Venus at her mirror rubens

Gender constructs of the Renaissance through the depiction of naked bodies:

Heroizing (sexually) violent men, sexualizing heroic women

*Titian’s “Venus of Urbino”, 16th c. *Example of 19th c. colonial photography *Rubens’ Helene Fourment in a Fur Wrap, 17th c.

The naked and the nude in “Western” art according to Kenneth Clark and John Berger (what about the naked or nude in other images?)

Clark: nude=art, naked=fact Berger: nude=performance, naked=self

Subjective views! The ways we look at and perceive naked bodies are socially and culturally conditioned,

whether those bodies are depicted in works of art or not. In this course we use naked as a descriptive term (unclothed). No nude!

“Renaissance” (rebirth): 14th-17th c. A main cultural goal of European (and especially Italian) Renaissance humanism was the study and appreciation of the ancient Greco-Roman tradition and its reconciliation with Christianity. Note the Mediterranean roots of this European or ”Western” cultural project that still impacts Euro-American culture today. * We consider the construction of gender identity in the Renaissance: * Both the Greco-Roman and the Christian tradition had strong patriarchal and misogynistic tendencies that were reinforced in the visual production of the Renaissance. * Women were considered “by nature” morally, intellectually, and physically inferior to men: passive and submissive sexual beings who should be under the control of active and dominant men. * Many of the Renaissance visual creations we study (traditionally praised as great works of art) visualize this ideology. * We consider them as cultural documents that shed light on the construction of social identities. * We examine in particular the construction of femininity which also informs the construction of masculinity as its opposite (in a heteronormative culture).

Constructing female identity through marriage paintings:

Female submission is strongly normalized and idealized

in the context of the respectable social institution of marriage.

By implication, the husband is the master of his wife

and male identity is constructed as dominant.

Titian’s “Venus of Urbino”

Lorenzo Lotto’s “Venus and Cupid”

All these Italian paintings of the 15th-16th centuries were or could have been marriage

paintings. What do they emphasize? Not partnership but female “duties”:

desirability, fecundity, obedience, submissiveness, “happily” performed by an

ideal model all wives should emulate …

"

The female naked body, sexualized and available, remained a prominent subject in “Western” visual production from the Renaissance

onwards

"

The way women are depicted in such paintings provides crucial information about how gender identities were constructed at the time

"

In such images, women are objects to be looked at for the pleasure of men. Both genders learn their “proper roles” through such depictions.

Some examples are discussed

below.

Emphasis on female sexuality through mythological figures: distinguishing wives from courtesans is not always easy!

Venus and Cupid with a dog and partridge, Titian and workshop, mid 16th c.(?), oil on canvas, 56 x 78 in., Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.

Five surviving paintings of Venus with a musician, by

Titian and his workshop, mid

16th c.

Is she the alter ego of a wife or a

courtesan?

Venus and Organist, Titian and workshop, mid 16th c.(?), oil on canvas, 55 x 89 in., Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain.

Would a husband like to see his wife depicted in such a painting? Probably not, unless he is the musician!

Venus and Organist, Titian and workshop, mid 16th c.(?), oil on canvas, 59x 87 in., Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain.

Five surviving paintings of Venus with a musician, by

Titian and his workshop, mid

16th c.

Women educated to be looked at... men educated to

look at them...

Five surviving paintings of Venus with a musician, by

Titian and his workshop, mid

16th c.

Women educated to self-objectify... men educated to objectify them...

The mirror trope: women educated to look at themselves,

preparing to be looked at by

others...

Venus at her mirror, Titian, 1555, oil on canvas, 49 x 41 in., National

Gallery, Washington DC.

Venus at her mirror, Rubens, 1614- 15, oil on panel, , 49 x 39 in.,

Princely Collections, Liechtenstein.

What kinds of stereotypes do these paintings visualize? Both women do not look at the viewer directly but through their reflection. Why?

Which are the characteristics of the ideal female in such images? Beautiful, young, sexualized, fertile, passive, rich, white... body.

Although all women in a patriarchal culture may experience oppression, gender is not the only identification category that impacts their experiences:

a wealthy young white woman (embodied by the main sitter of these images) would experiences oppression differently from a poor older white woman or a poor

young black woman (such as the maid at the right margin of Rubens’ painting)

Class, race, sexual orientation, age, and other identity categories intersect with gender and make experiences of discrimination much more complex and challenging for people who belong to traditionally opressed categories.

