Venus of Johnson & Johnson

What it says (from top left down):

• Venus of Urbino
• "Here a beautiful venetian courtesan- whose gestures seem deliberately provocative stretches languidly on her couch in a spacious palace, white sheets and pillows setting off her glowing flesh and golden hair" (Stokstad, 556).
• Venus of Johnson and Johnson
• "Venus's direct gaze has been characterized as an "unambiguous sexual invitation" by one wishful art historian" (Titian's Venus)

• "Although modern viewers may be discomforted when caught in the act of looking--"caught in the act of voyeurism" (Titians Venus)...

I examined an April issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine and chose to critique a Johnson & Johnson ad with a woman reclining on a white couch in a suggestive manner. Looking at this ad instantly reminded me of Titian's 1535 painting "Venus of Urbino," which depicts a nude woman lounging on a bed covered in drapery. When the “Venus of Urbino” was released it was both praised and criticized for the provocative gestures that the Venus held in the painting, as well as her sexually inviting gaze. Paintings like "Venus of Urbino" at that time were created for men in elite circles, and served as a way for them to admire the nude Venuses "under the cloak of respectable classical mythology"(Stokstad, 556). The woman in the Johnson and Johnson ad, like the Venus is laying on a white draped surface which emphasizes her skin and body. Their eyes are almost identical and possess a look that can only be described as sexually inviting. The Johnson's woman lays in an extremely submissive manner with her hands up behind her head. Even the interaction between the woman's legs in the ad mimic those of the “Venus of Urbino” and are equally seductive.
This ad is marketing a product to women but plays off of “the male fantasy” which forces women to look at it with a male gaze. What is most interesting about the similarities between Venus in the painting and the woman in the Johnson and Johnson ad is that the “Venus of Urbino” was created in the 1500's during a time when women had very little rights or agency in their own relationships and even in 2008 images that mimic that are placed everywhere, including magazines made “just for women.”





Bibliography:

"Titian's Venus of Urbino"
http://employees.oneonta.edu/farberas/arth/arth213/Titian_urbino.html\

Stokstad, Marylin, Art History: A View of the West Volume II 2008