REPRESENTATION OF WOMEN IN

ARTDo not let women teach men or have authority over

them. ... But do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet

Left: Titian, Portrait of Philip II, 1551center: Titian, Portrait of a Man, 1508

Center: Memling, Portrait of Maria Baroncelli, 1470right: Rembrandt, Portrait of Maria Trip, 1639

• In this general sense these early portraits of men and women are alike.

• The differences, however, are telling. Not only are the women usually more elaborately dressed in expensive fabrics, sometimes embellished with gold, they also wear expensive and beautiful jewelry.

• Women in Renaissance society may have been privileged but they were usually unempowered.

• Their portraits were designed for the male viewers; the women are passive, powerless objects subject to the controlling gaze of males.

• These males, their husbands or fathers, wanted affirmation of their own status.

• Women's clothing and jewelry provided an obvious and public demonstration of a family's wealth.

• Female bodies are thus used to display the male accumulation of power and wealth.

• It is also the case that the women portrayed may be wearing jewels that were part of the dowry or special wedding gifts; thus, it is important to their families that these women display their finery

Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of a

Noblewoman 1580The woman in this painting wears pearls and more pearls--a shoulder brooch with a diamond and pearls, a pearl head brooch, a headdress decorated with hundreds of seed pearls, a cap edged with pearls, and the motto "LEALTÀ" (or loyalty) spelled out in pearls on her sleeve. They have an important role in constructing the identity of this young woman.

Not only were pearls the most expensive gem in the 15th century, they were also a common symbol for purity or chastity. Since pearls signified virginity, they were a common gift to brides.

Dogs serve the same symbolic function in portraits of women.

the small dog (as in Fido=fides=faithful) serves as a symbol for marital fidelity .

Even the position of the arms--which needed to be close to the body--was significant.A stiff, upright posture indicated virtue; downcast eyes or an averted gaze also indicated virtue. At some time periods head coverings were important. According to Church law "a woman ought to cover her head since she is not in the image of God. She ought to wear this sign in order that she may be shown as subordinate and because error was started through a woman"

This Self-Portrait of the 17th century artist Judith Leyster was daring, for she painted herself in a very relaxed, casual pose with her painting arm balanced on the chair. As late as the 18th century, the woman's pose was still crucial: she "could not show [her] teeth, could not show [her] hair unbound, could not gesticulate, and certainly could not cross her legs"

Judith Leyster, Self Portrait, c. 1635 Rogier van der Weyden, Portrait of a Lady, c. 1460

Female NudeWhen artists began to depict the nude female in the 16th century, she is

depicted as passive (not active like the male nude); this suggests her availability to the male viewer. This depiction is fairly constant in the history

of art.

Giorgione, Venus, c.1510 Velazquez, Venus at her Mirror, 1649-51

• In these 19th century examples she is simply an object of male desire. Men are the sex that looks and women the sex that is looked at. The nude figures rarely have much personality; they exist simply to be contemplated and enjoyed.And there's another difference.The depictions of the male nude are similar; they refer back to some idealized notion of the male physique. But females' bodies vary enormously, from culture to culture and artist to artist. "It is as if male fantasy constantly reshapes the women's body to better fit his shifting desire, at the same time being careful to preserve the integrity of his own male self“

Ingres, Odalisque, 1814; Goya, Nude Maja, 1800

Ancient Greece • Even though images of women are

present in Ancient Greece- most women are depicted as either goddesses or nymphs.

• However, in Greek society, women were believed by inferior to men.

• Women were given very little freedom of movement and were expected to spend most of their time at home.

• Women’s education primarily consisted of training in the domestic arts.

• Aphrodite of Cnidus. The first life-size female nude. Roman copy of a Greek original by Praxiteles, made 375-335 BCE. Late Classical Greek Sculpture of the 4th century BCE. Praxiteles. Aphrodite of Cnidus. 375-335BC

Traditionally Adam and Eve have been depicted nude.Even here there are differences. Eve, in contrast, is flabby with sloping shoulders and a double chin. Her seductive role is clearly indicated by the cat at her feet ready to pounce on the unsuspecting mouse. This antithesis between the male and female nude continues after the Renaissance--the male nude is ideal and heroic; the female nude lives in a purely physical world.

Dürer, The Fall of Man, 1504; Apollo Belvedere, Roman copy of a Greek original from the fifth century BC

Gerrit von Honthorst

The Procuress 1625Dutch

• “Merry Company” themes were popular in Dutch art in the seventeenth century. Given the strict Calvinist background of the country, however, it was as much a sermon as a celebration.

• The music, the fine clothes, and the scattered flowers are all emblems of earthly delights, merely transient, as well as a warning against the dangers of excess.

• Poor women often resorted to the world's oldest profession.

• Women have been represented in this gendered role since at least the 17th century

Dirck van Baburen, The Procuress,

1622Dutch

Jan van BijlertThe Procuress

Late 17th centuryDutch

Diego Rivera. The Great Tenochtitlan. 1945. Mexico City.

Edouard ManetOlympia

1863Amedeo ModiglianiNude on a Cushion

1917-8

Working Women■ In this lithograph (1844), the French artist Daumier

satirizes women who write books rather than attending to their proper roles, housekeeping and tending children.

■ In contrast, the woman artist Emily Mary Osborn at about the same time in England painted Nameless and Friendless, a painting which tells a story sympathetic to a working woman's plight.

■ The woman in black (a recent widow perhaps) depends on her artistic abilities to make her way in the world. At the art gallery she is not asked to sit, a clear sign that she is poor, while her work is inspected by the art dealer who holds her fate in his hands. At the same time she is inspected with prurient eyes by the men on the left.

■ All this makes clear the precarious and vulnerable position of a working woman in Victorian England.

■ It makes clear that women can be objects of desire in the world of art, but they are unwelcome in the world of the art market.

Sandro BotticelliThe Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ

Child1490

The Virgin is the ultimate symbol of motherhood and femininity

For centuries she has been the model for women to follow

Idealization of the perfect woman

Devotes entire life to her son and her family without hesitation

Creator of life.

Raphael. Madonna of the Pinks. 1506-7Raphael. Madonna of the Rose. 1518

Raphael. Madonna of the Meadow. 1506 Raphael. Madonna of the Chair. 1513-1514.

Pietro Lorenzetti. Deposition of Christ from the Cross. Basilica of San Francesco d'Assisi. 1320. Italy

■ Tintoretto. Susanna and the Elders. 1555 Artemisia Gentileschi. Sussana and the

Elders. 1620

Artemisia Genileschi. Judith Slaying Holofernes.1614–20

Caravaggio. Judith Beheading Holofernes. 1599

Judith Leyster.The Proposition.1631

Johannes Vermeer. The Procuress. 1656

Animal Chart

Materials:

• Image(s) of an animal of your choice

• (6.5 x 4)

• Tracing paper

• Pencil

• Ruler

• Principles of art/elements of design pdf

• Paint/colored pencils/markers of your choice

• You will be making 6 varieties