Janel Anicette

Professor. Cacoilo

Art and Women

10 April 2019

The Age of the New Woman

Since the creation and cultivation of western art , women were subjugated to be second class citizens. Art was perpetually created by men, made for men and purchased by men because women involvement was perceived as taboo. During  the Middle Ages, women exclusively made art in the church and were confined only to create in certain spaces. During the Renaissance era, women where in a re-birthing period where the art they created often focused on the female gaze and redefining what a stereotypical woman should be. In the Victorian era, women were still fighting against the status quo. Similarly to the middle ages, women in the Victorian era still held this place in society where being obedient and domestic were hall-markers for the ideal women.  In some ways the rigidity of the role of the female in the 17th and 18th century was a precursor to the liberation of female artist that began at the start of Impressionist movement. Women went from being virtually invisible, to demanding their voices to be heard, and to finally demanding legitimacy, space, and compensation as an artist who is female. The late nineteenth century struggle for women artists wasn’t for space but it was for recognition. It is evident that the progression of women artists was one that was constricted due to the power of their male counterparts. During the Impressionist movement women were participating in art forms that they’ve never experienced such as quilt making, photography and  sculpture. This breath of fresh air also became translated into fashion at the turn of the century in the form of Modernism. Impressionism ushered in Modernism, a new wave of creation that re-standardized the female form and Post-modernism derives from that desire to push beyond the boundaries of current knowledge to redefine art.

The development of abstraction began with the use of non-traditional materials that were commonly found in decorative art and not fine art. Abstraction utilized materials like textiles, and developed new techniques to put art  on a canvas. The fashion fad of geometric shaped signified modernity and women also began to function as both a producer and signifier of that modernity. Modernity defined the desire to be for the “new” and was culturally linked to the development of a new depiction of art in terms of they type of visuals that were being produced. Art Nouveau cultivated a new aesthetic that required a new kind of relationship between art and life that illustrates the present and blended the fine arts of the past (Chadwick, 253).  The first inklings of modernism manifested in dress reform. The fashion became an aspect of feminist concerns during the last quarter of the 19th century and essentially, women no longer were akin to the idea of wearing restrictive and tight clothing which was groundbreaking. Gabriele Munter, a Bavarian glass painter with the influence of Kandinsky ( a pioneer of abstract art), began to push the boundaries of abstraction in portraiture. In her work, form was simplified and bright colors were bordered by a strong, dark contouring. An exemplary piece in this style is her Portrait of Marianne von Werflkin, 1909. At the precibus of the new century art was transforming from the domain of the decorative and “new” art would reflect ways people began to think about the surface plane and about the spiritual content of the art. An accomplished artist of the time Sonia Delaunay got her start by using patterns of abstract form in her clothing design to enhanced the movement of the dancers who she was costume designing for in Spain. “ The female body in itself, was perceived as an important signifier for modernity and fashion also translated abstraction which made it another signifier for modernity (Chadwick, 262). Modernism can be characterized as possessing notes of political commentary and reflective of the world at that time. Interestingly, in Russian avant garde- women were treated as full equals in the plight to breakdown traditional distinctions between fine art and applied art, this was a very modern scenario. Harkening back to the impressionist movement there was a burgeoning sentiment of dissent bubbling within the sphere of women artist because women globally wanted to be seen and no longer wanted their work to be confined to the realm of the home during the transition into Modernism.

