The subject of this paper is the history of women's bodies, as seen and painted by women artists, which expresses various emotions, from the sixteenth century to the twentieth century. In this research we aim to show the achievement of the liberation of women artists to the male power. We used some paintings and sculptures, mostly made by women artists, which show a vision of women on the treatment of the women bodies, in interaction with others, motherhood or the oneiric world. This study is based on a bibliography on women's bodies, taking into account the women's category, integrated in classifications of "race", class, or gender and in biographies of women artists who represented them. The subjugation of the feminine body by the masculine power, due to sexuality, to the act of exclusively feminine conception and to the paternal indispensability of linking the newborn to its descendants, goes back to the most ancestral societies. Historically, this situation was maintained until the Contemporary Period, when the women´s bodies were looked upon by a patriarchal, sexist, capitalist and colonial society. Women's struggle for emancipation involved the recognition in the History of Art of the freedom of women’s bodies expressed in the slogan: "my choices, my body."

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Mulheres,corpos,emoções,mulheres artistas

• Sociology - Social Sciences
• History and Archeology - Humanities