The Photographic Works Of Cindy Sherman Art History Essay Help this is a research essay about artist Cindy Sherman. This essay is around 2800 words, and it

The Photographic Works Of Cindy Sherman Art History Essay Help this is a research essay about artist Cindy Sherman. This essay is around 2800 words, and it is required as MLA or Chicago format. I hope you could help me to correct the grammar mistakes and also the format. Also, Hoping you could make the essay more like a academical essay. Thank you very much. The period of post-modern art as an important period in the history of art which cannot
be ignored, and a large number of outstanding artists have emerged. Meanwhile, their
works and thoughts are radical and new, and the wave of art movements they set off
has revolutionized one art field after another. Photography is an important art field, and
during this period, many artists have emerged. Cindy Sherman is one of the best
photography artists. She always takes pictures of herself. However, whether it is her
most famous work untitled film stills or the color works that she shot later, she never
appeared in her work in a certain sense. In other words, the characters in those photoes
are played by her. She always likes to play an identity rather than using her identity in
front of the camera. When Annie Leibovitz received an invitation to take photos for
Sherman, she felt uncomfortable because she needed to face the camera in her own
identity. She asked Annie to hide her in the photo so that Annie used stitching
technology to have multiple Sherman appear in one photo at the same time1. This essay
will introduce Cindy Sherman’s creative experience and her most representative works.
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer known for his conceptual portraits. She
is best known for Untitled Film Still This set of works has a total of 70 black and white
photos. Although all the models in this group are Sherman himself, her group of photos
is not a self-portrait in the traditional sense. Sherman created this group of works to
subvert the stereotypes of women in the media. She views gender as an unstable and
constructive position, which indicates that there is no innate biological identity.
1
Annie Leibovitz, Annie Leibovitz at work, P94
2
Instead, women take multiple roles and identities depending on their situation. She is
good at using himself as a protagonist in a series of works, making makeup like a star,
and designing scenes and costumes like drama to compose pictures. Sometimes she is
more deliberately disguised as a man, trying to subvert the impression of existing
women or men. Her works often have over-saturated colors, unconscious expressions,
and heavy makeup and stage lighting. Her work often wears exaggerated wigs,
prosthetic body parts, or creates settings that appear to be clearly patched together. In
this way, she mimicked her source image and the social attitudes they reflected and
continued3. She also reminded the audience that photos are not necessarily trustworthy.
Like other art forms, photographs are shaped by the people who make them, misleading,
manipulating and expressing specific points of view. Many feminist critics agree that
she is an outstanding representative of contemporary women’s art, as every piece of
Sherman’s work seems to be a sharp exploration of the role of women in society. But
she once said that she is not a feminist. Some people believes that Sherman’s most
important contribution is that she rejects people’s myths about the authenticity of
photography through a variety of photographic images
Sherman’s famous work “Untitled Movie Stills” was created from 1977 to 1980. With
a total of 69 photos, Sherman’s style can be clearly seen. In these works, Sherman plays
a B-class movie actress or European movie actress. Cindy Sherman is composed of 70
2
Respini, Eva. Cindy Sherman, Burton, Johanna; Water, John, 1946
Sherman, Cindy. “MacArthur Fellows Program”. MacArthur Foundation. John D. and Catherine T.
MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved 21 March 2018
3
black and white photos4. The printed images of this group of works imitate the “stills”
that are often used to promote movies in terms of format, scale and quality. By shooting
his role, Sherman placed himself in a conversation about female stereotypes. For
Sherman, ambiguity is very important5. She does not intend to recreate a specific or
immediately recognizable scene, but rather keeps the character’s settings, body
language and facial expressions uncertain and can be explained. Sherman initially
started using her own interior as a scene in her apartment. Later, she moved her camera
and props outdoors and filmed in urban and rural landscapes. At this time, she needs a
second person to assist her in taking photos. The artist Robert Longo, who lived with
her, and her father, other family members and friends, helped her for a while. Sherman
initially started using her own interior as a scene in her apartment. Later, she moved her
camera and props outdoors and filmed in urban and rural landscapes. At this time, she
needs a second person to assist her in taking photos. The artist Robert Longo, who lived
with her, and her father, other family members and friends, helped her for a while.