Kimberle Williams Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality in 1989 to emphasize how forms of discrimination are interrelated and their interaction needs to be taken

into account for the promotion of social and political equity.

Women are not the only black servants depicted in European paintings. Here, posthumous Portrait of Mary I Stuart with a servant, by Adriaen Hanneman,

1664, 52x44 in., Mauritshuis, The Hague, Netherlands. Mary was daughter of the king of England, married to the stadholder of the

United Provinces of the Netherlands (heavely involved in slave trade).

Black servants in European paintings of the time were signs of the wealth and status of the white sitters and their houshold.

Textual and visual evidence suggests that the darker their skin was, the more prized they were as an exotic sign of the wealth/status of their white “masters“

whose whiteness stood out even more by comparison.

Back to the naked female body: the oppressive gender, class, race, and age stereotypes reflected and promoted by such images are still mainstream in

contemporary popular culture...

Victoria’s Secret, 2014

THE PERFECT “BODY”

Dear Kate, 2014

Victoria’s Secret,

changed slogan, 2014

Dear Kate, 2014

Rubens, 1614-15, and Kristyna Milde, 2008, series cUMENI. What point do you think Milde wants to make?

Milde says: ‘Using the historical painting as a stage, with woman represented by the modern barbie, I want to show the similarities between stereotypical representation in the past and the present

time.’

Kristyna Milde, 2008, series cUMENI, after Titian’s “Venus of

Urbino”. http://www.mildeart.com/cumeni

3rd essay assignment:

The setting is an exhibition on the naked body with material from the third part of the class (Renaissance to present, Euro-American tradition with Mediterranean roots). You need to consider where your exhibition

takes place (who is the audience).

The goal of the exhibition is to question stereotypical representations of identity (constructed through the naked body) by juxtaposing

traditional, conventional, mainstream, and dominant depictions with non-traditional, unconventional, alternative, and subversive ones.

The director of community outreach has asked you to write an exhibition review for a local newspaper. Your goal is to help the general

public understand the main objective of the exhibition.

You have to discuss three pairs of such images of your choice (for a total of six highlights) and explain how in each pair one image upholds

and the other question stereotypical identity constructs.

Rubens, 1614-15, and Kristyna Milde, 2008, series cUMENI. This is an example of an appropriate pair of images. Many more will be

discussed during the rest of the course.

Conrad Meit, ca. 1510-25 (Judith,

sculpture in alabaster, 12 in.)

Judith and Holofernes, Donatello, mid 1450’s (1457-64?), bronze, 93 in..

This is another appropriate example to which we will turn presently: a heroic depiction of Judith (faithful to the Biblical text, a very rare

representation) juxtaposed to a sexualized depiction (much more common although

unfaithful to the Biblical text).

Heroic women were rarely visualized in Renaissance visual production in comparison to the standard depictions of sexualized and victimized

women (beautiful objects or rape victims as seen here). The case of Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes was a rare exception that

confirmed the rule both through its iconography and its placement.

Judith and Holofernes, Donatello, mid 1450’s (1457- 64?), bronze, 93 in.

Turn to a classmate and discuss the following for a few mintues, briefly writing down your response: 1. Based on the Biblical narrative, how would you characterize Judith? 2. Do you think this story subverts or supports patriarchal gender constructs (female subordination and condemnation of women’s tempting sexual nature and weakness)?

1. Brave, intelligent (cunning, duplicitous), pious, humble and faithful to God, chaste (before and after her heroic deed), beautiful (uses her allure as a weapon, but remains virtuous). 2. Although the killing of a powerful general by a humble widow might appear subersive (“corrected” through distorted representations discussed below) the story itsefl supports patriarchal ideology: Judith is exceptional as a victorious female (a miracle from God); has to remain chaste and pious; uses “female weapons”: beauty, sexuality, duplicity.

Judith and Holofernes, Donatello, mid 1450’s (1457- 64?), bronze, 93 in.

This is how Boccaccio (14th c. Florentine author) discusses “manly” women (women who “rise above” their “weak nature ”), in terms that reinforce gender difference: If men should be praised whenever they perfomr great deeds (with strength which Nature has given them), how much more should women be extolled (almost all of whom are endowed with tenderness, frail bodides, and sluggish minds by Nature), if they have acquired a manly spriti and if with keen intelligence and remarkable fortitude they have dared undertake and have accomplished even the most difficult deeds?

Judith and Holofernes, Donatello, mid 1450’s (1457- 64?), bronze, 93 in.