Futurism is one of the many “isms” that developed as result of the industrialized world. Industrialization undoubtedly and dramatically altered the livelihood of many people globally.  Futurism entered public discourse in 1913, in Europe. When Russian artist returned home from the “Free Futurist Exhibition” in Rome, they returned home to a nation that was intellectually and culturally isolated as a result of political turmoil.” The leading Russian artists shared a "belief  in the coming political revolution and in the need to produce art of the people “ (Chadwick, 258). Inspired by Russian peasant art and European modernism a new style developed. The new style was anti-illusionistic, two-dimensional and the surface plane/texture became the purpose.  In 1921, productivism took center stage and asserted that art should be practiced as a trade and that the production of well designed articles for everyday use was far more valuable than the individual expression and this style dominated art schools in Russia. Artist like Popova were influenced by Futurism and her work emphasized color and texture while she also endorsed productivism. Popova and her contemporaries held an exhibition that had a catalogue announcing “the end of painting”. A large motif in the modernist movement was to really set out to define what art really is and what the art truly means. During this same time the “Productivist Manifesto” stated that artists should serve the public. Common canvases of the Productivist movement were textile and dress design because it combined artistic and technological aspects of production. Dadaism followed shortly after and emphasized breaking free from the static quality of painting. The usage of multidimensional mediums gave rise to the Dada style of photomontage, one of the most notable examples of this style is Hannah Hoch’s DADA-Dance. In Dada terms, traditional painting erred on the side of being a static and materialistic form, unable to communicate the activeness of life. In 1923, Varvara Stepanova, issued a Design for Sports clothing which was indicative of females feeling empowered to be strong and active. In that same year, Delaunay’s abstract and geometric concepts became fashionable among society woman in Paris. Essentially, Dada art served to dispel the notion that clothes were a cover for the body and transitioned the body to be more like a screen used to reflect a present that is always transitioning. As Delaunay’s clothing reached huge success in Paris, Russian artist like Stepanova wanted to address the industrial problems after the crippling shortages of raw materials after the revolution and the Civil War of 1918-1921 in Russia. Stepanova firmly positioned her ideology on clothes and believed that the pure purpose of clothes is to be functional, not decorative. As a result the mass production of clothing made for middle-class women, the designs of Delaunay and Russian artist began to reshape the image of the “New Woman”. However, idyllic 1920’s fashion stressed youthfulness and sexuality despite the multi-dimensional complexities of everyday life. The popular advocacy of the New Woman was international but it also strayed farther and farther from the realities of working women at the time.

In that same light, women were not only interested in the newness of the times they wanted the realness. Paula Modersohn-Becker’s Self portrait with Amber necklace and her painting Mother and Child Lying nude ushered in a new wave of femininity that was centralized around a thematic purpose entitled “earth mother”. “The shift from the imagery of seductive to natural womanhood was the essence of modernist artist and categorized as expressionism. Becker uses herself as the nude model and painters herself in nature. Early modernist representation of the female form was a more soft rendition of portraiture, with color blocking and  flat stylized facial features. Women began to paint themselves in their own skin. Becker’s second painting Mother and Child Lying Nude was not sexualized but it is extraordinarily ordinary and intimate, not to be used for a man's pleasure. Expressionism delved into a radical space called surrealism. Leonora Carrington was a British surrealist who painted the space of dreams and the subconscious which can be seen in her Self Portrait of 1938. Modernist often seeked to reinvent painting and  it was a highly intellectualized space reserved for the elite. In sharp contrast, post-modern art was steeped in pluralism and all art forms were equally valid. Post-modernism was an extremely experimental space that was overtly political  when compared to the subtle political commentary that was apparent in modern art of years prior. Additionally, post-modern art subscribed to notion that art can be made by anyone and made out of anything and that art could change lives. Lee Krasner’s Noon, 1947 demonstrated gestural abstraction, Augusta Savage’s, Lift Every voice and Sing,  paid homage to the legacy of slavery and spoke to representational freedom while the works of Thelma Johnson Streat where placed in the MoMA as she developed  a style of dancing to correspond with her work. In Post modern art, performance art became a new facet of art creation and pieces like Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece , Adrian Piper’s  Cornered and Marina Abramovic’s endurance performance art were all new, exciting and challenged the notion of what art really could be. Cindy Sherman, injects exclusively her narrative into her art narrative stating that “she must be seen” and similar sentiments were omnipresent and consistent in post-modern art. Post modern gave way to intersectionality and allowed women of color to share their stories as well. Ultimately, the women artist of the modernist era and post-modernist era all strived to break the confines of the social norms of their  time through art by pushing the boundaries of what art represents and what art means to the individual, to politics and what it means about the future.

Gabriele Munter,  Portrait of Marianne von Werflkin,  1909

Hannah Hoch, DADA Dance, 1922  

“Many of the collaged figures in her earliest photomontages were caricatures of the new women” (Guerilla Girls, 66).

Varvara Stepanova, Designs for Sports Clothes , 1920’s

“She designed clothing for different occupations” and was a pioneer in the idea that women’s clothes should be for function (Guerilla Girls, 65).

Paula Modersohn-Becker,  Self portrait with Amber necklace, 1938

Adrian Piper, Cornered 1988