“Picasso and Modigliani’s ‘Venuses’ represent a sort of iconoclasm in their self-conscious rejection of the cold, perfectly-finished, stuffy beauty of the Western tradition of art. For the contemporary viewer they have become a reassuring confirmation of left-of-centre politics, of anti-establishment positions and of an intellectual kudos that doesn’t need art to look classical to be meaningful. And the frankness of the male artist’s unflinchingly libidinal vision is taken as evidence of the separation from restrictive bourgeois respectability and taste.” Women S BodiesVisual ArtsMale ArtistsLeft Wing Ideology Book:Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with Female Bodies Source: Women in the Picture: What Culture Does with Female Bodies