The Middle Ages and the 19th Century

During the Middle Ages the Christian Church was a dominant factor in the lives of many citizens. The Church praised spirituality and moral characteristics that emphasized patriarchy and highlighted the inferiority of women by using the Old Testament as evidence. This lead to the social division of classes between upper and lower class women and dependence upon their fathers, brothers, and husbands. According to Chadwick, “women’s social roles remained circumscribed by a Christian ethnic that stressed obedience and chastity, by the demands of maternal and domestic responsibility” (44). Women were divided into two categories by the Christian Church the vindictive seducer and the saint. Despite the limitations women faced many women continued to pursue an education in spite of the male gaze being the dominant force, for instance Chadwick argues, “women had access to learning even though they were prohibited from teaching by St. Paul’s caution that ‘a woman must be learner, listening quietly and with due submission. I do not permit a woman to be a teacher, nor must a woman domineer over a man; she should be quiet’” (45). Art during the Middle Ages was driven by religion and many women rebelled and educated themselves by leading an artistic lifestyle as nuns with many art work and literature with an unknown writer or managed to create a secret identity. Most women during the Middle Ages who were intellectuals and nonconformists took to the convent as a place to avoid societal standards. As a result, a new line of women artists began to emerge and many artists began to paint middle class women at home in “celebration of Madonna-like women and to an emphasis on the stages of women’s lives through which femininity is defined and secured” (Chadwick 181). For instance, Feeding the Swans 1889 by Edith Hayllar portrays women as nurturing and delicate. On the other hand, other female artists displayed difficult aspects of women’s lives and domestication. In a painting named War made by Anna Lea Meritt in 1883, the women adorn in jewels and dresses are depicted in a human manner filled with tension and fear in contrast to the glorification of war. Other painters such as Artemisia Gentileschi chose to openly defy the rules set for women and place themselves as the subject. For example, in some of her paintings Susana and the Elders, Gentileschi openly defies the male gaze as she is portrayed as Susana refusing the advances of the Elders scheming against her. One of the Elder appears to have similar characteristics to Agostino Tassi, a previous mentor that that raped Artemisia Gentileschi. In some of her later works, Gentileschi portrayed herself as the heroine who murdered Agostino Tassi as a form of justice in Judith Decapitating Holofernes. Despite the social repercussions women faced for pursing a more intellectual lifestyle many artists were able to use that negativity and mold it into a better outcome that we can look back and form a higher level of appreciation.

Edith Haylar, Feeding the Swans,1889

Artemisia Gentileschi, Susanna and the Elders, 1610