Women in the history of art
Throughout art history there has been the idea of “feminine stereotype” of decorative arts and crafts and a “masculine stereotype” of high art. This idea was steeped in the ideals of European academic theory and helped to undermine the status of decorative arts and crafts in relation to high art. Chicago has addressed this idea of separation in the “Dinner Party” with the inclusion of ceramic painting and the use of decorative design as a central part of the work. But how should we value decorative arts and crafts, in relation to art as a whole. Feminist theory has struggled to agree on how arts and crafts “should be reconceptualized” raising the question whether decorative arts and crafts deserve to be included in the canon of art and of what values should be used to define the status of objects of art and who should decide whether or not they should be included in the canon.What or who defines greatness was the criteria set by Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock in their 1981 book Old Mistresses: women, Art and Ideology. They look at the current criteria on which we judge good or bad, arguing that they were set and are still being set on values that could no longer be applied. These values are severely detrimental to women and women artists, thus the status of the female artist throughout twentieth century was not being judged fairly in relation to their male counterparts.
Art history is male dominated. The cultural and political environment in which art was produced had a distinct impression on the status of women artists and the type of work they could produce. The concept and status of women was firmly in-trenched in societies values and what a woman could and couldn’t do and what they could study were all dictated by society. The academies merely served to carry on the tradition of male dominance that existed in society. After the Renaissance there was a limited status professionally and academically available to women artists. In France, after the revolution, women were not admitted to the Ecole des Beaux, this continued until 1897. Women were members of the academies, four being allowed at one time at L’academie in France and two women artists in England were founder members of the Royal Academy, but in both instances they had very limited rights and the subjects that were able to study were restricted. The Academies’ obsession with the separation of 'high art' from guilds not only created a hierarchy within male society but further weakened the position of women who, already excluded from guilds unless a male relative was a member, were predominantly involved in decorative arts and crafts.
Exclusion from the Academies meant that the work of women artists was not taken seriously except some rare exceptions. Art was considered as a predominantly masculine trait. The concepts and brushwork involved, as well the cultural understanding of the historical settings illustrated, could only be interpreted by a male artist. Art that women produced was expected to be of a set style, such as portraiture, still-life or decorative arts and crafts. The structure of the academies went well beyond the nature of what women could do, as they formed the basis for the canon of art. If women were excluded from the academies it therefore followed that they were excluded from the canon of art.
Some women did manage to make an impact in the academies, Artemisia Gentileschi (c. 1597-1651/3) was the first woman admitted to the Florentine Academy, Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun (1755-1842) was admitted to the Academy in Paris and Angelica Kauffman (1741 – 1807) was one of the founder members of the Royal Academy. Generally though these examples are very rare. However there is evidence that more women artists exhibited in the exhibitions of the Royal Academy, thereby showing that despite the restriction placed upon them they were still able to produce work that was considered of a suitable standard to be displayed.
In art the portrayal of the female form was usually associated as an item of beauty, certainly from a male perspective. The female form was used as an allegory to suggest associations with and to display symbols and events associated with non-female depictions, such as justice, freedom, loyalty. But could it not be considered that male artists also used the male form, and the idea of classical arts to perfect male form in a similar way? The history paintings that were considered to be such high art by the academies contain numerous examples of the perfect male form, so could it not be argued that male artists not only used the female form to personify beauty but also the male form in an attempt to portray the perfect human form.
It has been argued that women artists depict women in a different way to male artists, that the female perception is different to a male perception. Male perception is normally more concentrated on sexuality whereas a woman’s perspective is more akin to normality, to portray women as not just an object of desire but also as a person. Of course the type of depiction also depends on the type of painting, whether it was for public or private consumption; whether to advertise a painter’s skills, where her beauty could be admired over her skill (women still had to appear feminine and virtuous whilst doing this); or whether the painting was being produced to show female beauty.
With regards to the different techniques employed by women and male artists I would like to quickly consider two examples. The first is Joshua Reynolds’ portrait of “The Temple Family” 1780-82 and Angelica Kauffman’s portrait of “The Ely Family” 1711. The groupings in the two paintings are of particular interest, in Reynolds’ painting the father holding the child dominates the main body of the picture, the father is standing and his son is also standing on a chair which makes his height just below that of his father but above the height of his mother who is seated. The mother is painted in a semi sexual way with the folds of her dress showing her voluptuousness as the cloth flows over the profile of her breasts. However in the painting by Kauffman, husband and wife are at the same level, the two of them are also dressed in the same gowns and on the tray are two crowns, the whole aura of the painting gives an air of equality. The husband is pointing at the eldest daughter, who stands by the piano while her sister is playing. The eldest daughter’s pose being similar to that used by Reynolds in his depiction of the son and heir, while here we seem to portray daughter and heiress. There is very little hint of "sexuality" in the painting by Kauffman, all the characters appear to be on an equal sexual level, the woman’s clothing practical and not decorative. The two paintings both show a classical almost historical background, with Kauffman appearing to use a classical male dominated historical setting in her painting while still satisfying convention by obeying the rule of portraiture as being an acceptable occupation for female artists shows that she had the necessary skill to painting such a setting. The two paintings show the same item, a family group, but the way that they have been constructed and the groupings used are completely different. From the idea of male dominance in the Reynolds’ to the idea of male and female equality in the Kauffman’s, these two painting could be taken as showing that female and male artists painted in different ways.
Again in Helen Trevor's “The Fisherman's Mother” c. 1893, depicts an old woman from Brittany. The portrait shows the strength of the old woman, the direct gaze, the strong hands resting on the stick clasping her rosary beads shows no hint of frailty. The life force of the subject dominates the painting; the woman is depicted with realism. In contrast Roderic O’Connor’s work, “La Jeune Bretonne” c. 1895, has a mysterious intimacy about it. The girl is turned away, almost unaware of the artist; there is a softness in the colour tones and pretty face of the young girl. The young girl is painted in a very seductive way as opposed to the graphical illustration of the older lady. Again should these be taken as examples of how male and female artists portray essentially the same subject?
The way that the different sexes look at a work can vary. Margaret Olin writes about the difference and the connotations that these two words gaze and staring can provoke. The “male gaze”, where males gaze and on what level the gaze is, can be seen as structuring the principles for how we represent women. From the 1970’s this idea of the “male gaze” has been widely applied to art history and the perception of images of women. These modern theories on gaze have encouraged theorists to involve both social and gender issues in relation to art history.
Psychoanalysis theories developed by Sigmund Freud’s (1856 – 1939) and Jacques Lacan’s (1901 – 86) concern the phallus and the development of the human psyche. Although both were interested in the dominance of the phallus in the formation of a sexual identity, both reinforced the perception of gender as being socially constructed rather than determined by genes. The adoption of these theories lead to many different facets of feminine art theory and has shown ways at which we look at male pleasure and how images of women might be constructed to fit in with this idea of pleasure. This has also led to an approach that sees the emphasis of feminine art history in relation to femininity, masculinity and sexuality as being constantly redefined.
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