Images of Victorian Women by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood Essay

The world today consists of children roaming the streets, technology taking over the world, and being able to work wherever you'd like but, could you imagine a life without all these things? Believe it or not there was a time in life where these things were very uncommon to see. This would be known as the victorian era. This time period was between 1837 and 1901. Daily life was very different from now. Health, social classes, and fashion are just three examples of how daily life was different in the victorian era.

During the Victorian period, upper and middle class men and women existed in different spheres of life: the private sphere, and the public sphere. The private sphere, which included taking care of the home, entertaining guests, and raising children was dominated by women. Meanwhile men were superior in the public sphere, where they took part in politics and business. This lead to the archetypes of women being fragile and motherly, controlled by their emotions, and of men being rational and strong. Social norms, supported by laws, viewed women as “relative creatures” that were below men in the natural hierarchy and only defined in reference to men. These two ideas towards women created a gap of equality for women and constricted them to their sphere of domesticity. The suffrage movement, followed by the first and second waves of feminism gave rise to many civil rights for women, narrowing the gap of inequality. The quest for equality continues today, as these two spheres begin to merge, due to the rise in social media and the subsequent decreasing private life, and women gain more influence in the public sphere. While the forms of inequality are different and an issue for both genders, the Victorian ideas are still present and prominent today.

The paintings and sculptures that first appear as a general and social commentary on the depiction of African Americans in the 18th and 19th century art canon, painted by contemporary artist Titus Kaphar, have given a voice to Black figures in the historical and artistic context. In The Preacher 's Wife (2010), a painting part of the ‘Classical Disruption’ exhibition, Kaphar seeks to explore the role of black women and their misrepresentation in the 18th and 19th art historical trajectories. Recreating paintings by great American artists such as Copley and Eakins, Kaphar reconstructs social and historical narratives (Berzon). While maintaining a common denominator throughout his works, Kaphar’s art has been recognized for inserting African Americans in paintings and telling the narrative of their absence and exclusion from the art historical canon. A graduate of Yale Art School, Kaphar also credits the contemporary style of his art to his studies at De Anza College in Cupertino where he took an African American Literature class that introduced to the art of the Harlem Renaissance with Omonike Weusi Puryear. Yale and De Anza College, collectively, contributed to the way Kaphar gives form and authority not only to black men, but also to the women who have been objectified or erased altogether from the art historical canon (Frank).

Throughout history civilizations have been governed by patriarchal societies dependent on the status and respectability of men. Men held all the power while women were subservient and even sometimes owned by men. This notion is only emphasized the moment we go back in time in the Victorian Era. Women were subject to men’s oppression, held no actual roles besides motherhood and were reliant on their chastity to project an agreeable image of themselves and their spouse. The status of a Victorian woman is depicted in “The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred Lord Tennyson and in a more feminist approach in “Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti as being dependent on their chastity, servitude to men, and ability to present themselves.

In Virginia Woolf’s short essay, Shakespeare’s Sister (1928), she explores the misogynistic world’s effect on women artists from the Renaissance to the nineteenth century. Depicted through an imaginary sister of Shakespeare, and her own experiences, Woolf explains how “in the nineteenth century a woman was not encouraged to be an artist.” Instead, women were deemed of no value beyond the home or child bearing (Jacobus 702). Such gender issues have emerged in every facet of our society, primarily concentrating on gender equality in areas like education, status, awareness, and availing of socio-economic opportunities. In today’s context, with an overall look at history, in comparison to men, women remain relatively more constrained by

and the family was seen as a sign of order; it was perceived as the

Today women everyday throughout the world are scene as being the weaker, lesser gender. Women are seen as fragile, powerless, or delicate. Every day between media or simply walking around in society we hear statements like “well you are JUST a girl” or “you need to hurry up and find a good husband to take care of you” because women cannot take care of themselves. In the Victorian Era, women faced similar situation but the gender role was beginning to shift. Sexism was brought to light in this Era, and feminism begin towards the end of the Victorian Era.