To sum up the ideological ramifications of Judith’s narrative:

The biblical story is written within the confines of patriarchal ideology,

but it has the potential to offer women empowering models

and even become subersive of patriarchy.

This is exemplified by Donatello’s statue which challenged male sensibilities in Florence

(as its frequent relocations attests, discussed below).

Judith and Holofernes, Donatello, mid 1450’s (1457-64?), bronze, 93 in. For a fountain in the Medici Palace garden. Moved several times since 1495.

Why was this depiction considered subversive for the gender constructs of the time, even though it was faithful to the Biblical story?

Palazzo Vecchio and Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, Italy (present). Statues added over time projected important political and socio-

cultural messages. The following slides trace the visual rhetoric created through such

statues over time.

*Judith and Holofernes first moved infront of the Palazzo della Signoria (now Palazzo Vecchio) in 1495, after the exile of the Medici.

This was the first public sculputure in Piazza della Signoria.

*When Michellangelo’s David was placed there in 1504, Judith and Holofernes was moved inside the Palazzo Vecchio, in the courtyard.

*Two years later (1506), Judith and Holofernes was placed under the west arch of the Loggia.

Michelangelo’s David and Donatello’s Judith and Holofernes.

This is what a Florentine said when prominent men of the city deliberated about the public placement of Michelangelo’s David (to replace Judith): Judith is an omen of evil, and no fit object where it stands, as we have the corss and lily for our emblems; besides, it is not proper that the woman should kill the male; and, above all, this statue was erected under an evil star, as things have gone from bad to worse since then.

*In 1534, Baccio Bandinelli’s Hercules and Cacus was unveiled next to David.

*In 1554, Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa was unveiled at the east arch of the Loggia.

*In 1582, Judith and Holofernes was moved to the southest arch of the Loggia (behind Perseus), to make way for Giambologna’s “Rape of the Sabines”.

*In 1789, six Roman statues of passive women (one barbarian captive and five modestly dressed Roman matrons) were added at the back wall and two lions

were added at the front.

*In 1866, Pio Fedi’s Rape of Polyxena was added next to Judith and Holofernes.

*Statues of heroic males in combat were also added over time: Menelaus carrying the dead Patroclus (Roman, behind the pillar),

and Hercules killing Centaur Nessus by Gianbologna (installed in 1841).

*During First World War, Judith and Holofernes was moved into the National Museum.

*In 1919 it was moved to the left of the Palazzo Vecchio. *In 1980 it was moved inside the Palazzo.

The single statue of a heroic woman was eliminated. All remaining statues speak of male agression and female subordination.

Perseus and Medusa, Benvenuto Cellini, bronze, 128 inches with base, ca. 1554 (compared to Judith). In Ovid’s Metamorphoses (known in Renaissance Italy) Medusa is a rape survivor punished with a monstrou transformation and later decapitation! Gellini’s statue also sexualizes her, as a murdered rape victim!

“Rape of the Sabines”, Giambologna (Flemish), 1582.

Heroic young man abducts helpless woman and defeats older man.

Rape of Polyxena, Pio Fedi, 1866.

Greek hero kills Trojan man and

woman and abducts helpless Polyxena.

Judith and Holofernes in painting, from the 15th to the 16th c.: From heroic liberator, Judith was gradually transformed into: • either a sexualized femme fatale (man-eater)

(sexualization was much more extreme in Northern Europe in comparison to Italian examples)

• or a terrifying murderer and “castrator” of a helpless male (especially in Italy)

Judith as sexualized femme fatale (man-eater)

Sandro Botticelli, 1470 (Return of Judith to Bethulia).

Andrea Mantegna, 1490s (Judith and Holofernes

Giorgione, ca. 1505 (Judith)

Three Italian examples with gradually increasing emphasis on Judith’s sexuality

Sebald Beham, 1547 (Judith, engraving)

Conrad Meit, ca. 1510-25 (Judith, sculpture in alabaster, 12 in.)

Two German examples, typical of images condemning “The power of women”

Judith with the head of Holofernes, Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish), ca. 1616, oil on canvas, 47.2 x 43.7 in., Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig, Germany.

Judith with the head of Holofernes, Philip van Dijk (Dutch), 1726, oil on panel, 10 x 12 in., Gallery of Prince Willem, The Hague, Netherlands.

