The first well-known sixteenth century female Renaissance artist Sofonisba Anguissola is an example of this exception. She was born into nobility whose father believed women should be educated and thereby fostered her pursuits in the arts. While most cities in Italy during the Renaissance were papal states dominated by men who supported male privilege and valued patrilineal systems, Bologna was the exception. Bologna was especially open minded and progressive, allowing women to attend university to nurture their intellect and creativity thereby providing more opportunities for women. Bologna also had a female patron saint named Caterina dei Vigri known as St. Catherine of Bologna, who was an artist and serves as testament to their reverence for women. Lavinia Fontana is another Bolognese artist regarded as the first woman artist, who worked within the same artistic range as her male counterparts, and did so outside a court or convent.
In most regions and throughout the span of the Renaissance, women experienced more restrictive roles than those during feudal times. This hindered female artists and influenced their artistic content greatly. Most importantly, women were not allowed to train in the same capacity as men or work with nude models, which ultimately denied them the knowledge base and competitive edge of their contemporaries. As Linda Nochlin points out in her essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” for women there was “complete unavailability to the aspiring woman artist of any nude models at all, male or female.” In this essay, Nochlin also explores the institutions constraining the roles of women during the Renaissance in her essay. In it she argues that because women were so often relegated to concentrating on flower paintings and objects in domestic life, their content wasn’t comparable to their male counterparts thus making them unable to compete and stand among the “great” painters. Nochlin though, also reiterates the views of Chadwick and the Guerrilla Girls that many of the notable female artists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were either related to or had a close personal connection with male artist. She further asserts that questions relating to the lack of female presence in art and other realms “devolves not upon the relative benevolence or ill-will of individual men, nor the self-confidence or abjectness of individual women, but rather on the very nature of our institutional structures themselves and the view of reality which they impose on the human beings who are part of them.” (Nochlin p6)
Restrictive roles and institutions influenced women artists and their subjects throughout the 19th century. One artist in particular is Artemisia Gentileschi who was the first woman of her time to paint historical and religious themes. Although, as Nochlin discusses in her essay, Artemisia was born into nobility and had access to a central artistic male figure, her father, she still stands out as an excellent example of impeccable talent whose art reflects the sentiments of injustice from a women’s perspective. The reoccurring symbolic themes in her pieces depict powerful women subjects avenging male offenders. A vivid example of how these injustices impacted women's subjects in art would be Artemisia Gentileschi’s versions of Judith and Her Maidservant, Judith Slaying Holofernes and Susanna and the Elders. Holoferne’s decapitation is represented in two pieces Judith and Her Maidservant and Judith Slaying Holofernes. Artemisia and her father, Orazio Gentileschi an artist of the time, rendered quite different versions of Judith and Her Maidservant.
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| Artemisia Gentileschi Judith and Her Maidservant |
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| Orazio Gentileschi Judith and Her Maidservant |
Orazio’s illustrates a more sanitized version that focuses on the detail and the opulence of the women’s clothing. The sword is immaculate and doesn't appear to have been used, he creates a scene where the women look confused by the decapitation rather than active participants. In contrast, Artemisia’s version has the women positioned prominently in the dark sinister foreground, with Judith powerfully handling the sword. The image gives a much closer look and focuses on two women actively looking and planning a strategy for their next move. There is power in their postures that clearly sets a different tone than Orazio's version. In addition, Gentileschi’s version of Judith Slaying Holofernes depicts the rage of two women unapologetically taking their power back. Artemisia's vengeance for her real-life trauma were dramatically illustrated in the bloodied graphic depiction of Holofernes’ slaying. It can be interpreted that Artemisia’s version of Judith Slaying Holofernes is retribution for the violations she experienced in her own life.
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| Artemisia Gentileschi Judith Slaying Holofernes |
Another example of the of the injustices and how they manifested in women's art is Gentileschi’s version of Susanna and the Elders. She clearly depicts the male elders as lecherous and vile to the female subject in the painting which is in clear contrast to Tintoretto’s version. Tintoretto creates a more tranquil depiction, focusing on the lush scenery that suggests the female subject is a willing participant and almost encouraging the voyeurism of the two men lurking in the backgrounds. Tintoretto’s version also postures the female subject in a way that illustrates and reinforces the idea of the male gaze.
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| Artemisia Gentileschi's Susanna and the Elders |
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| Tintoretto's version of Susanna and the Elders |
Bibliography:
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002. Print.
The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York: Penguin, 1998. Print.
Nochlin, Linda. Women, Art, and Power: And Other Essays. New York: Harper & Row, 1988. Print.
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