Five Feminists

"Christine de Pizan in her Study"
from The Book of the City of Ladies (1405 CE)

Christine De Pizan was way ahead of her time.  As a widow with children to feed, she did not allow the gender barriers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to stop her from embracing her talents and providing for her family.  Many scholars and historians don't refer to Pizan as a feminist, as the concept of feminism did not exist in her lifetime.  Still, an argument can be made that she talked the talk and walked the walk of feminism through her book The Book of the City of Ladies (1405 CE).  In The Book of the City of Ladies, Pizan illustrates the strength and independence of womanhood and creates a productive and functional society in the absence of men.  The idea of a matriarchal society was revolutionary as Pizan was depicting women as artists, writers, bricklayers, so on and so forth, and the first to inexplicitly stating that women are very well capable of existing independently.  Because women were assumed to be secondary and weak, Pizan introduced the concept of gender equality, both physically and intellectually, and provided a foundation for feminist thinkers to come.  

Judith Slaying Holofernes (1618)

Artemisia Gentileschi knew her audience, and she used that to her advantage.  As a former student, and the only female student, of Caravaggio, Gentileschi knew what the art world wanted to see, and she delivered.  Additionally, Gentileschi lived in a time and place where she understood that her audience wanted to see biblical art, so she created such and incorporated her own experiences as a woman.  Some say that Gentileschi uses her art to depict her own experiences, and she uses the biblical stories to relate herself and the great women of God in their quests to overcome gender inequality.  In her piece, Judith Slaying Holofernes (1618), critics like to interpret the slaying of Holofernes as Gentileschi slaying her rapist.  Gentileschi, like so many other great women, used the pain that came from her gender oppression to fuel her independence later on in life, like a true feminist would.  

Nude Arranging Her Hair (1916)

Suzanne Valadon took the depictions of strong and dignified women in the paintings, photographs, and sculptures of her predecessors and introduced her own version of the woman.  Valadon chose to depict women separate from the male gaze, she created women who were confident, curious, awkward, and present.  In contrast to many depictions of the female body from the past, Valadon created pieces with women in the center and with women who were true to the reality of being naked with oneself.  Valadon recognized, as a woman, that the female body is not ever-elegant, sexually pleasing, and graceful; she took her own truth of the female body and shared it with the world.  The feminist movement did not oppose the female body but instead opposed the use of the female body for a man's pleasure, Valadon embodies the views of her sisters and creates relatable and realistic nudes for the common woman to appreciate both the art of the nude and the art of her own body.  

Henry Ford Hospital (1932)

Frida Kahlo understood the pain of women's traditional roles as both a mother in mourning and a wife in an abusive relationship.  Like so many women of the past, present, and future, Kahlo feels the intimate burdens of womanhood and combines them to touch the souls of others who have felt so alone in their own journeys as women.  Through her work, Kahlo creates this campaign of unspoken truths among women and publicizes and politicizes them to create what I can only explain as "group therapy through art".  Women, often subject to their families and their homes, often not engaging so much with other suffering women, or are engaging with them but unable to speak of their hardships, are left to feel alone in the world.  Kahlo takes all that tortures her and lets women know that they are not alone, that women from all walks of life are subject to the same troubles of womanhood.  Like the feminists of the Second Wave, Kahlo takes the female body, the female mind, and the female strength, and embraces them within her art and her lifestyle. 

Interior Scroll (1975)

Caroline Schneeman followed in the footsteps of the women mentioned earlier, and she took feminist and performance art one step further.  Schneeman is known for her feminist performance art during the Second Wave of Feminism and for her pieces being unsettling to those followers of traditional patriarchal ideas.  By using live, nude, and politically and social justice seeking women to create art, Schneeman smashed barriers in both the art world and the feminist movement.  What made Schneeman so great was her willingness to put herself in theoretically vulnerable positions and show such great strength and empowerment.  

Mary Kelly, Margaret Harrison, and Kay Hunt were feminist artists of the late twentieth century who conducted their own unique and successful work and came together to promote socialist and feminist views.  Kelly, Harrison, and Hunt created a documentary titled Women at Work to exhibit the working conditions of a group of female workers in a Metal Box Company in Great Britain who were fighting for equal pay and were discriminated against because of it.  With their piece, Kelly, Harrison, and Hunt established photography and documentary as a legitimate medium of art and reached a broader, non-art world audience.  

Works Cited 

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Langara College, 2016.

The Guerrilla Girls Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. Penguin Books, 2006.

“Henry Ford Hospital, 1932 by Frida Kahlo.” Fridakahlo.org, www.fridakahlo.org/henry-ford-hospital.jsp.

Jones, Jonathan. “More Savage than Caravaggio: the Woman Who Took Revenge in Oil.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 5 Oct. 2016, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/oct/05/artemisia-gentileshi-painter-beyond-caravaggio.

Manchester, Elizabeth. “'Interior Scroll', Carolee Schneemann, 1975.” Tate, 1 Jan. 1975, www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/schneemann-interior-scroll-p13282.

Mark, Joshua J. “Christine De Pizan.” Ancient History Encyclopedia, Ancient History Encyclopedia, 20 Apr. 2020, www.ancient.eu/Christine_de_Pizan/.

“National Museum of Women in the Arts.” Suzanne Valadon | National Museum of Women in the Arts, nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/suzanne-valadon.