Gender Roles, Subject and Power

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/23/women-artists-_n_6904390.html

Bayeux Tapestry 1086

Europe in the Middle Ages was an extremely restrictive society for women.   Very few women were educated and the those that were were afforded such education from the church.  The women were educated for the purpose of clergy writing; the process of scribing and translating texts for the church.   "The Christian Church, as the dominant force in Western medieval life, organized communication and culture, as well as religion and education."  (Chadwick, 44)    However, the invention of the printing press in 1450 changed the power of the church and began to chip away at the power the church had. Mass printing gave the church the ability to reach more people both near and far and Lutherism and Protestantism made it's way into peoples homes.  Whereas with the development of a feudal society we see women roles in the church  had became more restricted.  "While medieval writers and thinkers discussed at length issues concerning women and their proper status in society, Christian representation was focused one opposition of Eve and Mary, seducer and saint."  (Chadwick, 44)  Yet, mercantilism began chipping away at Feudalism and began creating a middle class.    Still, most patrons of art where the noble class and the church.  Outside of religious art, there are legacy portraits for and of those persons who are rich enough to commission them.  The Bayeaux Tapestry was one of the first works that was not biblical and it's secular narrative structure told of the defeat of Harold at the Battle of Hastings.

Artemisia Gentileschi, 1610

We now see the emergence of the Renaissance; the rebirth of the classics.  Female artists such as Artemisia Gentlischi, Sofanisba Anguissola, and Elisabetta Siriani become well known artists.  However, they are still not as well known or respected as their male counterparts such as Orazio Gentishechi, Caravaggio, and Tintoretto, just to name a few.   This all white, all male fraternity of famous artists cultivates this new Neoclassical theme; heroic tales, history and mythology.  Yet, these subjects are reserved for only them.   We are also now getting the live nude, however , the male nude is off limits for the female painters.  So, women could not paint the male nude and the war and god themes were also solely for the male painters, what were they left with?  We see the good old Biblical theme, although we are beginning to get a new perspective offered by these female painters.   The paintings are becoming more realistic and you can see emotion in the paintings.  We see similar subjects, such as Susanna and the Elders and Judith Slaying Holofernes, but we see how the perspective is different.  The female painter, who in both of these instances is Artemisia Gentlischi, seems to rebut the "male gaze".  Artemisia focuses on the woman in the picture and she paints what it is she wants you to see and know about the painting.  The females in her painting have agency over themselves.  They are not placed there for sexually provocative purposes.  There is something that each female artist wants you to see, but it's not her sexuality for your viewing pleasure. Artemisia in her Susanna and the Elders picture forces us, the viewer, to look at her; at her distress and her resistance.  She paints Susanna in the way as to say "I know you are looking".  Whereas Tintoretto poses the same female character in a way that not only is she enamored with herself, she wants you to be as well.    In many ways, it's a political statement.  

17th and 18th Century painting takes a turn away from the subjects of religion and neoclassism.  We begin to see the emergence of women, of both upper and lower classes, performing everyday tasks.  We see Judith Leyster and Vermeer painting women sewing, but their tales are completely different.  In The Proposition, Leyster, the female painter paints the women sewing and ignoring the man propositioning her for sex.  The female in the painting is of a lower class than he, therefore he feels he has the right to make her such an offer.  Vermeer's painting, The Lacemaker, portrays the woman well dressed and smiling as she appears to be enjoying her work.  "Although art history has been complicit in generalizing such representation into embodiments of of domestic virtue, significant differences in fact exist in the presentation of this type of female labor in dutch art, as well as in the class and material circumstances of the women engaged in it."  (Chadwick, 126)  The subject again is the same, whereas the perspective is different.  Another interesting subject for women is still life and flower paintings.  Subjects that were well within the expectations of what females should be painting, and sometimes, it is what their husbands painted.

The biggest shift thus far, seems to be in 19th century Victorian England.  What we see in this era is women as workers and as lovers.  The subject of Edith Hayler's Feeding the Swans and Alice Walker's Wounded Feelings are portrayals of courtly love.  Hayler presents to us the courting process and how we are grooming women from as early as her childhood.  The steps in the painting represent all the phases of her life as a woman.  Whereas we see in Walker's painting the hurt of unrequited love.  The statements made here are more from the heart and the expectations are of the female subject and not their male counterparts. "It may be that in the more heroic and epic works of art the hand of man is best fitted to excel; nevertheless there remain gentle scenes of home interest, and domestic care, delineations of refined feeling and subtle touches of tender emotions, with which the woman artist is eminently entitled to deal', noted by the Englishwoman's Review in 1857. (Chadwick, 182)  Times are beginning to shift as women were given opportunities to go to College to become a governess and shortly after being accepted into The National Art Training School allowing women to become trained as art teachers.

http://the-toast.net/2014/11/21/white-marmorean-flock-19th-century-lady-sculptors-rome/

Women throughout Art History, have been the underdogs.  They were given the opportunity to paint themselves, doing what men expected women to do.  Little by little, female artists started to push the limits.  Female artist Rosa Bonheur was encouraged by her family to get a permit for cross dressing.  Meanwhile in America, we see the White Marmorean Flock who exchanged marriage and domesticity for professional careers as artists. There subjects were unconventional.  They had fewer constraints upon them as women were seen as members of society, albiet not fully and with conditions.  They challenged the views of femininity, but were amongst those that felt the same way.   These artists were more successful than the female artists before them.  In retrospect, they had come so far.  Sadly, we still have so far to go.

Rosa Bonheur, 19th Century French Artist 

Works Cited 

Chadwick, Whitney.  Women, Art and Society.  Thames and Hudson World of Art: London.  2012

Guerrilla Girls.  The Guerrilla Girls' Beside Companion to the History of Western Art. Penguin Books:  New York. 1998