Nude and Naked Women in the Arts

Abstract

Nude and Naked Women in the Arts: Mexico and Beyond is a study of female nudity as represented by men and women in Mexico and other parts of the world through analysis of both the high arts and folk arts. Eli Bartra explores the diverse forms of artistic expression and their link to the social construction of female gender. This approach is crucial to understanding how forms of discrimination are created and recreated — sometimes in very apparent ways and other times more subtly — and how they contribute to the perpetuation of gender hierarchies. Eli Bartra examines the assertion of gender differences in artistic creation and the sexist (and at times misogynistic) imagery of nude women as represented by men.