Each individual photo in this set of works points to a classic movie scene.
In Untitled film still #21 (Fig 1), Sherman made a background like a movie scene. She
played a well-dressed, delicate-looking woman, like the classic image of Hollywood
movies in people’s memory. She seems to be fascinated by something. This caused
suspense because we never know what happened to this woman across the street. It
4
Lance Esplund (February 27, 2012), Cindy Sherman Self-Portraits Offer Empty Entertainment: Review
Bloomberg
5
Victoria Olsen (March 2009), Cindy Sherman: Monument Valley Girl Smithsonian Magazine.
makes the image not about what happens in the picture, but about what happened before
and after the shot. This narrative is a feature of Sherman’s work.
6
Untitled Film Still #48 (Fig 2) shows a woman standing on the side of the road with a
suitcase next to it. She seemed to wait for the hitchhiker to leave the road under the dim
light at dusk. This scene is full of Sherman’s hints to the audience. Her arms crossed
behind her back, wearing plaid skirts and sneakers, and turned away from the camera.
The female character that Sherman played seemed to imply that she was a student. Her
increased attitude towards the audience will only increase the uncertainty of her fate.
In this work, Sherman carefully selected the composition of the image. Her darker
shades convey her message. The clouds in the picture are blurred, and the gloomy
shadows enhance the uncertainty of the photo. The method of shooting the subject away
from the lens also adds more possibilities to the photo. Sherman can play any role,
including the person watching the photo. Sherman designed a suitcase in the scene,
indicating that she is waiting the car to go somewhere. The information provided by the
artist in the work is also very important. The information provided by the artist and the
letter lacking in the picture add more possibilities to the picture.
In Untitled Film Still #35 (Fig 3), Sherman plays a woman wearing a floral dress and a
white apron with a pattern. She stood with one hand in front of a dirty wooden door,
and on her left was a few black coats. All these details seem to imply that her identity
6
Cindy Sherman, Cindy Sherman : the complete untitled film stills, 2003
is a working-class housewife 7 . In her body, we can see the image of the frustrated
housewife in the movie. Like all of Sherman’s work, this picture offers many
possibilities for the viewer. Sherman’s eyes look to the right and her expression seems
a bit angry. What did she see?
Around 1988, Cindy Sherman began her series of “historical portraits.” In the
historical portrait series, like her early black and white movie stills, we see Sherman
posing in a variety of poses. Although her early work created a beautiful picture
reminiscent of a B-class Hollywood film, Sherman turned her attention to art history
and diverse artists such as Raphael, Caravaggio and Angel. Through these images,
Sherman studied the personal representatives of the Old Master and other historical
portraits. Her reproduction of classic portraits is conceptually an aspect of
photography: images can be copied and viewed by anyone, anytime, anywhere. In this
series, Sherman still serves as a model for her “historical portraits”, dressers and
photographers. She draws inspiration from a range of artistic historic styles and
periods, including Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and neoclassical styles. In this
series, she uses various props to turn herself into historical male and female characters
in the center of each photo. These photos are full of obvious flaws, such as unnatural
prostheses, bad wigs and dramatic makeup. These obvious flaws make the artificial
part of the image more obvious. Her work is by no means a copy of the original works
of the masters, but rather a suspicion of the distortions experienced by these historical
7
MOMA online gallery, Additional text from Seeing Through Photographs online course, Coursera, 2016
works through time and memory. Sherman combines elements from multiple, often
uncoordinated sources, deliberately emphasizing this distortion.8 Sherman proves that
her photo is a reconstruction of historical works by exposing her own disguise.
Instead of recreating a specific image, she used copying as a source of inspiration for
her own art. As a result, these photos are both familiar and original, modern and
classic, and create an uneasy anxiety in the audience.
In the untitled #228 (Fig 4), Sherman chose Judith, the heroine of the Bible, as a copy
of her copy. In the legend, Judith rescued the Israelites from the invading Assyrian
general Horofen by temptation and beheading. Judith is an image that is very popular
and often portrayed by artists. Sherman has created his own portraits based on the
paintings of many Renaissance and Baroque artists. In keeping with the massive and
powerful visual impact of these early paintings, Sherman’s photos are nearly seven feet
tall, four feet wide, and filled with rich patterns and colorful fabrics. These fabrics look
gorgeous through the camera’s lens filtering, but in fact they are cheap imitations of
second-hand stores. In this work, Sherman looked at her audience with a strange look.
