Cover Me with Flowers Exploring Female Sensibility Through Flora and the Body in the Work of Joan Synder

Arianna Alexandra Schardt
Trinity College Dublin
Department of History of Art and Architecture
2018
BA

Subject: Painting
Country: USA
Period: 20th Century

10,000 words

This dissertation will investigate the use of flora and the body in Joan Snyder’s exploration of the female sensibility. The main body consists of three chapters. Chapter One will investigate Snyder’s approach to the naked body in art. Following a brief study of the nude in the history of art, it will establish that Snyder subverts from the established canon of the nude in favour of an approach that breaks down the object-subject dichotomy. Chapter Two explores the use of floral imagery in the Western tradition and how it was often used to denote desire ‘feminine’ characteristics. Chapter Three is a set piece that focuses on Snyder’s work, ‘Bedeckt Mich Mit Blumen’ (Cover Me with Flowers) (1985), a work that embodies the two dominant themes discussed in the previous two chapters.

Irish Georgian Society

Education Theses Register

Cover Me with Flowers Exploring Female Sensibility Through Flora and the Body in the Work of Joan Synder