Cansuela Lawrence
Art and Women
Spring 2017
Professor Cacoilo
The Timeline of Women in Art
During the Middle ages and the Renaissance the role of a woman was to got married, have children, and to keep the home. In the case of art and women’s roles in this period, the only women that made art was a part of the church. Chadwick; “It is in the cultural ideology that supported women’s exclusion from the arts of painting and sculpture that we find the roots of the subsequent shift of women’s role in visual culture from one of production to one of being represented…A tradition of educated and skilled women in religious orders…Nuns actively commissioned works for foundations, such as, for example, the splendid polyptych ordered by Benedictine nuns of San pier maggiore in Florence for their high altar” (67).
The fact that in the Middle ages and early Renaissance they called the art works of women visual culture and art , shows the value of a woman was little to nothing in this period. The lack of respect carry over into the Renaissance. In both Women Art, and Society and the Guerrilla Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of Western art spoke about Sofonisba Anguissola who was the daughter of Amilcare Anguissola. Who was one of the only women known to work alongside the royal family at that time but even though she was recognized as an artist she stilled faced patriarchy and the male gaze because of her sex, also she was forced to marry a Sicilian by the King.
In Chadwick’s book he mentioned her father writing to Michelangelo to send his daughter one of his drawing so she could color it in oil. But instead he said that young Sofonisba should send him a drawing of a young boy crying which she did of her only brother crying. Which she titled Boy bitten by a Crayfish. This is not a common thing for a father to represent his daughter in the art world. This drawing showed that Sofonisha Anguissola was in the some artistic level as the great masters of the Renaissance.
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| Sofonisba Anguissola Boy bitten by a Crayfish,1559 |
The Guerrilla Girls mention a sculptor named properziade Rossi in their book; “is the only known Renaissance women to have sculpted in marble” (31). Ironically the history books forget to put her work alongside Michelangelo’s in their chapters and books dedicated to the renaissance movement.
Unfortunately the women faced inequality regardless of which clads they’re from. Their families marry them off for money, they were raped and force to marry the man whom raped them, also they were seen as a danger to society if they could read or write. A perfect example of an educated woman was Artemissia Gentileschi; who was raped by her father’s pupil. She Demanded her father made him pay for his action he took against her. The Guerrilla Girls stated, “In later years, Artemisia, apparently living as a single mother, traveled all over Italy was a court painter to King of England, counted cosimo De medici and empress Maria of Austria among her patrons and corresponded with famous men of her time like Galileo. She did many more paintings on the theme of Judith and Holoferness” (37). The injustice that Artemissia faced against Agostino in count just only made her a more powerful Renaissance woman which set the way for women into the 19th century. You may have stolen her virtue but you haven’t broken her spirit.
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| Artemissia Gentileschi Judith Slaying Holofernes,1614-20 |
Even in the 17th and 18th century the roles of women was the some. But on the other hand girls age 12 were working in the textile and garment trades. Also the poor people have to work both men and women in the factors, and women with children not married lost their jobs and faced prison time. The feminist movement was in full blow force in the 19century. The slaves and their needle work showed the stories of their home land, church life and events they seen in that time. Also the group of women who move to Rome to do Neoclassical art. These women made sculptures and also some of them were lesbians which was against the law. In this group was a colored woman (Edmonia Lewis) and at that time colored women faced more discrimination than any other woman is the art world.
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| Edmonia Lewis, The Death of Cleopatra,1876 |
Going in to the Impressionism movement more groups of women are going to school to studying art and also all girls/women art schools. The growing numbers of still life and landscape paintings was mostly done by women. The male and female artists started to make fun of the classical art, the church also the male gaze and the way we view art. Overall the roles of women in art changed from the Middle ages to modern days by women gaining power and working hard to prove that their art is as good or better then men work.
WORKS CITED
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, art, and society. Londres: Thames & Hudson, 2012. Print.
The Guerrilla Girls, The Guerrilla Girls'Bedside Companion To The History of Western Art.New York: Penguin Books USA,1998. Print.
http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=33878
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5qSwf-GTfs
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