Women, the roles they are forced to lead and the roles they chose to lead (Post 2)

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).

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 11^th 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.

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).

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 16^th century demonstrates the importance of accessibility through nobility.

Portrait of Giovanna Tornabuoni, 1488

Sofonisba Anguissola: Self Portrait, 1556

Women’s lives did not get any easier as history progressed into the 17^th and 18^th 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.

Anna Maria Sibylla -Merian Metamorphosis of the Insects of Surinam

However, well into the 19^th 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.