PART 2 Exam Women Artists Essay Flashcards
Portraiture/Self-Portraiture for Women
Women have been depicted throughout history in portraiture, this shows only a fraction of their lifestyle and surroundings and was often over dramatised and idealised.
Looking at how women artists have progressed helps us follow the traditions of the time as well as the quality of art that women have produced (whether they’ve been restricted by social conventions)
Ellen Day Hale Self-Portrait
1885
Focuses the viewer on her face by positioning herself against a patterned back-drop and making eye-contact with the viewer
How women were perceived
Self-portraits would almost always be women in fancy dresses, doing something domestic or painting amateurly
Always perceived as amateurs, never had dominance or power and were never really taken seriously in art.
If being painted by a man, their inferiority was often exaggerated.
Portrait of Eva Gonzalez
Eduoard Manet 1870
Portrait of his pupil Eva Gonzalez
Portrayed as a lady-like, amateur artist despite her exhibition being the most prestgious of the day.
However in Eva Gonzalez’s self-portrait she shows herself
Self-Portrait Hesitating between the Arts of Music and Painting
Angelica Kauffman
1791
One of the founders of the Royal Academy
Historical painter prominent in the academy but still not the recognition that male painters got.
Mary Ellen Best
Portrait within the domestic home, were not restricted to historical and female nudes, could show their lifestyle/environment.
Barbara Bodichon
Women’s rights activist, educational teacher and artist. Published a book which was vital in the passage of the Married Women’s Property Act.
Her and Emily Davies posed the idea of university education for women.
1859, along with many other female artists signed a petition for women to join the royal academy but were refused due to the nature of the life drawing classes (male nudes).
1860 a female artist applied using only her initials and was accepted to the academy. The fight for women’s rights in art was starting to be successful.
Nameless and Friendless
Emily Osborn 1857
Panting shows ideas of widowhood and female struggles of a male-ruled society. The men in the background of the painting looking at an image of a ballet dancer. She has not been offered a seat (class dimension, manners)
She is wearing black suggesting a death yet looks nervous and uncomfortable.
A woman walking out of the place has also disregarded her.
Dealing with difficult topics.
Marie Bashkirtseff
Wrote an important memoir about the stuggles of female life and the restrictions on creativity. Wanted to prove her own talent and proffesionalism and show she was equal with the male artists.
Louise Jopling and Millais
Photographs of the two artists contrast in the sense that Millais’s portrait is very dominant and his art supplies are no where to be seen. Looks superior and important and it is assumed that he is an artist.
However Jopling’s photograph she is actively painting, not seen to be sitting around, had to show her worth because it is not assumed purely because she is female.
Had to attempt to show her professionalism and seriousness, in her self-portrait she looks very frank and scrutinising, attempting to portray how serious she is about being an artist and that she should be taken just as seriously as the next person.
Gwen John
Corner of the Artists Room in Paris 1907
Posed for Auguste Rodin
Exploring the importance of an artists space, in a room and in society.
The painting does not have a figure in it for the reason that is an ‘artist’s’ space, it could be any one, despite their gender. She is touching on the fact that what’s important is that artists have a space to work and create and are not confined and suppressed into being less tan what they could be. The atmosphere in the painting makes it feel alive even though there is no figure present.
Perhaps the empty space signifying Rodin’s absence but I think it represents that no matter what she will have her own space she can go regardless.
Nude Girl
Gwen John 1909
Strange, almost abstract portrait of anonymous female sitter. Very haunting and empty, looks as though the woman is uncomfortable. Saying something about the act of painting female nudes.