Her right hand carries Holofernes’s head, and her left hand shows her dagger for
beheading. Her feet stood firmly on the ground, slightly open, and looked big and thick.
Her expression after the violence provided the audience with an open imagination. She
wore red, blue and green enamel, standing in front of the curtains made of brocade and
patterned fabric. Sherman’s head tilted slightly to the left, her movements much like the
heroine in Botticelli’s paintings; Also standing on the carpet of the green grass, dotted
8
Sherman Cindy, History Portraits, 1991
with flowers. But unlike Botticelli’s original and idealized nude, Judith’s makeup is
cumbersome and uncomfortable. The fabric that looks expensive and sparkling in the
picture seems to be very cheap. And He Le Fernie’s head looks like a second-hand
Halloween mask.
In 1988, Untitled #183-A (Figure 5), Sherman leaned against a table or cabinet in a lowcut lace dress. In this photo, Sherman’s costumes and postures suggest that we have a
connection with the portrait of Madame de Pompadour, which François Boucher made
in 1759 (Fig 6). In this painting, Sherman has a flamboyant look, and her left-hand
wears pearl jewelry. Sherman’s exaggerated makeup and exaggerated chest in this photo
and the rug that hangs freely in the background convey a sense of absurdity to the
audience, not the Rococo elegance of Boucher’s work. In this work, Sherman’s cool
gaze and his lips are offset by a gorgeous, full-bodied posture. Also, the green tones of
the photo, Sherman’s pale face and bloody lips add a horrible atmosphere to the image.
Sherman succeeded in attracting the attention of the audience with this contradictory
narrative. The audience must guess the answer in the work because Sherman does not
give the audience enough information.9 The message conveyed by Sherman in Untitled
#183-A is not simply contradictory and uncertain because the audience did not get
accurate information about the role of Sherman. Unlike the beautiful portraits depicted
in Boucher’s portraits, Sherman’s work provides the audience with more imagination
than comfort. In this photo, Sherman uses the set of classical oil paintings to leave a lot
9
Cindy Sherman: History Portraits, November 8-December 20, 2008 Skarstedt Gallery, New York.
of clues to the audience, and the contradiction between these clues brings more
possibilities to the audience watching this photo.
Untitled #223 (Fig 7) is also a well-known photo of Sherman in historical portraits. The
theme of the Son and the Virgin has always been loved by the painters, who praised the
tenderness of the motherhood by depicting the breastfeeding of the Virgin. The
Madonna that Sherman plays is completely different from the Madonna in the classical
oil painting. In the photo, Sherman wears a headscarf with a checkered pattern. She is
wearing a red top, a blue coat and an exaggerated makeup with a soft rubber breast.
Holding a plastic doll wrapped in a white cloth in her arms, her expression was very
quiet, but her exaggerated makeup destroyed this tranquility. Sherman seems to directly
criticize the entire history of Western art in this way. The general light and shadow of
the Renaissance oil paintings brought more imagination to this work. Sherman used a
cheap plastic doll to replace the Son in the paintings of the traditional Madonna
breastfeeding theme. In this case, the brilliance of the motherhood conveyed in the
traditional oil painting of the Virgin Mary is replaced by a sense of absurdity10. The
need for plastic dolls to extract nutrients from plastic breasts seems to reveal Sherman’s
doubts about the Renaissance Virgin Mary’s paintings. The artist’s use of plastic breasts
and plastic dolls reflects a problem with traditional oil painting. In the traditional oil
painting of the Virgin Mary, the breasts of the Virgin Mary have become a symbol of
the human nature of the Son rather than a female body symbol. In these traditional types
10
Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, Cindy Sherman: Her “History Portrait” Series as Post-Modern Parody,
Bread and Circus, July 29, 2007.
of works, although the breast of the Virgin is exposed to the audience, her existence as
a woman is erased. In Sherman’s image of the Virgin Mary, the plastic breasts and
plastic dolls she used strengthened the female character of the Virgin to weaken the
character of the Son.
