Throughout the history it is evident that as the roles of women shift, so do their art interest and subject matter of the work. Depending on the amount of rights that women had and ability to progress and receive an adequate education did their artwork evolve and took on different shapes and subjects.
During the Middle Ages women were not encouraged to receive an education and were seen mostly as a property of their husband or father. However, when analyzing the role of women in that society, females were allowed to participate in almost all the tasks. Whitney Chadwick in her book Women, Art, and Society writes, “Women’s lives do not appear to have been privatized and their social functions subordinated to, or defined by, their sexual capacities. Symbiotic modes of production and reproduction, no clearly defined physical boundaries between domestic life and public and economic activity, and they physical rigors of medieval life, encouraged women to take significant part in the management of family property and in general economic life" (Chadwick 44). Due to the codependency of both sexes on each other in order for production to grow, women were able to participate in the stereotypical male roles and through that gained rights and ability to participate in art creation through illuminated manuscripts and embroidery. Even though generally women had limited rights, nuns had more privileges and opportunities to learn and grow than other women. One of the examples is Hildegard Von Bingen who wrote Scivias, an illuminated manuscript, where she depicted her vision that she received from God. Although during Middle Ages women had barely any rights, they were able to push through and develop their own interest into the artwork.
During the Renaissance the role of women still remained limited; most of them were still illiterate, and the only way to become an artist was mainly through being born into an artist family that required assistance. Nuns continued to be one of the most powerful women during that time, while other women were not encouraged or allowed to have any art making skills. Chadwick writes, “Most of highly skilled artisans were now men; women were relegated to areas that required fewer skills, or skills of a kind that could be easily transferred to new households upon marriage” (Chadwick 68). During Renaissance era women were excluded from activities that were labeled as male only. Women could not participate in the general economic activities or in the household. Moreover, in the marriage women barely had any rights. Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art by Guerilla Girls lists statements of what women were allowed to do in Renaissance,“she could divorce her husband only if she could prove him impotent. She could salvage her reputation by marrying any man who raped her” (Guerrilla Girls 32). The idea of man being the ruler of the household and determining what woman should and could do limited the ability of female artists to progress and learn in such conditions. However, there was an exception from the rule - the city of Bologna, where women were allowed to attend and even lecture at the university. This resulted in artists like Elisabetta Sirani who even opened a school for women artists and also challenged the idea of only men focusing on Classicism and mythological stories as a subject matter. Her painting Portia Wounding Her Thigh, 1664 shows how females through reference of mythology were attempting to go against the male dominated ruling by proving their toughness to men. Expansion of education to women like in example with the city of Bologna allowed women to learn the same techniques and experiment with a similar subject matter of Classicism that men were also interested in.
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| Portia challenging the notion of femininity. |
During 17thand 18thcenturies women started to shift their subject matter to the domestic scenes, representing a female contemporary experience. Additionally to the paintings of women sewing and embroidering, there are artworks that depict hardships of being a female in that time period. One of the examples is a painting by Judith Leyster The Proposition, 1631. Chadwick writes, “presented as an embarrassed victim rather than a seducer, Leyster’s female figure is depicted as an embodiment of domestic virtue at a time when the growth of Calvinism was accompanied by a resurgence of brothels” (Chadwick 124). Judith Leyster shifts the roles and shows the innocence of the female and her strength to go against the sexualizing and stereotypes about female prostitution compared to a demanding man who is trying to buy female’s innocence.
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| Judith Leyster, The Proposition, 1631 |
Another shift in the subject matter and women’s opportunities in art was brought by the industrial revolution in the 19thcentury. Such change allowed for transportation, which meant the spread of knowledge and opportunities. One of the subject matter became animals for an artist Rosa Bonheur. Unlike most of the women who were not allowed to be outside by themselves and therefore could only paint limited scenes from the outside life, Rosa Bonheur had an official cross-dress permit that allowed her to dress as a man and be outside by herself. In her works she depicted animals as her main subject matter, showing them as beautiful, graceful and most importantly powerful creatures. According to Guerrilla Girls, “Rosa’s the Horse Fair, 1853, made her one of the best-loved artists in Europe. The prominent painted Sir Edwin Landseer proposed marriage and even offered to become Sir Edwin Bonheur for her” (Guerrilla Girls 48). Although Rosa Bonheur was one of the most powerful and progressive female artists during that time period, she was still acknowledged only as a woman whose biggest accomplishment can be a proposal to marriage. Women, although having more rights and opportunities than ever before, were still fighting female stereotypes and gender roles.
Works Cited
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| Rosa Bonheur by Andre Adolphe-Eugene Disderi, 1863 |
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society: Fourth Edition. Thames & Hudson, 2007.
The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. Penguin, 1998.
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