View Item 
        •   Utrecht University Student Theses Repository Home
        • UU Theses Repository
        • Theses
        • View Item
        •   Utrecht University Student Theses Repository Home
        • UU Theses Repository
        • Theses
        • View Item
        JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

        Browse

        All of UU Student Theses RepositoryBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjects

        The Body as Battleground: Gender and Power in Lucy Lee-Robbins' Representations of the Female Nude

        Thumbnail
        View/Open
        Battcock_2184826.docx (860.9Kb)
        Publication date
        2025
        Author
        Battcock, Alice
        Metadata
        Show full item record
        Summary
        This article explores the complex role of the female nude in Western art history through the oeuvre of American artist, Lucy Lee-Robbins from 1890 to 1900. It argues that it has functioned both as a site of ideological control over the female body and an opportunity for an empowered reclamation. Within this framework, the work of Lucy Lee-Robbins is examined as a radical intervention in the male-dominated artistic conventions of the late nineteenth, and early twentieth, centuries in Paris. The article contends that Lee-Robbins’ engagement with the female nude challenges traditional dynamics of the gaze, authorship, and artistic legitimacy, asserting a form of embodied female agency that resists passive objectification. By navigating the social, spatial, and institutional constraints placed on women artists of her time, Lee-Robbins reclaims the visual language of the nude, disrupting entrenched gender hierarchies. Her work exemplifies how the act of representation can become a form of feminist resistance, compelling a broader rethinking of the canon and of how artistic value is constructed.
        URI
        https://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/49113
        Collections
        • Theses
        Utrecht university logo