Gender Roles, Subject & Power- Umradha S.

In the middle ages women had most of their responsibilities set in their home. These responsibilities included caring for their children, cooking meals and tending to the livestock if they owned any. Occasionally women would join their husbands in the field when they needed assistance bringing in the crops. Religion and art were a huge part of their society. The church made the rules for everyone’s roles in society, especially the role of the woman. For a woman, it was either become a nun, never get married and have children, but not be placed under the demands of a dominant male figure or become a housewife, be able to perform those duties mentioned earlier but have to succumb to the demands of your husband. In any ordinary day, plain women were not taught how to read or write. Women chose to join a convent instead, and a lot of the time they would be educated there. "Joining a convent freed women from the demanding roles of being wives and mothers' (Guerilla Girls 21).

Most women still couldn’t join a painters' guilds or attend school with the intent to pursue art as a career. Even if women created exceptional works of art, they would not be able to receive pay or own their own “gallery” or space to work. Women artists who were born into a noble family or family with a strong background in art definitely had an advantage over others. Arguably, the most famous woman artist of the Renaissance period was Sofonisba Anguissola.  She was a noble whose father believed women should be educated.  Chadwick states “-thus the first woman painter to achieve fame and respect did so within a set of constraints that removed her from competing for commissions with her male contemporaries and that effectively placed her within a critical category of her own.” (Chadwick, 79)

 Self Portrait at the Easel, 1556- Sofonisba Anguissola

Elisabetta Sirani is also another significant female figure in the Renaissance period. “Elisabetta Sirani, another Bolognese artist, was so accomplished a painter that she was accused of signing work her father done. To prove the wags wrong, she began painting in public and eventually opened a school for women artists.” (Guerilla Girls, 30) Under the influence of acclaimed art historian Count Carlo Malvasia, he encouraged her father and her to continue her passion for the artistic world. She ended up painting for the court, kings and queens. She then opened an academy solely for women artists.

A lot of the works that women produced focused on the struggles that they faced in their daily lives. This stemmed from marital issues to oppression from the male. A prominent theme was the male gaze. This can be seen in many works across many time periods. A famous work is “Susanna and the Elders” Done by Artemisia Gentileschi and Tintoretto. Both works depicted the male gaze but in opposite ways. The fact that one was done by a female versus a male, show the way society and in specific men viewed women. Simply put, as objects.  In Anna Blunden’s “The Seamstress” we see a woman staring out the window. A symbol of wanting more from one’s life. She is also seen doing hard labor and in clothes that seem to be tattered or not of a high quality. The subject matter also shifted to the male nude, but women were not allowed to paint any male or even attempt to. If it was done, it was completed in secrecy. Women tended to focus more on detail in a painting. A prominent artist was Rosa Bonheur who strayed from the human as the subject matter to animals. Her father believed in gender equality as well as being the director of an art school where she learned to paint. –“She maintained that she did it not for originality’s sake as too many women do, but simply to facilitate my work.”

 Artemisia Gentileschi, Susanna and the Elders, 1610

 Tintoretto, Susanna and the Elders, 1555

During the 19th century, advances allowed people to travel and communicate with ease. In addition, the invention of the camera became a threat to painting. Many women began to take up photography. A famous woman photographer was Julia Margaret Cameron. She wrote to a friend and said “it is a sacred blessing which has attended my photography; it gives pleasure to millions and a deeper happiness to very many.” (Guerilla Girls, 53) Another new technique involved sewing. Harriet Powers was known for her ability to sew and make intricate quilts. “She stitched these stories and events into the quilts that are her life’s records. She gave long verbal accounts of each quilts meanings.” (Guerilla Girls, 54) Overall to get anywhere in any time period or society women had to stand up for what they believed in. Without speaking up or going against societies ideals women would not have achieved as much as they have. 

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Fifth ed. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2012. Print.

Guerrilla Girls. The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York: Penguin, 1998. Print.