Art Perspective of Women Throughout Time

Women have always had a rough time, from getting a single right for them passed to getting many rights passed. Looking at it from an artistic perspective, women have had an even harder time to get any of their rights passed. Including getting a name on an artwork they have done. Women started preaching for their rights and involvement in the everyday daily life from the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages had a flourishing economy ruling, a religion which was greatly prospering, roles which created women to not be at the highest point, and an interesting world view coming into play. As Chadwick opens up how the women were in this time period, she quotes, "Although the names of a number of powerful women who were the patrons and benefactors of such representations are known today, we know little of the authors, for few of them signed their names and the preservation of their individual biographies had no role to play in their productions" (Chadwick 43). She depicts to the readers an illustration of how it was back then, how women had very few rights. All movements and actions were controlled by their men and anyone who was not a woman or a female. Woman could not support themselves so when their fathers could no longer support them, the girls would go into convents or get married off. Then their husband would support them. However, sometimes as we discussed in class, the girls would be younger than their "menstruation" age, being at the age of 11 or 12 and get married off to a man. This link tells readers about the early marriages done in the early centuries. Later, there came "...feudalism elsewhere, under it women did not lose all legal rights, status, and economic power" (Chadwick 47). A certain woman under this ruling could have their own interest of having art designs and structures.

Depicting early marriage during the Renaissance 

Sofonisba's self portrait. 

Furthermore, in the next century, the Renaissance, brought up the idea of mercantilism which allowed women to have an education of which they desired. Now, it was a time that women who were in a higher income family were able to be educated in whatever they wanted to do. To get married, a requirement was to have an education and so women were allowed to finish school. These mercantile families wanted a woman who was well educated and could read as Chadwick claims. Along with that, they had to be dressed a certain way. One of the famous artists who fulfilled these requirements thanks to her father was Sofonisba Anguissola. As the guerilla girls claims, "A rare exception to this was Sofonisba Anguissola, a noble whose father believed women should be educated" (Guerilla Girls 29). In this time period, this kind of thinking and way of thinking was distorted and not very expected. It was very uncommon for men to think like this, but the time period was changing indeed. Some of the favorite things about her are some of these fun facts in this link giving you a different or new perspective to understand how she was. She was famous for creating these pictures with your face showing clearly and having an angular posture to the woman's body just like it is depicted in the picture of her on the left. Continuing on, this time period, the Renaissance also had a growing city of Bologna which had all the artists flourishing, and it was a great opener for women who were in art. It was a pretty city with many advancements flourishing and giving artists a new adventure or a new perspective of life. An idea of how Bologna looked is below.

The city of Bologna

In the seventeenth century, the women were able to enjoy a lot more than usual and had more freedom. If they wanted to do any art or any profession in general they were freely able to do it without anyone coming in their way. In this time period, lots of artists went to Italy to learn new things or to grow their art. There was the idea of calvinism which came into perspective which is following the ideas of John Calvin. Women could be educated and the ideas of humanism were played in. However, the bad aspect to all this was indeed that men started to endure in painting women painters, but not just random women painters but naked women painters. An artist named Vermeer was very guilty of this act. All of this was the idea of "male gaze" starting to play into the perspective. Just to give you an idea of how the male gaze worked is this picture below. 

A picture of a predicted "male gaze" occurring

There was a lot of upper class and lower class idea and discretion going on. Therefore, artists would depict what was going on by painting their suffrage away or painting what women were feeling such as women labor. One of the famous artists as Chadwick to depict this suffrage would be Anna Blunden who made the painting "The Seamstress". 

"The Seamstress" by Anna Blunden

Later on, in the 18th centuries art kept growing and women had more resources and rights to do their work. They had a place in society higher up but still had to struggle and no love was depicted between mothers and children. How Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun painted with the mother having no love for her child, which was quite sad indeed. The painting was found in Chadwick's book (Chadwick 155). Then later in the 19th century, the male and female sexuality, gender play returned and the nudity grew immensely. But there were other advancements such as science so it gave everyone a taste of every aspect of life. Looking back, women went through many struggles with different roles and different struggles to start a career. In the start it was hard for them, then towards the Renaissance and the 17th century it got easier and back to the sexism. However, women artists never stopped fighting regardless. It is still a work in progress but women in art have yet to give up, this is just the start of it. 

Works Cited

-The Guerilla Girls Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art by the Guerilla Girls 

-Women, Art, And Society by Whitney Chadwick (4th edition, 2007, Thames & Hudson world of art

-https://josiewomenartists.wordpress.com/2014/10/10/iconographic-analysis-of-alice-walkers-wounded-feelings-and-anna-blundens-the-seamstress/

-https://www.emaze.com/@AIOWTICT