WOMEN'S SELF-PORTRAITS IN A MAN'S WORLD Submitted ..., Exercises of Painting

Download WOMEN'S SELF-PORTRAITS IN A MAN'S WORLD Submitted ... and more Exercises Painting in PDF only on Docsity! DRAWING UPON THEMSELVES: WOMEN'S SELF-PORTRAITS IN A MAN'S WORLD Submitted by Monica Ann Mersch Department of Art In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado Spring 1996 CLEARANCE FOR ART HISTORY RESEARCH PAPER FOR M.F.A. CANDIDATES This paper must be completed and filed before the final examination of the candidate. This clearance sheet must be filled out and filed in the candidate's record. I have completed and filed the original term paper in art history in the Art Department office and I have given a copy to the course instructor. Course Number Year 0/tf I Yl~t1--~ Student signature Instructor signature ~a.~ Adviser signature curled up at his feet to show his dedication to his lady? Men generally did not fall into the realm of beautiful objects, ornamentation was a woman's calling. Women could also be depicted in religious connotations, as the Virgin, or as the Penitent Magdalen (Figure 2). These paintings were not about the women themselves but about the religious lessons that they symbolized, and because of these examples the female figure took on many different meanings to the viewer. Figure 2. Claude Melian, Pentitent Magdalen, 1629 - 30. Engraving, (?), Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Women who were depicted in their own right were often presented as the property of men, beautiful objects to be owned by others, often without personality and as a display case for the jewels or wealth of the family as a whole. In Antonio Pollaiuolo's Portrait of a Young Woman (Figure 3) he shows a beautiful young woman in profile, her hair tightly coiffured and draped with pearls, her shoulders 3 4 covered with heavy brocade. All these adornments were meant to show the wealth of the family, and often such a portrait was painted as an advertisement of sorts, hoping to show the beauty of the daughter of a wealthy family to attract possible suitors. Women had lost the right to own land after the Middle Ages, and had little if no control over their own destiny. In their portraits as well as their lives, women were without power or influence in a man's world. With the new theoretical thinking of the Renaissance, a few women artists managed to rise above the constraints placed upon them by the male dominated society. Sofonisba Anguissola ( 1532?-1625) was born to Figure 3. Antonio Pollaiuolo, Portrait of a Young Woman, date unknown. Tempera on panel, 18 1/8 x 13 in., Museo Poldi - Pezzoli, Milan. aristocratic parents in the early sixteenth century, a time when art was dominated by men and women were raised to be good wives. Against the beliefs of the time, Sofonisba's parents made sure that she was well educated, not only in art and music, as were other women of high social standing, but also in history and other areas that were strictly the domain of men. It was believed that the scandalous Greek and Roman histories were too lewd for the delicate constitutions of women and that the knowledge of these things would decrease their desirability in 5 betrothal. Women's most important characteristics were chastity and charm, not intelligence and acquired knowledge (Perlingieri 32). Anguissola studied under Michelangelo and was court painter to King Philip II of Spain, making her a very well known and successful woman in her own time. She painted many self-portraits, but these were met with varied reactions, almost always making less of her talents than she deserved. Annibale Caro, a self proclaimed connoisseur of art during the time, wrote to Sofonisba's father exclaiming that he took special pleasure in self-portraits by women artists, and especially Sofonsiba's, because he could exhibit them as "two marvels," the work itself, and the image of the beautiful young woman ("Here's Looking" 567). Regardless of her fame at the time and of her talent, she could not paint a self-portrait without being viewed as a beautiful object. So in an effort to be taken seriously, Anguissola painted Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola (Figure 4). The painting is dated around the late 1550's, and depicts Sofonisba's teacher energetically painting a large portrait of his student. The painting depicts Campi peering at us, as though we were the model, and a much larger Anguissola gazing confidently at us from the canvas. By this time she was no longer working with Campi, he had moved to Milan in 1549 and left her to work on her own. Was the painting a tribute to the teacher she had learned so much from, or, as Mary D. Garrard suggests in "Here's Looking at Me," was Anguissola actually putting herself in a higher position than Campi by saying that she was so amazing that even her teacher was commemorating her identity by painting her (560)? Garrard mentions the relative sizes of the two figures, assuming that Sofonisba