Post # 2
Women for Change in an Unchanged World
Women for Change in an Unchanged World
The idea of womanhood throughout European history has not changed much, ultimately there was a standard to which all women were held. Women were held to being submissive, domestic, motherly, virtuous and apart of the private sphere the "home." As noted by Baldassare Castiglione in The Book of the Courtier, 1528 "It is very fitting that a man should display a certain robust and sturdy manliness, so it is well for a woman to have a soft and delicate tenderness, with an air of feminine sweetness in her every movement." (Guerilla Girls, 29). In other words there is the standard of what a woman must be and it is best that she is such and nothing else. Any woman seeking to expand or grow beyond these boundaries of the home was frowned upon and considered to be less than in many respects. In the world of art this reigned supreme for many were said to be trying to be like men. The works of many artist who challenged the norm was most times considered to not even have been of their own hand. The reality of these women was that their place was in the home, their role was that of wife and mother. It is not until a shift in Northern Europe in the beginnings of the Renaissance period do we see many women artist begin to step out of the domestic sphere, start to earn money and become more than an accessory of the home.
In Holland there was a shift of there being slightly more education for women as well as a growing Mercantile class. Within this shift women were starting to work outside of the home in factories in Lacemaking. Yet, they were not earning the same as men and were working in deplorable conditions. Although, there was this shift Chadwick notes in Women, Art and Society that women's education was still solely linked to skills that exemplified the domestic sphere. Even as education in skilled labor is enhanced by women it is in the realms of sewing, lacemaking and other women's work. This new growing class of people were now investing their new found wealth in goods. These goods were items which were meant to enhance the home and women were thereby an extension of the home.
Art having been a mostly aristocratic and religious luxury was now filtering down into a different set of peoples. In this ever growing class of people emerged the genre of painting everyday life. Thus many women artist emerged who painted that of their supposed domestic bliss. These images were usually of women working diligently at their honed skills as well as displaying their perfect home. Again, the home and what a woman is supposed to be is paramount. "The well ordered household, a condition for an orderly society, consisted of the family, their servants and their belongings. Within the home, the primary emblem of the domestic virtue that ensured the smooth running of society was the image of the woman engaged in needlework, sewing, embroidery or lacemaking." (Chadwick, 120). Even though many of these works reinforced this private domesticity of women the works were of exceptional quality and were not praised as such in there time.
In Holland there was a shift of there being slightly more education for women as well as a growing Mercantile class. Within this shift women were starting to work outside of the home in factories in Lacemaking. Yet, they were not earning the same as men and were working in deplorable conditions. Although, there was this shift Chadwick notes in Women, Art and Society that women's education was still solely linked to skills that exemplified the domestic sphere. Even as education in skilled labor is enhanced by women it is in the realms of sewing, lacemaking and other women's work. This new growing class of people were now investing their new found wealth in goods. These goods were items which were meant to enhance the home and women were thereby an extension of the home.
Art having been a mostly aristocratic and religious luxury was now filtering down into a different set of peoples. In this ever growing class of people emerged the genre of painting everyday life. Thus many women artist emerged who painted that of their supposed domestic bliss. These images were usually of women working diligently at their honed skills as well as displaying their perfect home. Again, the home and what a woman is supposed to be is paramount. "The well ordered household, a condition for an orderly society, consisted of the family, their servants and their belongings. Within the home, the primary emblem of the domestic virtue that ensured the smooth running of society was the image of the woman engaged in needlework, sewing, embroidery or lacemaking." (Chadwick, 120). Even though many of these works reinforced this private domesticity of women the works were of exceptional quality and were not praised as such in there time.
A Woman Sewing by Candlelight
Judith Leyster 1633
Msn images: Photo credit Bethel University Visual Arts February 2013
As the Enlightenment emerged and some of societies world views change, women begin to move into the professional realm of painting although not without scorn. During this period as views on science and the natural world are changing, ideas on women are relatively unmoving. The natural world for women was still in the detail of needlework not the abstract to which many like Rousseau believed was necessary in painting. Additionally, women were not allowed to join the academies where their skills could be honed even more extensively and many women began to forge a new path. Women began to form their own versions of academies that were called salons. Chadwick notes, "It was as leaders of salons, a social institution begun in the seventeenth century, that a few women were able to satisfy their public ambitions and become purveyors of culture." (Chadwick, 144). Even in these endeavors, women were still being held to an ideal of femininity. Well into the 1700's the ideal of what a virtuous woman was still dominated the mindset of the mainly male artistic world throughout Europe. Catherine Read's Lady Ann Lee Embroidering 1764 depicts a woman continuing in a woman's work by embroidering in what was called "the amateur traditions." (Chadwick, 148).
The role of women over the centuries had not changed but there were several women who challenged the ideal of what femininity entailed, what was appropriate for women and made a feminist statement. Angelica Kauffman (1741-1807) forged ahead in a world where you did things a certain way. After being able to become financial secure which was virtually unheard of for women she was able to "do the history painting that she felt would put her in the big leagues." (Guerilla Girls, 43). Kauffmann was "the first woman painter to challenge the masculine monopoly over history painting exercised by the Academicians." (Chadwick, 153). Yet, Kauffmann was scrutinized for her public friendships with men which also challenged the privy of the home and who is supposed to be in the public space. Also, challenging what a woman is and looks like in the Victorian Era was Rosa Bonheur. Often making some of these women artist so strong and determined was the support of their fathers as in the case of Rosa Bonheur. Bonheur was the exact opposite of what up to this point was considered to be a woman and being feminine. She dressed in men's clothes and openly had an relationship with a woman. Artist like Bonheur, "had to fight to be taken seriously," in a time, "male painters began to obsess over and objectify the naked female body." (Guerilla Girls, 47). Both women chose to step outside the role that had for so long been forced upon other women before them.
As the world changes through the abolition of slavery, women's' rights are still under valued. Women are still being relegated to the domestic sphere and the cult of domesticity is steadily being reinforced by many. The woman is supposedly at this time during the 19th Century being protected from the world. Yet as suffrage starts to become an active movement in America women are still be treated as if they have no voice and have not talent. As we learned in the last presentation in class many women such as Harriet Powers despite the triple whammy of being a former slave, a woman and uneducated did not stop her from creating fascinating story quilts which now inspire and educate even into modern times. Although, women still carry the burden of being relegated to certain roles even today, the women who endured and paved the way for these roles to be challenged, changed, rearranged and or the same would be proud of us having the option to be whatever type of woman we choose to be.
Bibliography
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. New York, NY: Thames & Hudson Inc., 1990.
The Guerilla Girls. The Guerilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1998.
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