Modernism and Women Artists' Influence

I enjoy reflecting on the many artistic and literary contributions of women throughout history. Recently, while surfing the web, I stumbled upon an article written by  Mane Khachibabyan in which he accentuates the place and role of the image of women in modernist art and literature. He essentially focused on women during Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. According to Mane Khachibabyan, the unique works of modernist painters and writers like Marie Cassette, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Pablo Picasso, Virginia Woolf, and countless others feminist artists helped to define, shape and reflect on issues of gender roles and feminism during the modernism era. The following builds on Mane Khachibabyan's article by further highlighting the significant contributions of women during modernism and some of the important art movements and techniques that characterized the modernism era. 

Sylvia Sleigh The Turkish Bath, 1973 

To fully understand the period of modernism and the important techniques that characterized the era, we must first reflect on some of the challenges women faced leading up to modernism. We should also consider the circumstances that aided  them during the various art movements, such as the feminist movement and Omega Workshops, which allowed women artists and painter to band together politically and socially to bring about positive changes in a society dominated by patriarchy. Historically, women have always had to grapple with male objectification and the negative impact of patriarchy throughout history.  As evident in John Berger's The Male Gaze, women were often painted as the  objects of men desires. It was the emergence of the feminist movement during the 1970's and the political and social banding together of women in Great Britain and North America to protest their exclusion from male-dominated exhibitions that essentially helped reverse a history in which men are the spectators of the naked bodies of women. Other feminist painters also protested against the idealizing of Western Art and the affirmation of male divinity that reinforced the inferiority of female power. Sylvia Sleigh, a feminist realist painter, played a vital role in the feminist movement. In her The Turkish Bath, 1973, she combined "portrait genre with the nude as a representational type." (Chadwick 2010, pg. 370). Instead of depicting female nudity, she depicted the nude bodies of men. This was a very radical thing to do during the 1970's. Sylvia, like many other feminist artists and painters of her day, staunchly protested and challenged the systems that devalued and affirm the inferiority of women.

 Modernism and Abstraction

Gabriele Münter Boating, 1910 illustrating the
 technique of Abstraction during Modernism

Gabriele Münter’s Portrait of Marianne
von Werefkin, 1909

The 20th Century was a very remarkable and revolutionary period in the art world. It is the period commonly known as modernism: an era characterized by a deliberate rejection of the aesthetics and styles found in classical artworks of the past. Mane Khachibabyan explained some of the important circumstances that led up to modernism. He states, "Gender inequality and women’s struggle for their rights has always been a serious issue for the humanity. Women have been sexualized, objectified, mistreated historically, as well as slightly nowadays in other ways." He further asserts that, "With the development of Modernism and its rise as prevailing art of that time, it was also the first wave of woman’s rights and feminist movement. According to Tate.org, modernism emphasized an, “innovation and experimentation in forms, material and techniques in order to create artworks that better reflected modern society.” These forms, materials and techniques are reflected in paintings and artworks done by outstanding women like Gabriele Münter, Sophie Taeuber, Romare Bearden and Elizabeth Catlett, etc. For example, in Gabriele Münter’s Portrait of Marianne von Werefkin, 1909  and Boating, 1910 we can recognize evidence of modernism abstraction: a new and prevalent technique emerging from the 20th Century. Women like Gabriele Münte and others influence this technique. 

Mary Cassette Summertime, 1894
An example of an impressionist painting

According to Chadwick (2010), Munter influenced the shaping and developing this technique by: “reducing form to simplified color shapes bounded by dark contour lines" and "synthesizes the expressiveness of Fauve colors with an ordered formal organization based on pyramidal forms. Further, Boating, 1910 replaced, "the informality of impressionist paintings on the theme with a tightly structured and hierarchical ordering in which Kandinsky dominates the group compressed into the shallow space of the boat." 




Frida Khalo and Surrealism

Frida Khalo The Broken Column, 1944

Apart from the abstraction movement, many other art movements characterized the period of modernism. Mic Anderson, a former editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica, lists and expounds on a few other important art movements of the modernist era. These include Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Dada and Surrealism, etc. He explains that surrealism was arguably one of the most famous art movements of the Modernist era. Those who employed this techniques often augmented reality and released the creative potential of the unconscious mind, posturing the observer to have surreal encounter.  The Encyclopedia Britannica postulates that the surrealism movement flourished in Europe between World Wars I and II. It "grew principally out of the earlier Dada movement, which before World War I." Further on, it "represented a reaction against what its members saw as the destruction wrought by the “rationalism” that had guided European culture and politics in the past and that had culminated in the horrors of World War I." According to Jackie Craven, "Surrealism defies logic. Dreams and the workings of the subconscious mind inspire art filled with strange images and bizarre juxtapositions." In addition, Jassika Toothman postulates that "Surrealism also occurred in the context of a rapidly advancing technological landscape and the mainstream modernization of the early 20th century. Surrealists were against this evolution; it served to enhance their need for cultural rebellion."

Frida Khalo The Wounded Deer, 1946

It id difficult to talk about surrealist artworks with considering the significant contribution and influence of Frida Khalo on surrealism. Her The Broken Column, 1944 and The Wounded Deer, 1946 are two of the many paintings that embody the surrealism movement; a movement that was greatly influenced by Dadaism, during modernism. Concerning The Broken Column, 1944, one source explains that “As with many of her self-portraits, pain and suffering is the focus of the work, though unlike many of her other works, which include parrots, dogs, monkeys and other people, in this painting, Kahlo is alone. Her solitary presence on a cracked and barren landscape symbolize both her isolation and the external forces which have impacted her life.” Although we she lived in time when patriarchy and the objectification of the female body, she was able to use her art style to explore questions of identity, post-colonialism, gender, class, and race in Mexican society. Post-Modernism

The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972

As explain previously, modernism, between 1860's to 1970's, was characterized by a deliberate rejection of the aesthetics and styles found in classical artworks. Chronologically, Post-modernism immediately preceded modernism, sometime during the 1960’s, bring with it diversity, inclusion, and contradiction. All form of artistic expressions were given validity. Also, it was precisely during this time period that new ideologies and way of thinking emerged. Women painters and artists began evading away from modernist philosophies, artistic expressions and techniques to embrace those consistent with Post-Modernism. In addition, According to Chadwick, the work of black artists like Betye Saar dealt with stereotypical images promoted by white culture, as evident in Betye Saar's The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972 (pg. 342). As seen in The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, "Jemima is holding a small revolver in her hand and a rifle in the other in a box papered with "mammy" pictures" (Chadwick 2007, pg. 243). Aunt Jemima is transformed from a happy servant and caregiver to a proud militant who demands agency within society. In a way, I believe Saar's The Liberation of Aunt Jemima is a symbolic of women artists using their work, before and after modernism, to transform themselves and break free from the stereotypes and male objectification they encountered throughout history as they exist in different periods laced with patriarchy. 

Work cited:
             Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. 4th ed. New York, N.Y.: Thames and Hudson, 1990. Print.
             Khachibabyan, Mane. Modernism and Feminism Representation of Women in Modernist Art and Literature. London: Phiosophy Documentation Center Institute of Philosophy, 2016.

By Gordon Springer