musing
The “muse,” as a source of inspiration for visual artists, is almost unfailingly represented as a woman. Gendered and exoticized ideals of beauty, personified as goddesses, models, wives, or lovers, have been used to reinforce expectations for artists as male and subjects as female throughout the history of art. Artists in this constellation utilize natural forms such as skies, mountains, and swans as “feminine forms” of musing that defy the patriarchy’s proclivity to turn its gaze toward the female body.