Most prominent positions in early Western countries, including artists and commissioners of said art, were male, yet so much of the work that was created used the female form. The novelist and historian, Marina Warner, wrote about this phenomenon in her book, Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form, when she said, “… The female body have been projected the fantasies and ongoing terrors of generations of men through them of women, in order to conjure them into reality or exocrine them into oblivion.” Warner goes on to address the use of the female body in monuments when she states, “The iconography appear chiefly in public commission and in the edifices where authority resides because the language of female allegory suits the voices of those in command.” Having the female form used as an, “allegory,” of those in command makes it so those authority figures get to decide what the female form means, and in doing so they take away the authenticity of the real female form, and replace it with an interpretation. The irony of the female form being presented in public commissions for government buildings is that when these statues were created there were no women holding that seat of authority, therefore the use of the female form as iconography to perpetuate the, “voice of those in command,” completely undermines the woman's voice in society. While men were using this idealized female form as an allegory to support their own motives, political or otherwise, women became a consumer of this media. Since the interpretation of the female form by men became how the female form was widely accepted in popular art and culture, it left genuine womanhood

The Victorian rich women wore scarves, and nice things. Some rich women even wear pearls, and nice things in there hair. The pearls are good size and they are white, brown, and pink typically are those colors. Even though women were rich they still had to follow the rules and ware a very nice skirt, or long dress. They had to were very nice black shiny high heels. They sometimes wore top hats, and like nice straw hats. The top hats are very tall and there always black.

A variety of art is influenced by other art. The style of a certain type of art could influence the next big type of art. This is true for Victorian art, as well. Victorian art focused more on the details, and that the point of art was to reflect what was going on in the world and not to “sugar coat” it, which gave their art a much more natural feel than other art types at the time. Another influential art style at the time, the Pre-Raphaelite style, focused more on being contemporary and rejecting the ideas of former prominent artists of their time. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, formed by William Hunt, was more about being your own artist, and not following the normal style of your counterparts. Victorian Art, along with the Pre-Raphaelite

We certainly can’t pick our families, though I am sure many of us have had thoughts of what life would be like if we were born into a different lifestyle. While your ascribed status is the status you were born into, your achieved status is what you achieve during your life. Oftentimes people will let their circumstances dictate what they become, but those striving to attain a higher status will usually find a way to change their circumstances if possible.

During the Victorian era most Victorians had a strong belief in romantic love. It definitely was not a normal for people to sleep with one another before they were married. Younger women were generally expected to remain a virgin until they were married. Sometimes even though two people were married, it was not because they were in love. The upper and middle class women were monitored, and were never left alone with any of the young men. Romance for the Victorians could be a dramatic and dangerous affair according to newspaper articles of the Victorian time era. During the Victorian era Queen Elizabeth reigned. The Victorian period was a time in which many different changes in England took place. At this time England was finally considered

Hunt was one of the founding members of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, which made their debut in 1849, upon sending their artwork to the Royal Academy. The Awakening Conscience, which is uses a medium of oil-on-canvas, is typical piece from the PRB who were concerned with very serious moral subjects and modern life subjects. Attention to detail was key for the PRB, as was making sure the artwork was true to nature. Alison Smith, a Tate London Curator, argues that ‘Hunt was offering an alternative narrative to the downward trajectory through prostitution to the grave propagated in much of the contemporary literature surrounding the fallen woman’. Hunt challenges the often repetitive Victorian narrative of the fallen woman.

Her softly lit women with unpinned hair, are full of sensuality, longing, sadness and beauty. Their powerful emotions fill the dark shadows and diffused backgrounds of their portraits. Her soft-focus technique gave her images a dream-like quality, often using dramatic and symbolic lighting. Cameron had no desire to produce sharply focussed descriptions of her models. She wanted to create photographs with the subtle qualities of light and shadow that she admired in the high drama of Old Master paintings, rather than a depiction of fact.

The Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood started in 1848 when seven men banded together in opposition of the disingenuous teachings of the London Royal Academy of Arts. The named themselves the ‘Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’ or ‘PRB’ for short. This secret society was an avenue for the men to create how they wanted, and promote their agenda to the greater English public. Through the artists, opposition to utilitarian ethos, new found sincerity and new moral seriousness the PRB was spearheading a change in thought. One avenue they created this change was though the image of women, they used women to reflect the horrors of society, in their depictions