During the Middle Ages, a woman's role was prescribed for her
in relation to her social class. When it came to class division upper-class
women related more to upper-class men than they did to peasant women (the
lower-class). Much of the woman’s role reflected the teachings of the church.
Whitney Chadwick describes these circumstances in her book, Women, Art, and Society. She states,
that women’s social roles were based on Christian ethnics, focusing on keeping
a woman’s chastity and based on a woman’s domestic responsibility, the feudal
system, and the control of property (Chadwick 44).
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| Illumination accompanying the third vision of Part I of Scivias |
Continuously, when addressing the
medieval church, it is important to distinguish between the periods before and
after Gregorian Reform in Germany. During the late 11th century,
Pope Gregory VII established extreme restrictions controlling women’s roles in
the church, which in turn led to women forging strong personal bond with one
another (Chadwick 45). The Guerrilla
Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art highlights that between
the female mysticism develop a sisterhood that was not limited to their
spirituality and it led to great creativity (Guerrilla Girls 21). Hildegard von Bingen and Herrad of
Landsberg are among the most prominent figures of the era with their assembly
of work that echoes a religious perspective.
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| Herrad of Landsberg. Hortus Deliciarum fol.323r. after 1170 |
Convents were the center of where women were able to gain
knowledge and express artist ability (Chadwick 44). In the convent system women
flourished, alongside Monks, nuns contributed to the production of
numerous manuscripts. Women have also been attributed to making one of the
greatest masterpieces of the Middle Ages, the Bayeux Tapestry. The tapestry is a banner depicting the
Norman’s conquest over England. It is also significant in the way that it is
not a theological work, rather it is a specular piece highlighting soldiers
their militarism. Nonetheless, the statue of women was diminishing in many
parts of Europe (Chadwick 49), proving that in a historical context there is
not always a lateral progression of the woman’s role in art history.
The occurrence of the
European Renaissance brought about a drastic change to the economic structure of
the time, “The development of capitalism and the emergence of the modern state
transformed economic, social, and familial relationships…” (Chadwick 66),
shifting women’s power dynamic, leaving them with less influence then they held
during feudalism. As western nation-states grew into capitalist societies,
public and private lives became particularly gendered, and paintings and
sculptures where seen more as liberal arts than crafts (Chadwick 67). These
notions altered the representation of art in its many forms, especially in its relation
to women, largely until the conclusion of the nineteenth century.
Simultaneously, the social constructions of gender intensified the separation
of men and women not only in society but in the art world. The rise of guilds
also contributed to the polarization of men’s public lives and women’s private
lives, women were given very little rights designated for unskilled labor
(Chadwick 69). Instead, women were meant to start families and to become
mothers, and in a way Chadwick alludes that art was moving ahead without women,
at least not in any public way (Chadwick 74).
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| Bayeux Tapestry |
It is at this point in
history where the gaze is redefined, “the gaze became a metaphor for the
worldliness and virility associated with public man and women became its
object” (Chadwick 74). And as men began to paint profile portraits, the subject
became like spiritual and more material. The woman was used to represent the
image of the man, “Through marriage and family alliances, women became signs of
the honor and wealth which defined social prestige for Florentine citizens”
(Chadwick 76). A woman was the family jewel; however, her value was more aesthetic
than treasured. This objectification of the female image still defines much of
our western culture today. Domenico
Ghirlandaio’s Giovanna Torabuoni nee
Albizzi, exemplifies how a woman’s image was used to celebrate her
husband’s good fortune. Conversely,
women artists were also able to take advantage of the prospects offered to them
if they were born into or if they married into a family with an artistic
background. Sofonisba Anguissola, one of the most notable artists of the 16th
century demonstrates the importance of accessibility through nobility.
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Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni, 1488 |
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| Sofonisba Anguissola: Self Portrait, 1556 |
Women’s lives did not
get any easier as history progressed into the 17th and 18th
centuries, especially due to the shift in the labor movement (Guerrilla Girls
39). Also, during that time there seem to be a relocation of where much of the
art was being produced, “The art that developed in Holland (the term commonly
used in English for the United Provinces that formed the Dutch in the seventeenth
century reflects the anti-humanism of Dutch Calvinism, the rapid growth and
spread of the natural sciences, and the wide-ranging changes of family life an
urban living that grew out of this prosperous, literate, Protestant culture (Chadwick
117). As social structure changed so did the art, and because domestic
representation was becoming more valued, it led to the emergence of more female
artist.
In fact, in Holland,
there were more female artists than any other part of Europe (Guerrilla Girls
40). Anna Maria Sybilla Merian was amongst the artist whose work reflected both
domestic and scientific demand. She was born in Holland to a father who was an
engraver and she had a step-father who was a flower painter. Merian painted and
cataloged countless flowers, insects, and other live specimens and her work has
had a significant influence in the studies of
botany and zoology (Guerrilla
Girls 41). Merian’s classifications were especially important because it was a
time before the invasion of the camera.
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| Anna Maria Sibylla -Merian Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam |
However, well into the
19th century the industrial revaluation transformed not only the
roles of women in western societies, but also the way art was produced and who
and how the artist produced it. It was also a time when women were actively
seeking gender equality, not to say they were not before or that they are not
now. Well into the twenty-first century, there is a clear progression of
societal norms influencing conditions through generational gaps however, as a
society we have become stagnant in our expectations that revolve around the
roles of women. As much advancement that has occurred and as much that
continues to occur, there is enough of an imbalance that is significant enough
to create a divide that is illustrated in our consumption of culture, an ideal
victory is not in sight.
Works Cited:
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society.
Fourth ed. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2007. Print.
Guerrilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls'
Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York: Penguin, 1998.
Print.
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