Gustav Klimt, 1901 (Austrian)

Franz Stuck, 1928 (German)

Paul-Albert Steck, 1885 (French)

Judith sexualized by later European painters:

Undue sexualization of female fighters is still standard in pop culture, but is being increasingly criticized.

Here, 1991 She-Hulk cover and 2018 Shreya Arora’s reply.

Wonder Woman cover and 2018 Shreya Arora’s reply. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-45149478

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-45149478
Judith as terrifying murderer and “castrator” of a helpless man

Judith Beheading Holofernes, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Italian), ca. 1598-99, oil on canvas, 57 x 77 in. Palazzo Barberini, Rome, Italy.

Judith Beheading Holofernes, Artemisia Gentileschi (Italian), oil on canvas. *Left: 1614-20, 78.33 x 64.13 in. National Museum of Capodimonte, Naples, Italy.

*Right: 1620-21, 79 x 65 in. Uffizi Gallery, Flornece, Italy. Considered to have autobiographical references (revenge against her rapist).

Detail of bracelet with cameo that depicts goddess

Artemis (Artemisia)?

Italian female artists (including Artemisia) introduced other depictions of Judith that emphasized her heroism or faith rather than her

threatening and sexual(ized) beauty.

Judith and her maid Abra, Artemisia Gentileschi, ca. 1613, oil on canvas, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy.

Judith’s profile might have been meant to echo that of Micheangelo’s David (vigilant against enemy)

Judith with the head of Holofernes, Fede Galizia, 1596, oil on canvas, Galleria Borghese, Rome, Italy. Judith’s weapons (jewelry and clothing) were also Galizia’s: she was famous for her ability to paint them illusionistically.

Judith with the head of Holofernes, Fede Galizia, 1596, oil on canvas, 47.5x37 in., Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida. Galizia was 18 years old when she painted this image. Famous at her time for her skill. She never married. She chose iconographic elements that present Judith in a more positive light. She may have identified with her: youth, signature on the dagger, Fede=faith in Italian.

However, the tray echoes the iconography of Salome with the head of John the Baptist (here by Italian Andrea Solario, 1507- 9, Metropolitan Museum, NY) : That would not have been positive for Judith in the eyes of many (or most?) viewers…

Judith and Holofernes, Giulia Lama, 1730, oil on canvas, 43 x 62 in., Gallery of the Academy, Venice, Italy.

Lama chose a moment in the story that is hardly ever depicted. Why?

Not all male artists depicted women through the lens of misogynistic cultural stereotypes…

The example of Rembrandt (Dutch painter) is a striking exception

Judith prepares for the banquet of Holofernes, Rembrandt, 1634, oil on canvas, 57 x 72 in. Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain.

What else besides her beauty is emphasized here?

Conventional Renaissance depictions of the Biblical story of Susanna and the Elders provide another example of the undue sexualization of a

chaste and brave woman

Note that in the Biblical story Suzanna, a blameless wife, cannot defend herself. God intervenes through the male prophet Daniel to save her.

Susanna and the Elders, Tintoretto (Venetian), 1555-56, oil on canvas, 58.5 x 71.5 in., Art History Museum, Vienna, Austria.

How is Suzanna unduly sexualized? How is the viewer invited to identify with the elders?

The mirror and acessories in front of Suzanna turn her into a vain beauty rather than a faithful

and honorable wife and woman.

Susanna and the Elders, Tintoretto (Venetian), 1555-56, oil on canvas, 58.5 x 71.5 in., Art

History Museum, Vienna, Austria.

Venus at her mirror, Titian (Venetian teacher of Tintoretto), 1555, oil on canvas, 49 x 41 in., National Gallery, Washington DC.

Susanna and the Elders, typical

depictions by male artists

Guercino, 1617

Reni, 1620

Rubens, 1640

Susanna and the Elders, Rembrandt, 1647, oil on panel, 30.2 x 36.5 in. Painting Gallery, Berlin, Germany.

How is his rendering different from that of other male artist?

Guercino, 1617

Susanna and the Elders, Artemisia Gentileschi, 1610, oil on canvas, 67 x

48 in., Weissenstein Palace, Germany.

Gentileschi’s Susanna is also unconventional.

What is unusual about Artemisia’s painting and how

does it relate to her personal life?

Guido Reni, 1620

Susanna and the Elders, Artemisia Gentileschi.

Giuseppe Chiari (early 18th c.) Inspired by Artemisia’s painting?

Even so, he emphasized sensuality over anguish.

Susanna and the Elders, Artemisia Gentileschi.

