M3W9WomenAfricansandArt.pptxWomen, Africans and Art
Portrait of Madeleine
(formerly known as Portrait of a Negress)
1800
oil on canvas
81 x 65 cm
Musée du Louvre
We have civilizational problems that have come to a head here with this painting.
Can you imagine what these problems are?
Marie-Guillemine Benoist
We have problems at this point in the history of Western art and civilization: slavery, racism and gender discrimination.
Africans are seen as inferior, not even as people. Slaves are considered both legal and an economic necessity. Women are considered people, but of a lesser quality than men.
As Dr. Susan Waller analyzes this painting:
Marie-Guillemine Benoist’s Portrait of Madeleine (formerly known as Portrait of a Negress) hangs today in the Louvre in a gallery devoted to paintings by Jacques-Louis David and his students. … In 1800 the work was exhibited in the Louvre for the first time, at the Salon—the state-sponsored presentation of works by contemporary artists. It hung in the Salon Carré … Contemporary art critics picked it out, but not all were impressed. The critic for a conservative paper derided it as a “noirceur” or “black stain.” Why did this work provoke such a negative response when first exhibited?
A black stain?
Well, to find out more, complete this article on this painting, slavery, racism and feminism, please read “Marie- Guillemine Benoist, Portrait of Madeleine” by Dr. Susan Waller. Also, read the primary sources on slavery and also on feminism.
In the Age of the Enlightenment, although there were social pressures and even revolution to establish representative democracy in both France and the United States, there was hypocrisy in arriving at the end result. Africans, women, and, in the United States, Native Americans, were treated as inferiors to white men. Native Americans suffered horrendous genocide. Africans were slaves.
In the United States, slavery was accepted and institutionalized in the Constitution.
Current thoughts on slavery and racism
Writing “America’s Original Sin,” historian Annette Gordon-Reed begins her article:
The documents most closely associated with the creation of the United States— the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—present a problem with which Americans have been contending from the country’s beginning: how to reconcile the values espoused in those texts with the United States’ original sin of slavery, the flaw that marred the country’s creation, warped its prospects, and eventually plunged it into civil war. The Declaration of Independence had a specific purpose: to cut the ties between the American colonies and Great Britain and establish a new country that would take its place among the nations of the world. But thanks to the vaulting language of its famous preamble, the document instantly came to mean more than that. Its confident statement that “all men are created equal,” with “unalienable Rights” to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” put notions of freedom and equality at the heart of the American experiment. Yet it was written by a slave owner, Thomas Jefferson, and released into 13 colonies that all, to one degree or another, allowed slavery.
The Constitution, which united the colonies turned states, was no less tainted. It came into existence only after a heated argument over—and fateful compromise on—the institution of slavery…
Excerpt from “America’s Original Sin, Slavery and the Legacy of White Supremacy” by Annette Gordon-Reed, in Foreign Affairs, January/February 2018.
Critic and scholar John Berger makes the point of the feminists:
According to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome, the social presence of a woman is different in kind from that of a man. A man's presence is dependent upon the promise of power which he embodies... A man's presence suggests what he is capable of doing to you or for you.
By contrast, a woman's presence expresses her own attitude to herself, and defines what can and cannot be done to her…
To be born a woman has been to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women has developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space. But this has been at the cost of a woman's self being split into two. A woman must continually watch herself...
...One might simplify this by saying: men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself Is male: the surveyed female. Thus she turns herself into an object - and most particularly an object of vision: a sight.
John Berger, Ways of Seeing, pp. 45-6, http://waysofseeingwaysofseeing.com/ways-of-seeing-john-berger-5.7.pdf
Critical Theory – out of Marxism – the goal is to liberate people & their societies from ideological systems that mislead, dominate and oppress them
Strength of this approach = De-mystify inadequate explanations & reasons for the way things are or should be. For example, calling a painting of an African woman a “noirceur” or “black stain” when it should be considered the painting of another human being
Weakness of this approach = highly predictable accusations of racism, sexism & elitism when it may not be so clear cut. In this sense, these explanation are ideological mystifications
Feminist Theory – the struggle for equal rights for women
Strength = equal rights in a long human history of inequality, brutality and suffering
Weakness = misandry & gender preferences that themselves may discriminate
Critical Theory & Feminist Theory
Based on what question you ask, not what system you believe.
For example, what was the role of women servants at Versailles? How did their work affect their families? Why were women not treated as equals
Or, how does Watteau portray class differences? And, are those differences borne out by the facts?
Inductive reasoning: the outcome is determined by facts.
Remember that until relatively recently, women, minorities and children were excluded from the mainstream of historical investigation, so what has transpired in historical investigation and historical writing over the past 40-50 years has given us a much richer and complete view of the past.
Another Approach
Let us look at the some of the portrayals of women by men and of art created by women.
Wikipedia: Leonardo_da_Vinci_-_Ginevra_de'_ Benci
Ginevra de' Benci
c. 1474 – 1478
At sixteen, she was in an arranged marriage.
So, how has Leonardo characterized her?
Leonardo da Vinci
Perhaps, given her sadness, we might say that this is an early feminist portrait.
Image from Wiki: Sleeping_Venus
Sleeping Venus
c. 1510
Oil on canvas
108.5 cm × 175 cm
(42.7 in × 69 in)
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden
Ideal beauty or sexism?
Giorgione (completed by Titian)
Image from Wiki: Pastoral_Concert
Pastoral Concert
c. 1509
105 x 137 cm
(41 in × 54 in)
Louvre, Paris
What do you think: Naked women as inspirational muses or as sex objects?
