Breastfeeding in contemporary photoperformances and a brief overview of the history of Western art: goddesses, saints and women

Abstract

This article proposes a critical analysis of representations of breastfeeding in the history of art, contrasting idealized images of goddesses, saints, and mythological symbols with contemporary works by female artists. Artistic works (sculptures, paintings, performances, and photographs) guide the writing by revealing lactating figures throughout different historical periods. The ostentation of breasts and the profusion of breastfeeding in the past follow a phase of less abundance until arriving at the works produced by visual artists, mothers, who make visible an action reserved for the intimate space and challenge the dominant representation regime regarding breastfeeding. Through an ethnographic and autoethnographic approach, the authors investigate how breastfeeding was symbolically appropriated by patriarchal discourses, often emptying the experience of lactating women of their agency and subjectivity. In contrast, the work of contemporary artists such as Roberta Barros, Ana Casas Broda, Catherine Opie, Malu Teodoro, Elisa Elsie, Tainã Mello & Tarsila Alves, who use self-representation as a language, is discussed. These artists create scenes in which the mother's body becomes a field of aesthetic and political enunciation, breaking with stereotypes of purity, passivity and sacrifice. The images are read taking into account their history, cultural context and symbolic meanings. Through these observations, a new visual repertoire for the nursing body is proposed, which allows us to reimagine motherhood based on the experience lived and performed by women themselves in contemporary times.