considered herself much more important than Campi because of her 8 portrait and in the way she approached the figure of Campi himself do appear to be different, but it is more likely that she was merely trying to imitate Campi's own style to make the illusion seem more real, as if he had actually painted her instead of this being a self-portrait. It was later said that Anguissola "broke new ground and offered new directions in an age when women were considered decorative objects" (Perlingieri 16). In 1630 another young woman painter also created a rather revolutionary self- portrait. Artemesia Gentileschi (1593-1652) was the daughter of an artist and she, like Sofonisba Anguissola, was highly educated and strongly supported by her family. In her Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (Figure 5) Gentileschi combines her own image with what had become a fairly well known image in art, the allegorical symbol of painting. Since the early 1500's artists had been depicting the personification of painting as the image of a woman, but this was the first time that that allegory had actually been combined with an artist's own image simply because the allegory of painting was always understood to be female. In the early Renaissance, all of the 'liberal arts' were thought to be of female persuasion. This may have been because artists were primarily men and, according to Garrard, "the male artist was presented as the creative shaper of the material model that he turned into art, just as man was understood to inseminate woman physically with his life force" (Artemisia Gentileschi 572). Consequently, the allegory of painting must be female for the male artist to have the ability to mold her as he wished and for them to join to form a great work of art. But Artemisia became the allegory herself, painting personified. The Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting is the only surviving self- portrait that Artemisia Gentileschi is known to have completed. She has all of the Figure 5. Artemesia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, 1630. Oil on canvas, 38 x 29 in., Kensington Palace, Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, London. 9 10 characteristics of the true allegory of the time, the necklace with a mask on it symbolizing imitation, unruly locks of hair symbolizing the divine frenzy of the artistic temperament, and garments with changing colors which allude to the painter's skills (Artemisia Gentileschi 337 - 339). She is struggling with her canvas, stretching to reach it while completely oblivious to her viewers. This is not necessarily the allegory of painting, but an active view of the artist herself, quite possibly painted as an allegory simply for the chance to depict herself as she is without fear of being called vain or being treated like a beautiful object. Perhaps by calling herself the allegory of painting, she gave validation to her own image without having to apologize for it. If she had simply painted her own features in a posed manner, the viewer of the time may have confused the 'object' of Artemisia the model and Artemisia the painter, and perhaps she would not be taken as seriously as she was. The one artist who quite possibly painted more self-portraits than any other woman artist was Elisabeth Louise Vigee-LeBrun (1755-1842). She was immensely popular during her lifetime, a socialite who traveled extensively and whose galas were the toast of Paris. She was one of Marie Antoinette's favorite painters and completed many portraits of the Queen and her family before the Revolution. Vigee-LeBrun painted countless portraits of the aristocracy of several different countries, many of the people who traveled in the same circles she did. She was a very beautiful woman, scandalous rumors were whispered about her all around Paris, and many artists wanted to capture her glamorous features. She painted numerous portraits of herself, including the Self-Portrait of 1782 (Figure 6). This self-portrait is different from most of hers in that she is simply sitting, facing the viewer, her hair natural, her dress a loose flowing empire style that was quickly 13 When approached in the same manner a self-portrait can bring praises to a man. One hundred years earlier, a young Rembrandt van Rijn portrayed his own image in much the same way in Self-Portrait with Hauberk and Gold Chain (Figure 7). Here, in one of his many self-portraits 1 the famous painter appears as a young man of about twenty-seven. He has the same loose tousled hair, slightly parted lips and draped costume as Vigee-LeBrun displayed later, but the critics viewed him as "questioning and enigmatic .... in his gaze we see the ageless artist direct and uncompromising" (Grohn preface). Thus, the same characteristics that make Rembrandt an enigma made Vigee-LeBrun narcissistic. Figure 7. Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait with Hamberk and Gold Chain, 1633-34. Oil on panel, 24 4/5 x 20 4/5 in., Florence, Uffizi. Figure 8. Elisabeth Louise Vigee-LeBrun, Self-Portrait, 1790. Oil on canvas, 45 x 34 1/2 in., Uffizi, Florence. In most of her remaining self-portraits, Vigee-LeBrun looked at herself a little differently. So that there was no mistaking who the artist was, she painted herself holding her palette in front of a partially finished canvas (Figure 8). She would often paint herself with her daughter Julie, so that her paintings had an overwhelming aura of motherhood and attention no longer focused on her looks (Figure 9). She completed large self-portraits of herself and her students, so that she could assume the role of teacher in the portrait and no one could ascribe a meaning that was not necessarily there. Vigee-LeBrun had already shown the viewer her own likeness in the role she wanted them to believe she was playing. Her earlier experiences with criticism caused her to place herself into prescribed roles each time she portrayed her own image. 14 15 These women artists seem to have felt forced into portraying themselves in new roles to give a type of rationalization for depicting their own images. Not wanting to be disregarded as vain and narcissistic and no longer wanting to simply be beautiful objects, they wanted to create paintings that would serve to validate their own images. After the time of these ground-breaking artists, women throughout art history have had to deal with the same concerns. Women, who have for so long been the objects of male artists' attentions, Figure 9. Elizabeth Louise Vigee-LeBrun, Portrait of the Artist with Her Daughter, 1789. Oil on Canvas, Musee du Louvre, Paris. are now artists themselves, but the questions haven't changed. In the twentieth century, female artists have attempted to control the interpretation of their work differently than women before them, yet still not in the same way as their male counterparts. A feminist artist who refused to call herself a feminist, Alice Neel (1900- 1980), experienced a troubled personal life that had quite a bit to do with the way she portrayed herself. Never relating well to other women, Neel married young and traveled to Cuba to live with her new husband. Her first child died of diphtheria when she was less than a year old, and after Neel returned to the United States with her second daughter, her husband took the child and returned to Cuba. 18 of all the death and pain. The woman on the left is smiling sickeningly, seemingly unaware of the desparate situation all around her. Again, this self-portrait is more about Neel's role as a mother and a specific scene in her life than anything concerning her own image. Neel's feelings about motherhood became very clear through the changes and distortions she created in her own figure, more so than if she had simply portrayed her own likeness. This abstraction was an early step towards less literal translations of likeness in self-portraits of the next few decades. One can contrast the self-portraits of Alice Neel with those of a male artist of the same time period, Lucian Freud (Figure 12). Freud appears almost confrontational, as if asking what the viewer is doing intruding into the artist's space. Here, as in almost all of his work, he has paid utmost attention to the facial expression and to the delicate color changes in his skin. The painting concerns how the artist looks and attempts to convey information about him simply through his appearance. He is, above all, himself. Figure 12. Lucian Freud, Reflection(Self-Portrait), 1981-82. Oil on canvas, 22 1/8 x 25 7/8 in., Collection of the Artist. 19 During the twentieth century, and specifically in the past few decades, women artists have changed the concepts behind their self-portraits until they are no longer simply representations of their physical body. Some women have based their art on more abstract ideas, including using their own bodies as symbols to convey deeper meanings. These symbolic self-representations are concerned more with what the artist wants you to think and feel than what she looks like on the outside. Although there are women who are simply concerned with appearance and conveying their own image, the idea of roles and the strictly symbolic self- portrait still seems to be a stronger characteristic with female artists than with males. These twentieth century women artists have found new ways to say things about themselves and their situations through the use of their own images in extremely varied ways. The reigning queen of role playing is Cindy Sherman(1954- ). This is true in almost all of the series she has created to date, especially in her "Untitled Film Stills Series''. Although her images are photographs she does not consider herself a photographer, she simply serves as creative director and model for most of her 'situations', some of which are not even photographed by her. Each photograph in this series is taken under the pretense of a movie still, an advertising gimmick from the 1970s when theaters