Titian (c. 1499-1576) A student of Giovanni Bellini and then an assistant to Giorgione.
Image from Wiki: Pastoral_Concert
Two clothed men on a picnic with two naked women.
For a sound discussion of this painting, which has a huge influence on the history of Western art, see the following article:
Dr. Esperança Camara, "Titian, Pastoral Concert," in Smarthistory, November 21, 2015, accessed March 2, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/titian-pastoral-concert/
Image from Wikipedia” Venus,_Cupid,_ Folly_and_Time
Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time
(also called An Allegory of Venus and Cupid and A Triumph of Venus)
c. 1545
oil on panel
146.1 x 116.2cm
National Gallery, London
Cupid, Venus’ son, is cupping her breast and about to slip her some tongue. Is time revealing the folly of human society or is this pornography?
Agnolo di Cosimo Bronzino
Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, " Bronzino , An Allegory with Venus and Cupid ," in Smarthistory, December 11, 2015, accessed February 26, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/bronzino-an-allegory-with-venus-and-cupid/.
Click on the image to start the video.
Let’s discuss some images of women in Baroque Art.
Image from Wikipedia: Apollo_and_Daphne
Apollo and Daphne
1622–1625
Marble
243 cm - 96 inches
Galleria Borghese, Rome
Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Apollo and Daphne ," in Smarthistory, November 18, 2015, accessed April 10, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/bernini-apollo-and-daphne/.
Click on the image to start the video.
Image from Wikipedia:
Apollo pursues Daphne against her wishes, so her she cries for help from her father, the river god Peneus, who turns her into a laurel tree to prevent Apollo from having her.
The moral here is you can love, but not possess.
Is this the reality of life for women at that time? Unwanted aggressive advances? Rape?
Maybe Apollo should have kept it in his pants in the first place?
Image from Wikipedia:
Self- Portrait_as_the_Allegory_of_Painting
Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (unfinished)
1638-39
A feminist statement, Artemisia paints herself as the Art of Painting itself.
Certainly a different view of women than men might paint.
Artemisia Gentileschi
The "Power of Women" is a medieval and Renaissance artistic and literary topos, showing "heroic or wise men dominated by women", presenting "an admonitory and often humorous inversion of the male-dominated sexual hierarchy". It was defined by Susan L. Smith as "the representational practice of bringing together at least two, but usually more, well-known figures from the Bible, ancient history, or romance to exemplify a cluster of interrelated themes that include the wiles of women, the power of love, and the trials of marriage". Smith argues that the topos is not simply a "straightforward manifestation of medieval antifeminism"; rather, it is "a site of contest through which conflicting ideas about gender roles could be expressed.“
Excerpted from Wikipedia: Power_of_Women
Dr. Esperança Camara, "Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes ," in Smarthistory, July 19, 2015, accessed May 10, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/gentileschi-judith-slaying-holofernes/.
Click on the image to start the video.
Artemisia Gentileschi
Judith Slaying Holofernes
1620-21
oil on canvas
162.5 x 199 cm
Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker, "Judith Leyster, Self-Portrait ," in Smarthistory, December 14, 2015, accessed April 12, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/judith-leyster-self-portrait/.
Click on the image to start the video.
Judith Leyster
Self-Portrait
c. 1633
oil on canvas
74.6 x 65.1 cm
(29-3/8 x 25-5/8)″
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris, "Johannes Vermeer, The Glass of Wine ," in Smarthistory, November 28, 2015, accessed April 12, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/johannes-vermeer-the-glass-of-wine/.
Click on the image to start the video.
Unwanted advances?
Johannes Vermeer
The Glass of Wine
c. 1661
oil on canvas
67.7 x 79.6 cm Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Image from Wikipedia: Diana_Bathing
Diana Leaving the Bath
1751
Francois Boucher
Image from Wikipedia: Diana_Bathing
The goddess Diana rests after the hunt, assisted in her ritual toilet by a nymph. Under the veneer of the mythological subject matter, this painting is a hymn to the female body. The refined drawing, glowing skin, gentle touch, and luminous palette attest to the artist's maturity.
Is it like the Louvre says or are women here turned into objects?
Image from Wilipedia: The_Blonde_Odalisque
Blond Odalisque
(Marie-Louise O'Murphy, petite maîtresse to King Louis XV)
1752
We’ve already discussed this at length.
Francois Boucher
Image from Wikipedia:
Self- portrait_with_Her_Daughter
Self-Portrait with her Daughter, Julie
1789
oil on canvas
130 x 94 cm
Musée du Louvre
Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun
Rejection of Rococo flamboyance in favor of the down-to-earth simplicity of Ancient garments, then referred to as robe à la grecque.
With a simple background, as well, all this heightens the fundamental bond between mother and daughter.
Is this part of the social reform the philosophes had in mind when they were urging artists to use classicism to emphasize reason, morality and justice?
Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, Pointing to her Children as Her Treasures
c. 1785
oil on canvas
40 x 50″
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
Angelica Kauffmann
Social reform but
derivative painting?
English Neoclassicism
Read the following article on the newfound moralism of the Neoclassical movement:
Dana Martin, "Angelica Kauffmann, Cornelia Pointing to her Children as Her Treasures ," in Smarthistory, January 7, 2016, accessed May 8, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/angelica-kauffmann-cornelia-pointing-to-her-children-as-her-treasures/.
