Exhibition
A female lens
Women in paintings
How women artists took control of their image through the self-portrait
Before the camera, there was canvas. And before the self-portrait, there was the portrait.
When you think about women, portraits and art, what are the first things that come to mind? Maybe the Mona Lisa (1503), The Girl with a Pearl Earring (1665), The Birth of Venus (1480s)? It’s true that these are iconic portraits. But it’s also true that they depict women as a muse through male eyes - idealised and objectified. Not, as poet Christina Rossetti pointed out centuries later, ‘as she is’.
The poem ‘In an Artist’s Studio’ expresses Christina Rossetti’s view that ‘every canvas means / The same one meaning ‘. She sees in the many paintings of the artist’s studio just ‘one face’, or ‘one selfsame figure’. She sees many women reduced to one singular identity, and one that is shown ‘Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.’
One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an angel — every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more or less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.
Christina Rossetti, In an Artist's Studio (1856)
The first self-portraits of women
In the Renaissance period, self-portraiture became popular and it’s easy to see why female artists saw it as an important format. No longer did women have to be represented in art solely via the male gaze. Here was an opportunity to present their own selves, and their own stories.
One of the earliest self-portraits of a woman - and the first self-portrait of an artist at work at the easel - was created by Caterina van Hemessen, a young Flemish Renaissance painter. It’s important because it shows an artist with their tools at a time when it was more common for artists to depict themselves in other settings. The words on the painting translate to ‘I, Caterina of the Hemessens, painted me in 1548 at the age of 20.’
One of the most famous female self-portraits is by Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi, in which she depicts herself as the Allegory of Painting (1639). This bold painting demonstrated feminist themes. At the time it wasn’t common for women to have a profession, and so by presenting herself at the centre of art, Gentileschi was making an important and empowering statement. While the tools of her trade are visible, it is the strength of Gentileschi’s active posture and her concentration that catches the eye. It feels as though we have caught her engrossed in her art and unaware she is being watched.
A great 18th and 19th century French artist to look at is Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842). She painted many self-portraits, while her portraits were in high demand among the aristocracy and royalty of Europe - she was particularly favoured by Marie Antoinette. Her self-portraits often show her dressed in fashionable clothing and posed in a way that emphasises her status as a successful artist. You can see this clearly in the following painting - feathers, swathes of luxury fabrics, and her artist’s palette.
German Expressionist painter Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) is recognised as the first woman to paint nude self-portraits and the first to have a museum dedicated to her art. She was also the first to paint a nude and pregnant self-portrait - making the painting below radical at the time. It’s a great example of her simplicity of form. Standing in front of a light green background, her upper body is naked except for an amber necklace. A white cloth is wrapped around her waist. The right arm is lying above her bulging belly, the left arm below. But Modersohn-Becker wasn’t pregnant when she painted this. So, is the woman in the picture ripe with new human life, or is this a metaphor for a woman about to give birth to a new version of herself?
And of course if we’re talking about women, art and self-portraits, we can’t forget Frida Kahlo (1907-1954), a Mexican artist most well-known for the self-portraits that embraced her cultural identity and unique voice. She spoke of her motivation for producing self-portraits, saying:
I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.1
In this picture, she looks straight at us while starting to disappear into nature. Lush green leaves provide a backdrop while delicate butterflies and dragonflies rest or fly around a nest-like crown in her hair. A necklace of thorns leaves trails of blood around her throat; the hummingbird pendant possibly a symbol of war. Are the stalking black cat and the monkey her friend or foe?
As we see from the paintings above, women were using self-portraits in the visual arts well before the invention of the camera as we know it in 1822. But, what then? Go to chapter two to find out about the first photographs taken by women.