Women in Mourning: "Speechless", Shirin Neshat (1996)

Introduction

Artists have been using women in mourning for centuries as a way to express their grief towards society. Many ongoing factors can lead to tears from a woman, but it is the act of mourning that really represents that something is truly wrong. The act of mourning touches the sympathy in everyone. When women cry, it can be with tears of sadness or happiness, but when women mourn, they are expressing their deepest sorrow.By using women in mourning as a means to provoke sympathy from the people, artists are able to send clearer messages of the true meaning behind their artwork.The five art pieces that I are very different in the fact that the women are grieving over something different. For example, Eve from The Expulsion from the Garden of Eden is crying over being kicked out of the Garden of Eden while the woman in Misery by Kathe Kollwitz is mourning over her dead child.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

"Speechless", Shirin Neshat (1996)

Speechless is part of a series of photographs titled “Women of Allah” by Shirin Neshat. Neshat was raised in Qazvin, Iran, but left her country to pursue art in the US after high school. She was unable to return back to Iran until eleven years later because of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. When she finally returned to Iran, it was completely different from the country she grew up in. Confronted with feelings of displacement, Neshat expressed the ideology of Islam through art, and “Women of Allah” was born (Time Europe). Shirin Neshat was actually the director of the “Women of Allah” series because she was not a photographer herself. Each photograph that is used in “Women of Allah” has three essential elements: the black veil, a modern weapon, and written text, often disguised (Macdonald).

Neshat uses herself as a model of Speechless and the photo casts a feeling of awe and power. By having the camera so zoomed in on her face, it gives off a feeling of power: different from the commonly depicted submittal woman (Macdonald). Through her facial expressions, it is obvious that Neshat is desperate for the freedom to express herself. Her eyes look determined and fierce. Almost as if she is saying, “here I come”. but the black veil that can be discerned in the left of the picture seems to stop her. The black veil in the Islamic culture symbolizes the compliance of women to their religion and in Iran, it symbolizes the support of the Islamic Revolution. By wearing the black veil in the photograph and having it take up half of the picture, it seems like a struggle between the yearning for freedom and the support of religion. Looking closely at the photograph, written text is also seen on the woman’s face. The written text is actually sacred text in the Islamic religion. By putting it on her face, the body part where people can identify emotions the most, it serves as a reminder of the power that religion has over women and the oppression it has towards free expression. The gun in the picture is another juxtaposition. The woman seems to be embracing the gun as a part of her, giving off a threatening feeling, but at the same time, it does not feel dangerous because of her conflicted emotions: freedom versus opression.

In Speechless, Neshat uses a woman in mourning to represent the oppression of women in the Islamic culture. Speechless is simple but also very complex due to the symbolism of each object in the picture. The solemn look on the woman’s face with the tears brimming at her eyes gives a look of strength and also a cry for help. Neshat makes the symbol of a woman in mourning more powerful by having opposites of each emotion in the photograph: freedom and oppression, strength and weakness, determination and submission, hope and despair. Neshat’s focus of a woman in mourning is different from the other works of art because of the emphasis on women’s rights.

To see a slide show of the "Women of Allah" photography, click here.

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Want to know more?

Head on over to Lauren H's Silence in Art. Similar to women in mourning, artists used silence as a way to signify that there is something wrong in their society. Lauren's blog contains another art piece by Kathe Kollwitz called "Die Uberlendendem", or "Survivor". Kollqitz uses her distinctive artistic style to paint silenced children. By having silenced children, it represents how the government has taken away the basic freedoms of the people: signifying that there is something wrong in the society."Speechless" by Shirin Neshat is also found in both of our blogs. Lauren describes Neshat's picture as a silent girl "showing compliance to the government". Similarly, I described the girl as showing submission through the tears that brim to bottom of her eyes. With two different themes, Silence in Art and Women in Mourning, Lauren and I were able to reach the same conclusion: artists use are to describe the corruption of society.

STILL want to know more???

Don't worry, John G's "Loneliness in Art" is another amazing blog you can visit that relates to "Women in Mourning". While John's Blog does not involve any women, the loneliness that is represented through the pieces of art reverberates a sense of mourning. For example, John has the painting, "At Eternity's Gate" in his blog. It shows a man sitting alone in a chair with his head buried into his hands. According to John, the man reflects the loneliness and depression Van Gogh felt. Because of loneliness, the man in the picture is also mourning. The way that the man has his face buried into his hands is also similar to Adam in "Expulsion from the Garden of Eden" by Masaccio. Although Adam is experiencing regret and sadness from being expelled from the Garden of Eve and not loneliness, he still has the same mourning reaction as the man mourning over loneliness. While women are the commonly used figure to symbolize mourning, artists can also use men in mourning as a way to project their despair towards themselves, nature, or society.