This will discuss how the female gender was defined by society, and cultural and patriarchal concepts during the High Renaissance. Lavina Fontana was a pioneer female artist, who created both Figure 16 Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of a Noblewoman, c. 1580, oil on canvas, 115 90 cm and Figure 17 Lavinia Fontana, Portrait of Costanza Alidosi, c. 1595, oil on canvas, 157 121 cm. I have chosen these artworks for my eTMA because Lavinia Fontana painted them, both subjects are females, and they are bridal portraits. The first body will discuss the importance of marriage portraits and marriage within Italian sixteenth-century culture. This body will discuss the prescribed behaviours a high-born trousseau should exhibit and display in their artworks. …show more content…
This wealth is in the form of fabrics, jewels and pearls. The following body will discuss beauty standards from the time, and how both women adhere to the rigid expectations placed upon elite-born females. To conclude, this essay will summarise the main points made and how each point relates to gender. Lavinia Fontana was born in Italy in 1552 and died in 1614, She was a Mannerist and portraitist and ‘was one of the first women painters in European history to have enjoyed professional success. Among the many Bolognese artists’, S.G. Ross (2007) Fontana, Lavinia in the Encyclopaedia of Women in the Renaissance: Italy, France and England. By examining the bridal portraits: Portrait of a Noblewoman and Portrait of Costanza Alidosi, we can understand the importance of gender roles through cultural symbolism through marriages. In the Renaissance era, a woman's identity was intricately linked to her roles as a spouse and mother. Her devotion to her husband was considered paramount. As stated here, "‘for most young women in the sixteenth century marriage was the first major, and, by universal consensus, the most significant, event in their lives." The practice of attracting a husband, particularly
Women were auctioned off as “merchandise” to the best suitor they could get in town. Beauty, though important, was not as important as the dowry the woman possessed, because it was the dowry the family provided that could exalt a man’s societal status to all new heights. Once married, women were expected to have son’s for their husbands in order to take over the family business. A barren woman was not an option and could have easily been rushed to the nearest convent to take her vows of a nun, for no honor could be brought otherwise. No woman could run from the societal and legal pressures placed upon them. Rather than run, some chose to accept their place, but, like Lusanna, some chose to fight the status quo for rights they believed they
Men and women were held under drastically different expectations in Spain and the Spanish colonies in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. These set gender roles are effectively demonstrated through the life of Catalina de Erauso, who experienced the entire spectrum through her adventures as a transvestite in this time period. Opportunities and freedom in culture, politics and economy, and religion varied greatly between men and women. Men were capable of living out their lives independently and ambitiously. Women, on the other hand, were taught to be reliant and mild-mannered characters in the background. De Erauso shatters this idea of a woman’s role by fulfilling a life of adventure and power. In doing so, she briefly dispels the obligations of gender roles, if only for herself. Catalina de Erauso was a nun, a lieutenant, and a history-maker.
The achievement of gender equality is one of the most important movements for advancement of society. In the High Middle Ages, however, it was even more challenging to bring such sensitive debate. Christine de Pizan, a highly educated and religious woman, chose an unusual pathway for a woman in her era that she became a writer to support her family. Christine’s work, “The Treasure of the City of Ladies,” could be seen as feminist because she offered a broad view of how an ideal artisan’s wife should be.
In the traditional political history of Italy the people outside of the ruling class of the society were rarely studied. Only with the use of social history did the issues of class and gender begin to be debated by scholars. Numerous recent articles have done a great job of analysing particularly men of high status. In this paper I will look at the lower classes of Renaissance Florence. More specifically, I will center my focus on the lives of women during this era, how they were treated and viewed by people of other classes and how women were viewed and treated by men.
During this time period women were not respected at all and were belittled by all med in their lives. Even though men don’t appreciate what women they still did as they were told. In particular, “Women have an astoundingly long list of responsibilities and duties – th...
Aristotle once claimed that, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.” Artists, such as Louise-Elizabeth Vigée Le Brun and Mary Cassatt, captured not only the way things physically appeared on the outside, but also the emotions that were transpiring on the inside. A part no always visible to the viewer. While both artists, Le Brun and Cassatt, worked within the perimeters of their artistic cultures --the 18th century in which female artists were excluded and the 19th century, in which women were artistically limited-- they were able to capture the loving relationship between mother and child, but in works such as Marie Antoinette and Her Children and Mother Nursing her Child 1898,
Robin, Diana, Anne B. Larsen, and Carole Evans, eds. Encyclopedia of Women in the Renaissance: Italy, France and England. Santa Barbara: Abc Clio, 2007.
I support Cusick's argument that Caccini was a proto-feminist who, through her works for the Medici court, supported the rights of women, specifically, through her first and most recognized opera, La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina. In this opera, which is recognized as the first opera composed by a woman, Caccini illustrates a feminist approach to her composition, and makes musical statements about gender that support and reflect the joint reign of Christine and her daughter-in-law, Archduchess Maria Magdalena of Austria. Not only are the characters in the opera portraying strong and capable women, but also the music composed for the characters demonstrates the differences between men and women through musical elements, such as the usage of sharps and flats. Because of works such as these, Caccini plays a major role for the female gender in the early seventeenth century.
The pervasive notion of woman as property, prized indeed but more as object than as person, indicates one aspect of a deep-seated sexual pathology in Venice. [. . .] Fear of women’s sexuality is omnipresent in Othello. Iago fans to flames the coals of socially induced unease in Othello, fantasizes on his own about being cuckolded by Othello and Cassio. In an ideology that can value only cloistered, desireless women, any woman who departs from this passivity will cause intense anxiety. (295)
Her chief arguing points and evidence relate to the constriction of female sexuality in comparison to male sexuality; women’s economic and political roles; women’s access to power, agency, and land; the cultural roles of women in shaping their society; and, finally, contemporary ideology about women. For her, the change in privacy and public life in the Renaissance escalated the modern division of the sexes, thus firmly making the woman into a beautiful
It is apparent as to how this notion that the women of the noble class led lives of fortune. Social parties and balls were common festivities, which these women regularly attended. For many, dancing was a favorite pastime. To an outsider, it seemed that a lady of the gentry class had nothing short of an enviable existence.
Cloud, Amanda. Gender Roles of Women in the Renaissance. n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2009. < http://www2.cedarcrest.edu/academic/eng/lfletcher/shrew/acloud.htm >.
In the research paper focusing on the story of The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle, gender and wealth are explored thoroughly. In the Middle Ages, almost all women were practically powerless, regarding inheritance, land, and ownership of certain things, but in the Sir Gawain story with Dame Ragnelle, subjectively, Dame Ragnelle held more power than Sir Gawain at the time before their marriage because of the laws regarding married women and also the beauty standards at the time not matching with how Dame Ragnelle looked. No further research has been done on the power imbalance, so this is an interpretation of the story. To better understand the satire of the story, research was done on the gender roles of women in the Middle Ages, law
The attitude towards women, their treatment and their rights, underwent many changes during the Renaissance. During feudal times women were given more liberties and enjoyed freedoms. They could own land and had many of the rights men had. However, this period where so many great changes had been made in the church, in literature, and in all other artistic areas, women took a big step backward in their fight for equality.
“The “Portrait of a woman with a man at a casement” dates from around 1440-1444. It is made with tempera on wood by a Florentine artist, Fra Filippo Lippi. The painting is 64,1 x 41,9 cm. A very interesting detail is the message on the cuff of the woman, reading the word “lealtà” which is Italian for loyalty. The painting is part of the Marquand Collection and is to be found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it was given as a gift by Henry G. Marquand in 1889.”