confront or conform to social taboos? How have the taboos changed over time? What ethical, racial, and medical issues are raised by the implications and connotations of a kiss? And finally, how are different social issues concerning gender, sexuality, AIDS, interracial and homosexual relationships politicized in images of kissing? These questions are meant to provoke new discussions about artworks of kissing. The artworks are separated into two sections: the first group is European art, created mainly during the decades of the 1880s, 1890s, and the first half of the 1900s, and the second group includes both American and European art, created during the post World War II period. This paper looks at a wide range of kissing imagery and queries the range of meanings implied. I plan to use these artworks of kissing to dissect and analyze the gender relationships of different societies.
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