The 1985 series entitled “Disasters and Fairy Tales” is considered to be a true symbol
of the massive changes in Sherman’s work. These images that express extreme black
humor are more likely to evoke myths and folklore than your stereotyped fairy tales. In
addition, serious prosthetics and makeup depict a series of strange characters. These
elements blend together to make people feel evil and evil. This group of works was
taken by Sherman under the commission of Vanity Fair magazine, but the series was
not officially released because the content of the picture was too disturbing. Unlike the
ones she had previously photographed, this series of works has given the audience a
sense of horror, as if they were in a horror movie or novel11.
Sherman ‘s work untitled #153 (Fig 8) is part of the series of “Disasters and Fairy
Tales”. This photo does not clearly point to that fairy tale, and the emotions conveyed
in the photo are completely different from the fairy tale. The overall tone of this photo
is greenish, and the low-saturated green conveys a horrible atmosphere. It is not so
much a fairy tale as it is a horror story or a movie. Unlike the female image in Untitled
film stills, Sherman was lying dirty on a tattered lawn in this photo. Her pale hair, her
complexion and her lack of focal length seemed to imply her death. Her muddy wet top
11
Sherman, Cindy ; Frascella, Larr, Cindy Sherman’s Tales of Terror, Aperture, 1 July 1986, Issue, pp.48-53
seems to imply that she has just experienced a disaster. Her face tilted slightly to the
left, and the eyes looked out of the photo which seemed to give the audience some
imagination, for example, what did she experience? Why is she lying on the grass? In
this photo, she continues the previous style of creation, and she seems to still use this
photo to question people’s blind trust in photos that appear to be credible.
In the same series of works Untitled #156 (Fig 9), Sherman built a horrible scene.
In this photo, Sherman’s role is like sitting on the ground like a monster in a horror
movie. She has white hair, black eyes and a horrible smile. She did not wear shoes and
wore black stockings, and the clothes were dirty and wrinkled. Also, her hand held a
few stones in an unnatural posture, unconsciously reminiscent of some horrible legends.
Sherman is like a bloodthirsty monster staring directly at the audience, giving people a
sense of oppression and horror. Let people unconsciously think: Who is she? Whether
the stone under her feet contains some hint of the artist to the audience.
To conclude, as a photography artist, Sherman likes to be a model in her creation.
In her creative approach, she likes to create a scene by pre-preparation, and conveys
some information to the audience through the details of the props in the scene and
triggers the imagination of the audience 12 . Sherman questioned the authenticity of
photography by changing his image. In her famous work “Untitled film stills”, a total
of 69 black and white photos. In this series of photos, Sherman points out the
stereotypes of the female image of women through the role of different female identities.
In her work “Historical Portrait”, she imitated the classic portrait. In this series of works,
12
Moorhouse, Paul, Cindy Sherman, 2014
she uses exaggerated makeup and simple props to attract the audience to participate in
the interpretation of the work. In her work “disaster and tale”, she created pictures and
fairy tales that people understand. This series shows a collection of creepy and terrible
monsters. The background in this group of works has also become a key factor in
narrative.
Fig 1
Fig 2
Fig 3
Fig 4
Fig 5
Fig 6
Fig 7
Fig 8
Fig 9
Annie Leibovitz, Annie Leibovitz at work, P94
Respini, Eva. Cindy Sherman, Burton, Johanna; Water, John, 1946
Sherman, Cindy. “MacArthur Fellows Program”. MacArthur Foundation. John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved 21 March 2018
Lance Esplund (February 27, 2012), Cindy Sherman Self-Portraits Offer Empty
Entertainment: Review Bloomberg
Victoria Olsen (March 2009), Cindy Sherman: Monument Valley Girl Smithsonian
Magazine.
Cindy Sherman, Cindy Sherman : the complete untitled film stills, 2003
MOMA online gallery, Additional text from Seeing Through Photographs online course,
Coursera, 2016
Cindy Sherman: History Portraits, November 8-December 20, 2008 Skarstedt Gallery,
New York.
Kimberlee A. Cloutier-Blazzard, Cindy Sherman: Her “History Portrait” Series as PostModern Parody, Bread and Circus, July 29, 2007.
Moorhouse, Paul, Cindy Sherman, 2014

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