Who could have commissioned or bought Artemisia’s painting?

Giuseppe Chiari (early 18th c.)

Susanna and the Elders, Restored X-Ray, by Kathleen Gilje, 1998.

Atermisia Gentileschi and Kathleen Gilje restore the deeper emotional and moral

drama of this story which, from a male perspective, had

become an enjoyable “sexual adventure”

Harassing Susannah, digital intervention to Gentileschi’s Susanna and the Elders

by David R.A. Watson, 2017

Another reinterpretation of Gentileschi’s painting:

Harassing Susannah by David R.A. Watson, 2017

From the artist’s statement Artemisia Gentileschi and the Elders Travel Through Time: “Nothing seemed more fitting at the time [2017] to me than the two lecherous politicians who became reincarnations of he Elders in Gentileschi’s painting.”

“Roy Moore was nominated for the Alabama U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions. During this special election campaign for U.S. Senate, …

…three women stated that he had sexually assaulted them when they were at the respective ages of 14, 16 and 28…”

“Donald Trump and television host Billy Bush had an extremely lewd conversation about women in 2005...

Trump [spoke about wanting to kiss the hostess he was about to meet]…"I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything." Commentators and lawyers have described such an action as sexual assault.”

This is an example of a pair of highlights you can choose for your third essay (Tintoretto and either Gentileschi or Gentileschi-Watson.

If you choose Watson’s digitla intervention, you would also have to discuss Gentileschi’s original

Artemisia produced unconventional representations of other traditional themes,

again reflecting her own experience and reviving the deeper drama of the stories.

Artemisia Gentileschi, Danae, (1611).

Both women appear as about to endure rape.

Both are very different from traditional sexualized

depictions of these themes.

Artemisia Gentileschi, Death of Cleopatra

(1621-22).

Compare Artemisia’s Danae with Titian’s (1560’s right) or Orazio

Gentileschi’s (1621-2 left)

Compare Artemisia’s Cleopatra with Reni’s (1630-40, left) or

Gennari’s (1675, right)

While the depiction of heroic women like Judith was in most cases distorted to uphold the patriarchal ideology of the time, ancient myths of sexual violence against women were frequently visualized from the Renaissance onwards, heroizing the assailant and reinforcing the perception of women as helpless, weak, and destined to be dominated. The sexual objectification of the women in such depictions was

enhanced through their undue nakedness, not required by the narrative.

336

Two marble statues by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (Baroque master), commissioned by cardinal Scipione Borghese, now in the Borghes Gallery in Rome, Italy.

Hades and Persephone (Pluto and Proserpine),

1621-2, 89 in.

Apollo and Daphne, 1622-25,

96 in.

Hades and Persephone (Pluto and Proserpine), 1621-2, 89 in. The abducted niece is forced to marry her assailant uncle, despite the protests of her divine mother Demeter.

Aestheticization of sexual violence...

Apollo and Daphne, 1622-25,

96 in.

The only way the nymph could avoid rape was to renounce her female nature and become a tree!

Even as a tree, Apollo possessed her: Daphne (Laurel) became his sacred plant.

Aestheticization of sexual violence...

336

In his own life, the artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini was enabled by patriarchal ideology to behave like these heroized and entitled mythological men of power. (Righ: selfportrait of B., ca. 1623.)

When he discovered that his lover Constanza Bonarelli (wife of one of his assistants) also had an affair with Bernini’s brother, he almost killed him and paid a criminar to slice Constanza’s face. She was imprissoned and Bernini was married off to a wealthy aristocrat by pope Urban VIII!

Bust of Constanza by Bernini, ca. 1637.

Normalizing sexual violence against women by idealizing and aestheticizing depictions of rape has continued since the Renaissance. It is unfortunately prominent in contemporary popular culture, especially in advertisements for the fashion industry that glamorize violence against women….

21st c. fashion add. Disturbing content and context. Besides viewers, who else is impacted?

2007 fashion add.

Disturbing content and context…

When the ad on the right was criticized as sexist, it was replaced by the one

below.

Disturbing content and context persisted…

The striking difference in clothing and body postures in the second ad still evokes sexual violence…

Protest involves not only criticism of such visual tropes and their gender constructs but also boycott of relevant products and the creation of an alternative cultural production

Knowing the deep roots of sexism in the cultural production of the past is an important step towards change. Museums and other public institutions need to critically acknowledge the sexist content of much of the art they exhibit and diversify their holdings…

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