would place black and white glossies on their kiosks to promote each film. The stills were not necessarily frames taken from the action of the movie, but posed recreations of specific scenes designed to entice viewers into imagining how spectacular the remainder of the film was and convince them that they must see the rest. To understand Sherman's images we must first think about how our relation to art has changed in the past fifty years. Pop art brought a new revelation 20 to us, the realization of the sublime within the ordinary, and how our everyday situations could be raised up to the level of 'high art.' Warhol took a soup can that held some kind of meaning for all people, whether it was home, kitchen, mom, or comfort, and made it into the icon for an era. This admiration of the ordinary is one of the basic statements in Cindy Sherman's work. She takes everyday situations and places herself within them. Typically the situations lead us to something else, to a larger story that we can begin to build in our imagination after viewing each still. "The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told" (Danto 9). We may not see the situations every day, but we understand the connotations and can relate to the feelings, or at least to the 'character' Sherman seems to attempt to typify in each. In Sherman's Untitled Film Still #11 (Figure 13), we are suddenly reminded of a twentieth century version of Titian's Venus of Urbino (Figure 1 ). Sherman shows herself draped across a bed with the objects of modern day life around her, and a faraway look on her face. Behind her, there is even a pillow that has the same small dog prancing on it as the faithful, ever loyal dog in Titian's Venus. But in Sherman's work there is a difference, we have a feeling that this is a very small piece of a quite elaborate puzzle. The still itself really is not as important as the intricate weavings of story line that take place in our heads after viewing each one. There is quite a bit of argument about whether Sherman's photographs are actually self-portraits. In the most obvious sense, they are, for it is Cindy Sherman's face and figure that we see before us. If she does not necessarily set the timer and take the photograph, can the result actually be called a self-portrait? Since she is responsible for the manipulation of what will result in the making up of the picture itself, including concept, actual arrangement of the objects within the frame, and Figure 14. Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #27, 1979. Photograph, Collection of the Artist. 23 24 themselves. Ana Mendieta ( 1948-1985) was a Cuban artist who was sent to the United States when she was thirteen to escape the atrocities that her country faced under the influence of Castro. She was raised in an affluent family, yet suddenly found herself in an orphanage and reform school in Iowa. Years later, she attended the University of Iowa, but she never forgot the feeling of being 'ripped from the womb of nature' (Lamagna 72). Mendieta never forgot her relation to Cuba, nature and the spirit realm. Much of her work and beliefs were based in Santeria, a religion combining Catholicism with African Yoruba beliefs. These influences caused her to not only miss the country of her origins, but to feel as if part of her were missing, left behind in Cuba. Through her work she tried to relate her own figure to the earth with which she felt so close, often combining her own silhouetted image with actual dirt, grass, sand, blood, water and flowers. Her work is meant to be transient and fleeting, and it wasn't until later in her short life that Mendieta actually completed work that could appear in galleries and withstand time. Many of Ana Mendieta's works were earth/body sculptures, which were her own invention combining earthworks with performance art. Several female artists of the 1970's had turned to performance art because it was quite new, and the women were not encumbered by a history of male predecessors (Jacob 3). In 1974, she dipped her hands and arms in blood and made large gestural marks on the walls of a gallery, from standing position to kneeling. She believed that these marks, being blood, carried life through nature, spirit, and matter. Ana also believed that because the marks were made by her own arms and motions, these marks became a part of her and were a very personal connection between her spirit and the earth itself as a type of abstract self-portrait. This performance has been compared with 25 one done by Yves Klein when, in 1964, he used a female body as a living brush, covering it with paint to complete his works. There is an important difference, though. In Klein's work the woman was a "dehumanized and easily manipulated marker" (Jacob 12) while in Ana Mendieta's work, her body is the essence of what the work is about, not simply the tool with which the art is executed. The work would not be as important without Mendieta's individual connections to the