Silvy Matos
Art and Women
Due: 02/27/2020
Gender Roles, Subject, and Power
Women
have not always been looked upon in such a manner as they do today. In order to
get to where they at the moment women have had to undergo a variety of
obstacles to achieve a certain aspect of equal rights, gain power to influence
others, and more. In historical times women were depicted as an object, as one
to be submissive, domesticated to the extent males desired, and generally less
fit then men for many things. Women during the Middle Ages in the Western world
had significance if they were part of the upper class, if their family had
money, or if they were married, religious women were the only ones who had the opportunity to have a
certain amount of power mainly due to the
ability to retrieve a education. Throughout the Renaissance period women were
not far off from these roles especially do to the fact the male had the
majority of power over women. Overall, women were inferior to men in society and
their priority was to care for the home and family, the women in the Renaissance
were always under male power at first from their father and later to their
husband, their roles solely depended on their patriarchal figures status
leading to women not having many rights. It changed in the Renaissance in the
sense that they had a larger voice and women were able to work and had the opportunity
to change their class. However, women were dissuaded to participate in art, literature,
and politics.
Although,
women in the 19th century fought to change these moral ideas from
the Western beliefs. American women were able to change these ideas to a certain
extent due to their plight for a new life in the New World just as men. They
traveled to leave Europe and commence a new life, and during that small period
in which they were settling in women were able to get more freedom. Lower working-class
women were significantly more equal to their men compatriots, because they both
were new to this land and they were economically equal. Men in a sense were not
able to have power over women if they didn’t have the wealth to control them. However,
one cannot assume that women automatically were equal. During the 19th
century, females were still expected to be domestic characters who care for
their children and spouse, as they did in the Renaissance and Middle Ages.
Citizens were still considered to be primarily male in America as they were in
Ancient Greece, women did not own land or property, they themselves were
property to male counterparts. However, unlike women in previous times, 19th
century women could be educated which would give more freedom to them. Middle class
women were primarily considered to follow, “the Cult of Domesticity”, to be at
home take care of the children and make their husband happy, but many lower
class women still were able to work even if it was in a factory, as a seamstress,
or servant. Later, on in this time women had the ability to become part of political
parties to make changes to the nation.
One
can see the development of women roles through the Middle Ages to Renaissance
to the 19th c. through art and literature specifically created by
women. Observers can see the rise of women in society by defying the “norms”
created by males throughout history. Through art women were able to express
themselves, the true reality of their roles as a result of their viewpoint and
life experiences. In the Middle Age period it was evident women were not able to
have a voice in their lives unless you belonged to a wealthy family or part of church,
“within the convent women had access to learning even though they were prohibited
from teaching by St. Paul’s caution that “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). The convent
was a way for women to have power in society, nuns were politically active
women with papal recognition. The painting,
Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias (know the ways of the lord) c1142-52, was
work done to represent a woman’s religious experience and her ability to make a
change in society.
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| Hildegard of Bingen, Scivas c1142-52 |
This
art piece glorifies women even though the Church denies the power to women.
Hildergard of Bingen represents the history of salvation, she retrieved recognition from the pope and others who regarded her as consequential and important,
because she received divine visions from the great lord. Although, she had
great divine powers Vincent of Beauvais, a male claimed she was illiterate,
once again demonstrating how men would always try to make women seem as if they
were not intelligent on their own. She was still a representation of the
ability of women to have power in the Middle Ages. Along with Hildegard,
Herrad of Landsberg, Hortus Delicaiaru (garden of delights) after 1170 also
represent women power in the Middle Ages by being part of the convent. Women could
not be priests but could be leaders of their convent as nuns, Herrad expressed
she could see visions, and she wrote them down in a book. Her documentations
were valuable to research, she created a history book or biblical learning and
for the first time she created a first page of credits to women in the book and
credits herself in the book as well. At the time men were the only ones who had
the access to write books to teach others and she was an example of going against
the norms, her text taught clergy and upper-class individuals.
