The Middle Ages in Europe isn’t an era that women today would prefer to travel back to. During that time women were described as “… the virtual prisoners of the men in their lives…” (Guerrilla Girls, 19). The duties and expectations of women were extremely restrictive and demanding. They were expected to uphold their “role” as a wife and mother at all times. It did not matter whether or not a women wanted to uphold these duties, she was obligated to. The roles of women included obeying and pleasing their husbands, not educating themselves because it would interfere with being a “good” wife and mother, as well as working but never labors that belonged to men. Additionally women, “…were usually engaged to be married at age 12 and were married by 15. If an engaged girl married another man, she could be killed” (Guerrilla Girls, 22). Not only were women forced into marriage but they were forced at an incredibly young age. The punishments they faced for disobeying/ disrespecting their husbands were brutally harsh, and even terrifying which explains why so many simply did not disobey. Additionally, there was a lot of emphasis placed on the church during the Middle Ages. However, women started to slowly defy the church’s accepted behavior of women. They created artwork that demonstrated their branching off and thinking for themselves.
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Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias,
c1142-52 (Referenced in text)
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In all the chaos however there was a way to free the women from these confinements, which was to join a convent. It was as though, powerful, strong minded women joined together in one place, and finally found each other. Herrad of Landsberg was an abbess in the Middle Ages, and helped share her power to other women. Their togetherness sparked ideas that lead to growth of women involvement and new feminists perspectives. The community in which they shared consisted of them operating businesses, farming, making tapestries, copying and illustrating manuscripts, composing and performing music, as well as educating one another (Guerrilla Girls, 22). They had been neglected of such environments for so long. This supportive community acted as a stepping stone to greater opportunities for them, which lead them to write books, have visions that were marked onto scribes, and create influential art pieces. However, the most independent convents eventually were shut down and taken over by priests because they were viewed as a threat. However, this showed how women still had little, to no power at all against men. It was as though men were afraid of how powerful a women could actually become if she was given the tools to learn and persevere.
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| Christine De Pizan In Her Study, From The City of Ladies, 1405 (Referenced in text) |
Christine de Pizan was an author/ poet from the Middle Ages and was described to be a courageous women artist of her time because she held qualities of a feminist. Feminists were rare and almost unheard of during this time period, which made Pizan more courageous. She did not stand for men’s negative comments about women. She crafted arguments against sexist scholars of the time, and presented them through her works of writing. For example when she spoke out against The Romance of the Rose poem, she “was not afraid to attack well-known men who belittle women” (Guerrilla Girls, 23).
Concepts that were present during the Middle Ages, continued into the early Renaissance, but women artists started to shed more light onto women empowerment. During the Renaissance women artists started to paint women as more powerful and strong. Elisabeth Sirani’s painting of Portia Wounding Her Thigh, is an example of women empowerment. In the painting Sirani is proving that women can act and not just appear. Portia holds the power in the painting and conveys her strength through her pose. “Portia has to prove herself virtuous and worthy of political trust by separating herself from the rest of her sex” (Chadwick, 101). Portia is choosing to physically separate herself from the women in the background, as a way of proving she is brave enough to enter the world of men. Sirani proves the lengths women had to go to in order for them to be taken seriously.
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| Elisabeth Sirani, Portia Wounding Her Thigh, 1664 (Referenced in text) |
Throughout the Renaissance and into the 19th Century women artists subject’s also tend to be about men and their evilness, including acts such as rape and the discomfort they cause women. For example Artemisia Gentileschi painting of Susana and the Elders. The painting allows for many women who didn’t have a voice, to finally have one through the artwork. Paintings such as Portia Wounding Her Thigh are examples of how artists painted women out to be stronger than they were made out to be. Paintings such as Susana and the Elders on the other had, showed the pain/discomfort men caused women but somehow seem to get away with. Men were never questioned for their repulsive actions and women artists wanted to seek justice. The painting of Judith Slaying Holofernes, captures the seeking out of justice. In order to fix a problem, one needs to first identify what the problem is, and women artists were identifying the problem of male domination, and wanted to seek out a solution of overcoming the inequality, and use their art as a form of doing so.
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| Artemisia Gentileschi, Susanna and the Elders, 1610 (Referenced in text) |
In the 19th century, works such as needlework and sculpting started to become more prevalent. Women artists such as Edmonia Lewis and Harriet Powers were passionate about abolitionist themes. Edmonia traveled to Italy in order to make art about slavery. Traveling wasn't easy back then and the fact that artists such as Lewis were doing so, showed how things were indeed changing and the world was expanding and artistry would soon expand even further and reach more people. Harriet Powers also helped bring about a new form of art, of quilting. She shared her stories of local legends, bible stories through images on her quilts. The 19th century was when art started to reach more people with greater impacts. Additionally, in all five different time eras there was one thing that remained constant throughout all; the struggle of a women’s artwork to be valued as much as a man’s, which is still true even today.
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| Harriet Powers, Pictorial Quilt, 1895 (Referenced in text) |
WORKS CITED
(1) The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. Penguin Books, 2006.
(2) Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art and Society. Thames and Hudson, 2015.
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