Ayushi Kadakia
Professor Cacoilo
Due March 7th, 2017
The Middle Ages in Europe represented a time period that women were confined to the roles developed and set by the men. There were progressive movements that were taking place around the Middle Ages. Women had the ability to learn about religion through the holy books provided by the covenants. For a woman to be able to learn and educate herself, she had to be a part of a covenant. Although they were able to learn, St. Paul's caution "a woman must be a 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," (Chadwick, 45). Women are to be married, and a traditional housekeeper and caretaker of children. The only escape for intellectual women who wanted to free themselves of this ideal, would join the church and educate themselves freely. Women artists in the Middle Ages were subjected to paintings that undermined their worth and glorifying a man. However, one woman rose above the ideologies and held to a high standard by the Church. Hildegard of Bingen, a woman who's visions were translated as the wishes and direct connection to God, was upheld and given the equivalence of a man. "A gift from God to a weak, but chosen woman, the vision circumvents the medieval Church's denial of power or authority to women. It disrupts masculine control of knowledge by separating the body of a woman from thought," (Chadwick, 59). Hildegard used her religious motivation to slowly begin to disseminate the role of women as submissive but as complementary to men. Slowly, the industrialization posed by the growth in economy led to women have places to carry on the businesses left behind by their husband or father. Although these women were to obey the masculine nature of education, there began a progressive movement to show the importance and strength of women.
The Renaissance became an era where women were beginning to experience freedom in terms of understanding their roles in society. Women artists were encouraged by their fathers, who were mostly artists, to push forth into the profession of art. One woman artist in particular holds a high stature in the world of art because her father was not a wealthy artist, yet encouraged his daughter to be a part of the art profession: Sofonisba Anguissola. She was able to push past the male-dominated profession and produced paintings that received praise, and criticism. "Like many women artists, she has been subjected to wildly fluctuating critical evaluations: from Baldinucci's assertion in the seventeenth century that she was the equal of a Titian in portraiture to Sydney Freedberg's complete dismissal of her in 1971 for lacking skill in drawing," (Chadwick, 77). Altogether, women were beginning to rise towards the art profession. Following the lead of Anguissola, Artemesia Gentileschi was also a woman known for her vigilance against men. She was raped by her teacher who refused to marry her after, and compelled court charges against him. Gentileschi "was a teenage prodigy working in her father's atelier. By the time she was 17, she had already completed many paintings on her own, including "Susanna and the Elders," (Guerilla Girls, 34). One of her more famous paintings is "Judith Decapitating Holofernes." This painting revealed the strength and the resilience of the two women that brutally murdered the general.It showed the women strangling him and cutting off his head, and looking prideful and strong while doing so. Gentileschi paints them with strong arms with blood splattering everywhere, yet the women are focused on their task of ending his life. The focus on woman being the one in power and showing violence was to depict the hatred she held for the man who raped her. It was entirely visible in her painting of woman prowess. Similarly, the 19th Century held a bar for women where they formed societies with other women to welcome each other and discuss paintings and literary work. They were beginning to place their identities without the fear of clear criticism. However, women were still undermined by men as they were believed to "decreased femininity, exposure to the nude model was thought to inflame the passions and disturb the control of female sexuality that lay at the heart of Victorian moral injunctions,” (Chadwick, 175). Regardless of the criticism, women came forward to challenge some of the notions that were attributed to housework and womanhood. They were openly criticizing the male nature and sexism of the era. For instance, artists such as Alice Walker. Alice Walker depicted "some of the uneasy aspects of feminine sexuality constructed around male approval" in her work, as demonstrated by "Wounded Feelings." The woman is dressed in red to show her beauty and wealth walking away from the gathering upset because the man in the red rejected her. Walker's use of the same color on both the man and the woman is to show that he disapproved of her and immediately began talking to the other woman who is gleefully smiling at him. The woman is being comforted by her friend to show how women were still held to the title of requiring approval from men. In the art industry, women became more vocal and outrageous as seen by the evolution in women artists from the Middle Ages to the 19th century.
Works Cited
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Londres: Thames & Hudson, 2012. Print.
The Guerrilla Girls' bedside companion to the history of Western art. London: Penguin, 1998. Print.
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| Sofonisba Anguissola, Self Portrait, 1556 |
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| Artemesia Gentileschi, Judith Decapitating Holofornes, 1614 |
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| Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, 1142-52 |
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| Alice Walker, Wounded Feelings, 1861 |
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