Women and Impressionism Part 1

Women artists

Impressionism has been widely accepted as the style that first introduced modernism in art. Modernism in both the techniques used by artists and the subjects represented – mainly the emerging industrial city life. Space –as a reality and as a subject in art- is thus a very important part of Impressionism.

Impressionism also saw the rise of a number of women artists like Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzalès and Marie Bracquemond.

What spaces are represented in the art of women impressionists and is there a difference with the spaces depicted by their male colleagues? This question has been central especially to feminist critique. According to Griselda Pollock the spaces represented by women painters are those traditionally related to the bourgeois women of the period: areas or areas related with acceptable female bourgeois leisure, involving child care (picture 1), pass time and intimate garden scenes (picture 2).

 

 Picture 1. Mary Cassatt, The Bath, 1892, oil on canvas, The Art Institute of Chicago

 

  Picture 2. Berthe Morisot, La Chasse aux papillons, 1874, oil on canvas, 46 x 56 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

The public sphere was not a space where a woman of the bourgeois class could be seen on her own. The honourable woman was secluded in the domestic sphere and thus the places she depicted as an artist were limited to what was expected from her.

These boundaries of domestic space can be seen in the spatial order of the paintings, which constitute the second way in which Pollock views space and femininity. For Pollock, the space in paintings by women impressionists displays the use of facture, demarcation and compression in order to show the boundaries inside the picture itself but at the same time the boundaries of the city, the boundaries between the domestic and the public. If we came back to Morisot’s and Cassatt’s paintings examined earlier we can see that we, as viewers, enter the world of the bourgeois woman, experience it. But at the same time we are denied any intimacy as those represented avoid any eye contact. In the end, we are invited to a world where women can be observed but they themselves cannot observe.

References

Pollock, G. 2003, Vision and Difference, London & New York: Routledge Classics

Artwork of the day

Proteus, Cy Twombly, 1984, Synthetic polymer, coloured pencil and graphite on paper 

In memory of Cy Twombly who died yesterday, 5/7/2011.

For an obituary look at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/jul/06/cy-twombly-obituary

Picture from Gallery 1 in http://www.cytwombly.info/

Artwork of the day

Self Portrait, Peter Paul Rubens, 1638-1640, oil on canvas, Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna 

 

434 years since Rubens' birth. He was born on 28 June 1577 and became one of the major exponents of Baroque.

Artwork of the day

Rue Transnonain, Honoré Daumier, 1834, lithograph

It should be obvious by now that I'm a big fan of 19th century French Realism. Daumier is particularly dear to me as his art is meant to be both humorous and real, a critique to the social, political and economic situation of 19th century France and serving eventually as a visual history of Daumier's times. In this case it is a tragic event that Daumier depicts and immortalizes in his art. Rue Transonain was created in 1834 and shows the aftermath of a real event in this Parisian route. In April 1834 during a social unrest, governmental troops entered a building and killed all its inhabitants. The lithograph depicts one single room and lives to the imagination of the viewer the scenery in the rest of the building. Death is present everywhere in the scene. The man in the foreground that wears his night robe was probably dragged out of his bed and killed. A baby lies beneath him, an old man right next to him. With this work Daumier criticizes the violence of the army, but also the ill decisions of a monarchy that had little concern for the poor citizens of the country.

June painting

Midsummer, James Guthrie, 1892,  oil on canvas, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburg, Scotland


 

Artwork of the day

The “Ladies in Blue” Fresco, c. 1650-1550 BC, Archaeological Museum, Herakleion, Crete

The “Ladies in Blue” fresco from Neopalatial Knossos illustrates a group of three women of high esteem in rich costumes who aim at the retention of their power and at the improvement of their social status by adopting new symbols of differentiation such as the elaborate hairstyle. The fresco dates to 1650-1550 BC and it has been greatly restored. The white-skinned ladies with the graceful posture of their arms, the exposed breasts and the elaborate hair and jewellery are depicted while conversating with each other perhaps during a court festival or another important social or religious ceremony. They might be goddesses or just court ladies who want to show how important they are.

The elaborate hairdressings of the “Ladies in Blue” seem to have characterized the rich ladies of the New Palace Period who adopted them in important ceremonial events. According to Minoan iconography the shift from the hat to the long hair or elaborate hairdressings that predominate in the New Palace Period is said to have reflected the choice of high status women who stressed the head significance because they wanted to differentiate themselves from the total of women as soon as the latter started using the hat as part of their attire. In other words this stylistic change served to promote the ideological strategies of the dominant groups of women that emerged in the Neopalatial Period and wished to differentiate themselves from the rest of women by keeping a distance from them and simultaneously by emphasizing the stylistic details of their social group.

Today's artwork is a generous contribution of Eleftheria Pavli, BA, MA

Minoan Landscape Frescoes- Part 2

Aerial View of the Palace of Knossos

The religious interpretation of Minoan Landscape Frescoes might prevail in the scholarly world, however there are other views concerning their function, some of which are very interersting giving new dimensions to a civilization that is often presented as purely theocratic and religious oriented. Chapin (2004: 59-61) presents a very convincing argument on the possible political function of the frescoes. She suggests that as all frescoes are part of palaces or villas, they were supposed to be viewed by a certain elite who would not only have access to them but would also identify themselves and their power in it. Art was therefore a means of exclusion and class division inside society. The patrons and consumers of art were the members of a Neopalatial elite who controlled access to the palaces and villas and therefore all that was incorporated in them. When the ordinary Minoans entered these places, Chapin (2004: 60) concludes they were overwhelmed by the magical landscapes they encountered, landscapes that would be inextricably connected to the upper class that owned them. Art therefore served not only a religious function (Chapin does not deny the religious meaning of the paintings but she considers an additional role as well) but also served as a strong communication tool and a social instrument used by the ruling elites –who are able to patronize and obtain artworks- in order to create, promote and legitimize political structures. Art in this case is a means to a very specific end. This of course presupposes the existence of an audience who will receive the message of the artwork. This is not a new idea in the interpretation of works of art. Simpson (1982: 266) speaks explicitly of messages and statements in art objects sent by the author who is usually the king /ruler to a certain group of people who can of course be his subjects, enemies or possible enemies. This is true not only in the Minoan context but in the wider Near Eastern area. For example, the Neo-Assyrian reliefs presenting the king victorious over natural and human forces addressed a very specific message to any possible invaders: the king and the Assyrian Empire were invincible (Winter 1981: 3). Actual gardens appear in Assyrian reliefs and particularly during the reigns of Assurnasirpal II and Sargon who presented through them the bounty from their expeditions, the richness of their kingdom and their legitimate and undeniable power (Stronach 1990: 171-172). In Egypt, in private contexts, the representation of flower gardens in art gave a higher social status to its owner (Schäfer 1989: 84). Indeed, in societies where writing was not widespread, where government was based on the divine or semi divine legitimacy of a king or a ruling elite, image substituted the role now played by written text (Winter 1981: 2). Images, then as now, are able to arouse strong feelings, being thus a very powerful tool for communication. They often tell more than words will ever be able to say and the reaction the viewer has to them is more direct.