Art Appreciation: Lange, Neshat, and Sacred Art Traditions

Ideological and Feminist Readings of Lange and Neshat

Dorothea Lange's 1936 photograph may be interpreted from the perspective of both ideological criticism and feminist criticism. From an ideological perspective, Lange captures the consequences of the Lawless Decade that preceded the Great Depression — effects which Migrant Mother perfectly reflects. The children recede into the background as the mother emerges, defiant against all odds, yet not knowing how she will beat them in any way other than by sheer willpower. The content of the piece is evocative of all that had happened in the two decades since World War I — the war that took the lives of a generation of men. The subject is the mother of three children whose lives have been uprooted by a collapsed economy. The message is one of incompleteness: the children turn toward the mother for support, and the mother's gaze is fixed on something far off in the distance — perhaps her male counterpart.

From a feminist criticism perspective, Lange's Migrant Mother captures the beauty of the female nature: its ability to endure, to overcome, to be the force of regeneration even in the face of fatigue. Migrant Mother is the image of the irrepressible force of the female spirit, whose nurturing nature makes all cling to her, and whose heart is expressed in her face — in the tilt of her head, the slant of her shoulders. Her concern is not for herself, but for others. There is nobility in her brow, even if there is anguish in her squint.

Lange's intentions seem to be to contrast the tragic consequences of the Depression and the migration that followed — epitomized in the children's refusal to face the camera — with the soul of the mother whose burden has now increased a hundredfold, and whose perseverance is nothing short of miraculous.

The ideology behind Shirin Neshat's Speechless is not hard to find. A veiled Iranian woman is covered in small lines of calligraphy representing all the words she might be saying, while the barrel of a gun peeks out from under her veil. It is an ironic photograph, one that reverses the cultural ideology of the Middle East in which women are forced to take a silent role while men may clamor and make noise in society and in politics — as if the gun were turned on the woman to keep her silent. Here, however, the gun is turned on the audience, for it is the audience, Neshat implies, who is truly being held up by the custom. The woman may have much to say, but we are robbed because we will never hear it.

From a feminist perspective, Neshat displays an image that is resilient and graphic. Not content to be suppressed, the woman's voice rises above the threat of violence to manifest itself in ways that cannot be put down. Her words, like Migrant Mother's, will be made manifest in her very face. She will evoke a new response that will counter that of the oppressive culture.

Neshat's intentions appear to be those of a photographer who sees the injustice of a particular aspect of society and is determined to portray it through subtle manipulations of an art form. By staging her subject and creating content that is essentially a protest piece against a regime that refuses to grant women's rights, Neshat emphasizes the inequality that creates tension in society and undermines, from her perspective, the man-woman relationship.

Pomo Basket and Afro-Portuguese Saltcellar: Food and Cultural Meaning

The Pomo tribe of the southwestern region of the United States made beautiful baskets, such as the one featured in the slide. The century-old basket is the product of tree materials, woodpecker feathers, quail topknots, and clamshell disks. The materials are the fruits of the Pomo people's harvest, and the colors are those that naturally occur in the materials used. The different baskets the Pomo would produce depended upon the collection of such things as "swamp canes, saguaro cactuses, rye grass, black ash, willow shoots, sedge roots and redbud" (Michelle). The design, as Michelle of Nah Tah Wahsh PSA states, has a meaning called a Dau — or Spirit Door: "This allows good spirits to come and circulate inside of the basket; the good or bad feelings are also released." According to Michelle, the baskets have different purposes ranging from cooking and storing food to containing tools or usage in religious ceremonies, and would be made by coiling, twining, or feathering the materials together.

The Afro-Portuguese Saltcellar of the Sherbro Peninsula in Sierra Leone is a product of the 16th century. Made of ivory and over a foot tall, it is a massively sculpted work that suggests the importance salt held at the close of the medieval world. The images contained in the saltcellar reflect both African culture in content and Portuguese culture in style and craftsmanship. As Eugenia Soledad Martinez states, "The Afro-Portuguese ivories…were commissioned from artists working on the coast of what is now the country of Sierra Leone in West Africa, by seafaring Portuguese patrons… Their culturally hybrid features defied (and continue to defy) categorization as either 'European' or 'African'" (9). Their appeal lay in their very exotic nature, which was unlike anything available on the continent and was considered a great collector's item by those who traveled the Mediterranean.

The two food containers offer different perspectives on the cultural significance of food. The Pomo basket reflects a deep, abiding spirituality that calls upon the spirit world to watch over even the storing of food items, suggesting a profound reliance upon the spiritual side of life to protect nature from corrupting in unsatisfactory ways. The designs of the baskets indicate the type of Dau the Pomo wished to employ. The Afro-Portuguese Saltcellar, by contrast, calls to mind the preciousness of salt and its status as a valuable commodity in the Middle Ages. The elaborate design of the saltcellar reminds one that to sit above the salt was a mark of honor, and to be below it was a sign of inferiority. To be near so ornate a work of art was considered a prize in itself. In such a manner, the very container becomes a mark of status — reflected in the way the men appear to be guarding the precious salt contained within, as though valuable jewels lay inside that only the elect could possess. The nature of the work is both savage and civilized, yet, as Martinez asserts, neither civilized nor savage: it is a hybridization of cultural aesthetics whose value lies in its exotic appeal — its flavor, just like that of the salt it was made to contain.

Hailing from the 5th century, the Seated Buddha represents the wisdom of the Buddhist Way, which descends from Hinduism and flourishes across Asia. In Buddhism there are two main schools — the Theravada and the Mahayana. While the way of Theravada Buddhism leads one to a state free of suffering, the way of Mahayana Buddhism follows the path of the Bodhisattva, one who seeks enlightenment in himself and in others. The scriptures of the Theravada school are contained in the Pali/Tripitaka canon, while those of the Mahayana school are contained in the Theravada Tripitaka as well as in many other sutras.

The first major difference between the two schools' canons and content is the figure at the heart of each. The Buddha of Theravada is the historical Sakyamuni Buddha and other buddhas of the past. Mahayana Buddhism, on the other hand, accepts "contemporary buddhas like Amitabha and Medicine Buddha" ("Buddhist Studies"). The emphasis of the former is "self liberation. There is total reliance on one-self to eradicate all defilements" ("Buddhist Studies"). The latter similarly emphasizes self-liberation, but also stresses that those who pursue the Mahayana way seek to help others as well.