In her 1970s artwork entitled, “Did You Get Your Pill Today?”, Nicole Claveloux used visual drama to create a metaphorical framework that addressed sex, women’s reproductive choices and sexual expression in the era of the 70s sexual revolution.

           

Nicole Claveloux is an underrated French artist who encapsulated change in oneself and in society through her comics and pieces of artwork. Although she was not gravely recognized for her abilities, Claveloux is valued for her humorous, erotic and existential way of aiming at societal issues, by using color, images, and sensuality. In the image, Claveloux aims to promote women’s liberal movement by focusing on their right to contraception and sexual expression. The artwork makes use of an abundant spread of visual elements to support several critical arguments in her artwork.

 

Notably, Claveloux used an unclothed woman as the focal point of her argument. Placing the woman as the focal point created a balance between visual elements in the foreground and background. This then created a sense of depth and immense size to the woman, depicting her as if she was a giant amidst all the creatures. Her long dark hair is covered in blue roses and orange leaves, as her head is tilted upward, with her tongue sticking out, signifying movement toward her intake of a round white object: a birth control pill. This image of the woman serves as a satirical homage to women as an image of the likes of Eve, in the Bible. By doing so, Claveloux entices the activists against women’s reproductive choices, by presenting a woman in the likes of eve, taking a pill: an act they deem as unacceptable since it was believed to be tied to cohabitation. In fact, in the 1960s, cohabitation and the use of contraception were acts believed to be unethical. The gravity of which, eventually led to universities and apartment landlords, to expel any woman, from any institution, who was found guilty of cohabitating or using contraception (Christensen, 2012). Furthermore, the woman can be seen as the larger image which conveys a sense of domination and power for women. This gives women in the audience a sense of belongingness and vigor to achieve their longing for individual rights to choices in sexual reproduction.

 

This also ties in with the opinion of the church on contraception, abortion, and premarital sex as it is inevitable in the likes of cohabitation. In the artwork, some religious elements are included to depict a sense of irony toward activists and provision toward supporters. Beneath the hills, toward the right, an image of the pope and a weird-looking church can be seen among the landscape and bead-like materials. By zooming in, it is seen that surrounding the pope are small men with sharp spear-like sticks raised to the air, as if they were on a strike. The small men are also seen stabbing one of the beads, waiting for it to break apart, as the Pope signals them a ‘thumbs up’ in the process of doing so. Therefore, this representation presumably summarizes an opposition to the church’s opinion on the use of contraception, and how the pure image of eve is being explicitly tainted. In line with this, in 1968, Pope Paul VI issued an encyclical letter entitled, Humanae Vitae (Human Life), to reemphasize the church’s belief and teaching on contraception as an immoral act of preventing life into its deserved existence. With the Pope’s emphasis on the wrong side of things, Claveloux chose to include this ironic imagery of the church to present an environment in which women of the revolution aim for.

 

Moreover, as the woman is seen standing among colorful hills with elements of nature surrounding her, on the left, accompanying her is a stork carrying a basket of bead-like materials. These materials are scattered around the landscape and are incessantly found inside growing flowers, beside trees or being poured out by an angel to the right. In fact, these beads serve as symbols for women’s eggs inside the ovary. These eggs are representations for presumed life without contraception, and by having the stork carry a basket of eggs instead of a child, as it usually is, it indicates that birth to a child is avoided through this method of reproduction. Likewise, to the right of the woman, an angel is seen ‘dumping’ eggs onto a man in pure joy. This is also tied with the church’s depiction of childbirth as a gift delivered by God. With the angel pouring the eggs, as if it was mere water, shows how Claveloux took to her irony to extremes by presenting an environment that women aimed for in the era of the sexual revolution: an environment where contraception was supported, tolerated, and understood by all; even by the church and its teachings. 

 

Additionally, Claveloux included text as a visual appeal to her audience, serving as a brief explanation to what the artwork is hinting at. By doing so, she introduces an empowering scene for women, where they are able and welcome to take the birth control pill even amidst the supporters of anti-contraception. By asking the audience of women, “Did you get your pill today?”, encourages them to keep strengthening their choice of sexual reproduction and expression.  This choice worked well with Claveloux’ s use of striking colors that blended harmoniously in the image as it takes the audience in for a rainbow ride of emotions. By using hues predominantly in pink and yellow, colors frequently found in psychedelic artworks of the 70s, and is a visually pleasing appeal to the audience, she captures women’s and the activists’ attention, especially since this is based in the psychedelic era. This, in fact, could also be supported by Claveloux’ s background on the consistent use of psychedelic colors in her previous artworks.

 

In conclusion, Nicole Claveloux made use of visually dramatic elements such as alignment, color, and images, which served as pillars of support for her comical argument on women’s rights to contraception and sexual expression. Her artistic determination for social change is favorably looked at in this artwork for women’s liberal movement and continues to serve as a means of promoting women’s right to their autonomous nature of decisions.