 |
| Herrad of Landsberg, Hortus Deliciarum, after 1170 |
Unlike
the Middle Ages, the Renaissance was a moment of change for a women’s artistic
visions. Although, most art formed in the Middle Ages by women were created by nuns
through literature rather than paintings, females in the Renaissance had more
access to becoming artists if they were part of a wealthy family. Also compared
to the Middle Ages, even though women were still not able to be educated
compared to men, they were still able to learn due to education becoming more
secular. During the Renaissance, in most cities women were barred from the
guilds, “one of the few ways a woman could work as an artist was to be born
into a family of artists that needed assistance in the family workshop”
(Guerilla Girls, 29). Sofonisba Anguissola is an example of these artists, she
came from a family of nobles, but the difference was her father believed women
should be educated. With the assistance of her father she was able to design
unique portraiture.
 |
| Sofonisba Anguissola, Queen Anne of Austria, 1570 |
Sofonisba Anguissola was famously
known for her work of Queen Anne of Austria, 1570. With her detailed
work she had the ability to paint the queen not only as a object of beauty but
a person of power. The queen was painting pale to represent status, shows she
did not work in the sun like the lower class, but she was still painted in a humble
manner. Although, she was married to a wealth man in Italy, through the
painting one can see that she is wealthy herself and did not need the husband’s
wealth to be powerful. In a sense, she is powerful herself with her own wealth,
the Queen along with Anguissola are females in history during the Renaissance
that defy the definition of being a woman at the time by men. They challenge
the idea that women are to be perceived as weak and dimwitted.
Furthermore, as the Renaissance ended the 19th
century began and opened many new doors to feminist campaigns due to the reform
movement in Western Europe and America. “Women were presented as morally and spiritually
superior to men, and given primary responsibility for managing the home, but
their lives were tightly restricted in other ways... those who remained
unmarried, who worked, or were slaves, or immigrants, or social radicals...
found positive identities in sisterhood…” (Chadwick, 176). Women went from having
the ability to get an education in the Middle Ages by being part of the
convent, in the Renaissance by being wealthy, and in the 19th
century by being themselves, but what remained throughout history was the idea
that poor lower class women were always to take care of the household and live
domestic lives. However, in the 19th century being a domestic wife
was now a powerful job to be in, being the head of the household while the
husband is gone.
 |
| Anna Blunden, The Seamstress, 1854 |
Anna Blunden an upper-class
woman painted The Seamstress, 1854 to portray the roles of contemporary women
in the lower class during the 19th c., the women is seen hoping for
a better life than the one she has living during the Industrial Revolution. In a
sense, women during this time were allowed to hope and move up in life, social
mobility is present during this time period. She drew this woman to represent
the plight for lower class women to not give up. This is something in the early
ages the women were not even able to hope for, they couldn’t even work on their
own they needed to live under their father or husband.
 |
| Harriet Hosmer, Zenobia in Chains, 1859 |
One also
observes how women were able to make a life as an artist without the help of patriarchal
figures, like the group of women in the 19th century who made part
of the White Marmorean Flock. A sisterhood of American lady sculptors who
settled upon the seven hills and were active in Rome during the 1850's- 1860's, creating
marble sculptors that represented women. They were a group of single women
something which was not seen in previous eras. Examples would be the works of
Edmonia Lewis and Harriet Hosmer, who created sculptors that connected with the
human right issues of their time. A popular sculptor by Hosmer was Zenobia
of Chains, 1859, which represents the “warrior queen” that never gave up, she
was a feminist queen for her people. Although, she was captured by the Romans,
she was courageous, Hosmer emphasized Zenobia’s intellectual courage. Women
were capable of doing what a man did as well. Compared to the restrictions
women faced in Middle Ages and Renaissance as artists, there was an increasing confidence
in American women during the 1870's and 1880's.
Works Cited-
- Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. fifth ed., Thames & Hudson World of Art, 2012
- The Guerilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls Bedside Companion To The History of Western Art. Penguin Book, 1998
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