Anna Blunden: A Brief Summary

A review of the world’s great artists conjures familiar images: Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel; Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night; Pablo Picasso’s The Tragedy. There are many more, of course: Monet, Moya, Warhol, Rembrandt, Kandinsky. What is immediately noticeable, however, upon any brief study of art, is the significant absence of women as heralded artists—not only in our ancient pasts, but even today, amongst valiant efforts for gender equality.

Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity was written by Griselda Pollock in 1988, and later published in The Expanding Disclosure in 1992. Griselda Pollock is an art historian, and writes this article for fellow art historians. This is an article written to show the different approaches to femininity in the late 19th century, mainly dealing with the field of art. This article shows how during this time period there were women artists, but due to the gendered ruled ideas attached to art history, these women are largely ignored by art historians. Pollock thought that these women artists are primarily overlooked due to the fact that they are judged by the same standards that are affixed to the work of their male counterparts. But she argues

Celebrated artists Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun and Marianne Von Werefkin have contributed to the evolution of two different art styles and the appreciation of female artists. Le Brun’s Self Portrait in a Straw Hat exemplifies the prominence of Neoclassicism and the Rococo movement during eighteenth century France. Von Werefkin established herself as an Expressionist in her Self Portrait in the rise of the twentieth century. Both representational pieces provide the viewer with a candid insight into the temperament of each artist, reflecting their artistic influences and the time period in which the artworks were created. Consequently this has affected their application of colour, tone and composition, creating two distinctive self portraits.

“Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.” -Oscar Wilde. Women are wild, sensitive, magnificent, mysterious, and above all: individual. Art’s many different medias allowed artist throughout the ages to capture women at both their strongest and most vulnerable points. It has the power to capture a woman: as a naïve, young girl clutching her brother as they are painted into a lasting portrait, a golden statue of an angel sent down to Earth to help a saved man take his first steps into an eternal life with God, to the powerful goddess, Artemis, transforming a hunter into a deer and having his hunting dogs tragically attack him. The six pieces of art chosen express the individuality of each women who has walked, walks, and will walk the earth.

In the Renaissance period women are almost invariably shown as completely passive and as an object for contemplation. The reclining female nude in the Renaissance raises questions of the male gaze more often than any other artistic stereotype. Female nudes were only an open acknowledgement of not only male desire but also the right males had to express that desire. A woman’s feelings when looking at such images of members of their own gender were never discussed or asked until recently.

The pieces Ann Whitley Russell, done by an unknown artist in around 1820 and Lady Frances Knowles, also done by an unknown artist, in the mid-late 17th century are both examples of portraits that portray the sitters in diverse yet insightful ways to viewers. Both Ann Whitley Russell and Lady Frances Knowles are works of art composed of oil paint on canvas. Although these portraits are different, the aspects of space, color, and composition are all important elements that must be considered while comparing the woman in these two pieces.

In addition, I will examine the differences between male and female sexuality and how each tended to be perceived and treated by society. Then, I will look at prominent female artists and their personal experiences and beliefs on feminism and the female in their art focusing on how it tended to be received along how male artists responded to it. Mainly, I will be analyzing the clash of sexualized images in art, focusing on the differences not only between male made art versus female art, but the differences in the women’s art community, as well. What are the reasons and goals for women to use a “sexualized image” of women in their art versus

Nanette Salomon, a very well known feminist writer, wrote the article, “Judging Artemisia: A Baroque Woman in Modern Art History.” The article opens up with a discussion about the 2001-2 exhibition of Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi: Father and Daughter Painters in Baroque Italy. The author explains that three things are unusual here: the fact that two famous artists were presented at the same time, that they were related as father and daughter, and the fact that the woman was better known than the man. Her intent in this article is to look at the effects of this trope (figure of speech) in the past and in the present.

Closing remarks: Judith Leyster during her short career as a professional artist she was a success. Leyster was one of the few successful self-employed, married female artists In the Golden Dutch Age. Leyster’s self-portrait implies she is living a high social and economic status. Leyster is dressed in the finest of clothing and confident posture.

Many male artists during the Baroque Period were tremendously successful having received many commissions from a multitude of rich patrons. Their equally talented female counterparts were not as accepted in the male dominated society. Although equally talented, the patriarchal mentality of the times ensured a difficult road for some in the artistic world. The more prominent female artists such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Lavinia Fontana and Orsola Maddalena Caccia had the advantage of having fathers who were prodigious artists themselves and provided the training required for them to flourish as great virtuosos in their own right. I will show and explain some of their known works.

First, almost all the present figures are philosophers, the elite, in other words. Moreover, remarkable figures like Plato and Aristotle were placed exactly in the center of the fresco, matching the vanishing point and giving a sense of gravity to their importance more than the rest. Second, women are not, if any, included in this state gathering, a masculine notion that would last for centuries. Women’s absence does not merely happen in state policy making, but also happens in things related to knowledge and art. It should be

Have you ever looked at a piece of art and wondered how it could be based on real life, because it was just so beautiful? Well Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun was able to paint in such new and exciting ways; people were left wondering just this. Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun was a woman of many talents. In her life time she came up with new ways of painting, revolutionized fashion in France, and overcame any prejudice thinking because she was a woman. Before dying at the age of eighty-seven, she had gained the respect of women and men all across the world. Being a female artist in the eighteenth century was not easy, especially when you had to keep a career and your life together during the

During her time in SCEGGS (Sydney church girls grammar school) she introduced girls to painting in a unique way which was new and unpractised by many other art school classes at that time. Soon her work went viral, and art education all across the country was starting to change with the influence of Stephens efforts in the field. For the girls at SCEGGS, Stephens facilitated the chance of a nurturing art education and demonstrated how they might negotiate the tensions of a professional life and life as a respectable middle-class woman who is expected to be a house wise considering how things were different for girls around that period of time. In Kummerfeld’s paper, she focuses her attention on Stephens’ teaching and considers how her method, combined with her artistic practice, influenced her students. In short, Kummerfeld’s paper explores the role of art education in creating suitable careers. Kummerfeld concluded that Stephens’ actions and experiences show the ways she negotiated between society’s expectations and what imagination can

In the essay Stilled Lives: Self-Portraiture and Self-Reflection in Seventeenth-Century Netherlandish Still-Life Painting Celeste Brusati organizes in a way that shows three different types of still lifes and how they can help identify an artist. She starts by showing the lesser of the extreme of artists who are impersonal in their works, and then goes on to show examples of those who are much more personal and more self representative in their works. What Brusati argues is that still life paintings perpetuate the social identity of the artist, and how a portrait can be a pictorial representation of them.

When one thinks of art and religion, one may think of gender role defiance and non-conformism. While this may be generally true in present times, it was not always this way. Women and men have had distinctly different places in society, these places often being unequal. Generally most well-known works throughout the ages have adhered to and represented what society regarded as the proper gender roles for men and women. This is represented in three works of art which will be discussed: Hamlet by William Shakespeare, The Courtier: Book 3 by Baldassare Castiglione, and Luncheon on the Grass by Eduoard Manet. While these three forms of art come from different times and are of different mediums, they are connected in that they follow and represent the gender roles of their time.