earth and the meanings that such marriages of body and earth meant to her. Mendieta took this connection between herself and the earth even further. While she was still at Iowa, she began to use her physical body, and later her own silhouette, as part of her art work. In her Arbol de la Vida 1977 (Figure 15) she covered herself with mud and grass, then leaned against the tree in a posture reminiscent of one of praise. It was her attempt at becoming one with the tree, rejoining the earth that she felt so close to through her religion. Mendieta would later say that she had been carrying on a dialogue between the landscape and the female body through her own silhouette (Leval 74). She felt by doing this she could be reunited with the earth, and consequently, her homeland. Ana Mendieta, through her earth/body performances, brought women's self-portraits into the realm of the abstract. Her works were the essence of the self- portrait; she took her image even though it was vague and used it to say something very deeply personal about herself and her past. Mendieta'a and Sherman's work are like opposite sides of the same coin. Mendieta used a female image that seems rather vague in identity to say something profoundly personal, and Sherman used what is obviously her own image to make comments on rather universal situations that we could all recognize and understand. 28 society we like to believe that we are beyond certain gender-related preconceptions, but they are as ingrained into our psyches as our realization of the physical differences between men and women. Our preconceptions are ingrained by hundreds of years of inscribed roles and misconceptions of our gender's place in society. There are many women artists who create realistic mirror images of themselves. Women have no problem seeing themselves as they appear. but how the viewer will feel about women's images and how the individual image will be interpreted is beyond the control of the creator. To lessen this ambiguity, women artists have felt they must place their own image into some type of situation which creates a role within their work. This role can be mother, artist. or any other character she may chose, or it may be utilizing her own image in some way to influence the interpretation of the viewer. If she creates the role for her own image she will be seen as she desires. She is safe from misinterpretation and is free to speak as she pleases. 29 Works Cited Baillio, Joseph. Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun. Fort Worth: Kimbell Art Museum, 1982. Berman, Patricia. "Edward Munch's Self-Portrait with Cigarette: Smoking and the Bohemian Persona.'1 The Art Bulletin. 75 (1993): 627 - 647. Danto, Arthur C. Introductory Essay. Cindy Sherman: Untitled Film Stills. New York: Rizzoli, 1990. Del Rio, Petra Barreras, John Perreault, and Marcia Tucker. Ana Mendieta: A Retrospective. New York: The Museum of Contemporary Art, 1987. Dreishpoon, Douglas. "I, Myself and Me." ARTnews. May 1992: 128. Fried, Michael. "Between Realisms: From Derrida to Manet." Critical Review. 21.1 (1994): 1 - 37. Garrard, Mary D. Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art. Princeton: Princeton, 1989. ---. "Here's Looking at Me: Sofonisba Anguissola and the Problem of the Woman Artist." Renaissance Quarterly. 47 (1990): 556 - 623. Grohn, Hans Werner. Rembrandt. New York: Funk, 1978. Hardie, Victoria. "Treacherous Temptress." New Statesman and Society. 3.99 (1990): 42 - 44. Hartt, Fredrick. History of Italian Renaissance Art, 2nd Ed. New York: Abrams, 1984. Hennessey, William. From Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol: Portraits and Self- Portraits. Ann Arbor: The Museum at the University of Michigan, 1994. Hills, Patricia. Alice Neel. New York: H.N. Abrams, 1983. Hughes, Robert. Lucian Freud Paintings. New York: Thames and Hudson Inc., 1989. Jacob, Mary Jane. Ana Mendieta: The Silueta Series. 1973 - 1980. New York: Galerie Lelong, 1991. Kelly, Sean. The Self-Portrait: A Modern View. London: Sarema, 1987. 30 Kinneir, Joan. The Artist by Himself: Self-Portrait Drawings from Youth to Old Age. New York: St. Martin's, 1980. Lambert, Don. "Drawing on Life." The Humanist. 52.3 (1992): 25 - 29. Lippard, Lucy R. Overlay: Contemporary Art and the Art of Prehistory. New York: Pantheon Books, 1983. Mendieta, Ana. Ana Mendieta: A Book of Works. Miami Beach: Grassfield Press, 1993. National Academy of Design. Artists by Themselves: Artists Portraits from the National Academy of Design. New York: Academy, 1983. Perlingieri, llya Sandra. Sofonisba Anguissola: The First Great Woman Artist of the Renaissance. New York: Rizzoli, 1992. Pernotto, Jim Ed. Chuck Close: Editions. Youngstown, Ohio: The Butler Institute of American Art, 1989. Radisch, Paula Rea. "Que peut de finir les femmes?" Eighteenth Century Studies. 25 (1992): 441 - 468. Romero-Cesareo, Ivette. "Art, Self-Portraiture and the Body: A Case of Contemporary Women's Art." Callaloo. 17 (1994): 913 - 916.