Women artists in the middle ages struggled to be recognized for their work, yet they were lucky to work as artists at all instead of just being some man’s perfect wife. The Guerrilla Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of Modern Art describes the growth of female artists in the following quotation: “Many of these artists were women, either working in businesses owned by male family members or living as nuns in convents. By the 15th Century in Bruges for example, 25 percent of the members of the Illuminators’ guild were female”(Guerrilla Girls 19). We can also see that although there were more women artists, to even get this far they had to have male artists in the family to work for or decide to join a convent in spite of not being recognized for their work. They either had to serve a man or God; in a time where religion was preaching that women were put on earth to serve men which isn’t that much better.
During the Renaissance, more women began to be recognized for their work but for the most part only if they were particularly remarkable. “Artemisia Gentileschi was a teenage prodigy working in her father’s atelier”(Guerrilla Girls 35) and while she was recognized for her work it took her getting raped for her to be taken seriously because during the trial she wasn’t. Her claims were contested and she was tortured to prove she was telling the truth, but with all odds against her, she won. “After the trial (and some say because of it) Artemisia went on to live an unusually autonomous life for a woman of her time. She somehow was able to set up her own Atelier, learned to read, and was the first female member admitted to the Accademia del Disegno”(Guerrilla Girls 35). Women artists started to be seen in the public eye but there were still many obstacles between them. Without the help of her father she wouldn’t have been able to pursue art and even worse she wouldn’t have been able to take her rapist to trial because women weren’t even allowed to bring charges in court.
Life for women improved in the 19th Century. Artists like Rosa Bonheur saw commercial success and the rise of photography let women like Julia Cameron into an artistic space that they were not traditionally excluded from. As society became more accepting not only were more women getting involved in the artistic community; Edmonia Lewis became the first African American woman artist. Yet again she wasn’t able to do this by herself “her older brother, Sunrise, sent her away to school”(Guerrilla Girls 51). During her time at Oberlin college she faced discrimination
due to the color of her skin and after being beaten after being accused of poisoning her roommates she went to Rome to learn different styles of sculpture. Edmonia worked hard to make her marble
sculptures, unfortunately, most of her work has been lost and we are not sure of how she spent her life after having her artwork displayed at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia.
Just as the stories of these great women artists seem to inspire and give us a glimpse at how different their lives were we can also look at the art that was made to see how the way women have been perceived over time. John Berger provides insight to the most popular depiction of women: the nude, in his book Ways of Seeing, he writes:
“You paint a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure. The real function of the mirror was otherwise. It was to make the woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight” (Berger 51).
Women were primarily painted as something to look at, a beautiful image to possess. We can see this in the depictions of Susannah and the Elders which Berger also writes about.
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| This image is Tintorettos' painting of Susannah and the Elders. We can see how in this version she knows she's being watched but we can't really be sure how she feels about it maybe like Berger describes we are meant to be lost in her beauty as would be suggested by her looking at herself in the mirror joining the others in admiration. |
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| This painting is by the aforementioned Artemisia Gentileschi possibly due to the female perspective in this version we see Susannah trying to distance herself from the Elders looking upon her. Unlike Tintoretto's version it's clear she wants them to stop, possibly because this is painted from a female perspective as opposed to the former. |
The largest obstacle to women was the roles they were being told to play in accordance with the patriarchal structure they faced. Under patriarchy, it is expected that women be quiet and do what they’re told. In the past, it was just to be good wives to men they probably didn’t even choose to marry.Thankfully arranged marriages and dowries are in the past, yet Bell Hooks provides a similar more modern anecdote from her life and how patriarchy affected her as she grew up in the following quotation from her book The Will to Change: “As their daughter I was taught that it was my role to serve, to be weak, to be free from the burden of thinking, to caretake and nurture others … I was taught that girls could and should express feelings, or at least some of them. When I responded with rage at being denied a toy, I was taught that in a patriarchal household that rage was not an appropriate feminine feeling”(Hooks 19). Hooks’ challenge towards patriarchy wouldn’t be possible without the brave women that came before her and of course, more will continue to do so.
Works Cited
The Guerrilla Girls’ Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York: Penguin, 1998. Print.
Hooks, Bell. The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love. Simon & Schuster, 2004.
Berger, John. Ways of seeing: based on the BBC television series with John Berger. British Broadcasting Corp., 2012.
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