Thank you for inviting me to your colloquium

1
Madwomen in the Attic having tea in their old
age something to look forward to!!!
Thank you for inviting me to your colloquium!
2
Introduction Feminist Art History and Early
Modern (1400-1700) Images of Women

• Constructed and enforced a patriarchal view
• of women despite the potential for
• empowerment in some images.
• The investment of male artists in images of
• women
• --Mary and the female Saints.
• --Heroines of antiquity and the Bible.
• --Eve, Venus, Prostitutes, and Witches.

3
Rogier van der Weyden St. Luke Drawing the
Virgin c. 1435-40. Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston. St. Luke is likely a
self- portrait of Rogier, an artist known for his
deeply pious and moving Christian images.
Images of women are often key to male artists
self-representation, becoming signs of their
artistic creativity and identity.
4
Rogier is an artist and worshipper with
privileged access to an intimate moment between
Mary and her child.
5
The Virgin Mary--A Complex Model for Women

• Empowering in some ways yet represented an
  impossible ideal (the paradox of the virginal
  mother).
• Little described in scripture, yet stories about
  her proliferated after the 5th c. C.E.
• In part, a response to the Nestorian heresy,
  which argued that no human woman could give birth
  to Christs divine side, so Mary mothered only
  his human side.
• This heresy combated by the Council of Ephesus in
  431 C.E., emphasizing Christs dual nature.

6
The Cult of Mary

• Somewhat held in check by medieval misogyny, yet
  grew anyway.
• Fostered by theologians such as St. Bernard of
  Clairvaux (12th c.). Filippino Lippis The Vision
  of St. Bernard, 1480s (Badia Fiorentina) shows
  Bernard being comforted by a vision of Mary.
• By the early modern period, the cult of Mary was
  at its height, although drastically curtailed by
  the Protestant Reformation from the 1520s on.
• The Catholic Counter-Reformation reasserted
  Marys importance, however.

7
The witch and other evil female figures invert
Marys traits note the parody of the rosary in
the left drawing by Hans Baldung Grien. On the
right, Geertgen tot sint Jans Madonna of the
Rosary (1478), done for a Confraternity (lay
brotherhood) of the Rosary in Haarlem.
8
It is no accident that one of the authors of the
Malleus Maleficarum, Jakob Sprenger, was also an
important promoter of the Rosary devotion in the
late 15th century. Geertgens painting shows
the complexity of early modern devotion to Mary
Mary as virgin mother of Christ (rose without
thorns) presents her childs body as source of
the sacrament and Christ rings the bells that
sounded after Rosary prayers and before the
elevation of the Host in the Mass. Mary as the
woman clothed with the sun in Revelation who
crushes the Anti-Christ. Marys joys as mother
(musical angels). Marys sorrows during Christs
passion. (angels with Instruments of the Passion
and Rosary beads). Mary and Christ at the center
of celestial harmony.
9
Mary also embodies Wisdom. In Van Eycks Madonna
and Child with Chancellor Rolin, c. 1435
(Louvre), she poses like a throne to symbolize
the throne of Wise King Solomon she holds Christ
as Logos, Gods word made flesh through her. The
border of her robe is inscribed with the text of
Ecclesiastes 24, which glorifies Wisdom that
nourishes both nature and the faithful. She is
crowned as the Queen of Heaven as well.
10
Mary also embodies the Church, the Bride of
Christ, who is the Bridegroom (the bride and
groom of the Song of Songs read as an allegory of
Christ and the Church. In Van Eycks exquisite
little panel in Berlin (1438-40), a colossal
Mary occupies the nave of a Gothic church.
11
The wide variety of early modern Marian imagery,
accessible through paintings, sculptures, and
more cheaply through prints, also conveyed gender
expectations for women in the period

• For example, images of the Annunciation were
  often steeped in cultural and social ideas about
  women.
• The Annunciation panel of the Merode Altarpiece
  by Robert Campin (c. 1425) reveals its
  middle-class context.
• Mary as pious, humble, and chaste center of the
  bourgeois home Joseph and Mary as a model couple
  and the Holy Family as a model family.

12
Merode Altarpiece, c. 1425, Cloisters,
Metropolitan Museum, NY.
13
Mary is a pious wife, reading the scripture,
and humble, seated on the floor as a Madonna of
Humility. The white towel, vessel of
pure water and the lily symbolize her virginity
but also suggest an immaculate home.
14
Christ descends on beams of light, bearing a
cross.
?
15
Joseph in his carpenters workshop, as provider
for his family. Images of the Holy family were
ideal models for the family. See also
Rembrandts 1645 painting in St. Petersburg.
16
Mary as nurturing mother is epitomized by the
virgo lactans (breast-feeding) image. Margaret
Miles has written about the social meaning of the
virgo lactans image during times of famine.
Rogier van der Weydens painting from the 1450s
was part of a devotional diptych, with the
patron on the other panel.
17
The Madonna of Mercy image further amplifies the
nurturing aspect of Mary. Michael Erhardt
(1480s, Berlin) and Piero della Francesca
(mid-15th c., Borgo San Sepolcro). Brotherhoods
of Mercy did works of charity in devotion to
Mary.
18
In Grünewalds Isenheim Altarpiece, 1512-15
(Musée dUnterlinden, Colmar) the roles of Mary
and Christ are interwoven in a complex drama of
joy and suffering.
19
Along with Magdalene, Mary epitomizes the
female mourner, overcome with grief in the
Isenheim Crucifixion. Women prepared the bodies
of the dead their mourning was more emotional.
20
The second stage of the altarpiece recounts
Marys joys as mother of Christ, but with strong
implications of her Sorrows as well.
21
Angels serenade a pregnant Mary as future mother
of Christ and queen of heaven.
22
A poignant image of maternal tenderness, full
of Marian symbols (the rose, seaport,
and mountain). Her child holds a rosary and his
swaddling cloth is the torn loincloth of the
Crucifixion.
23
?
?
24
Mary as co-redeemer and the infinitely
suffering mother, representing womens social
roles as mourners, is also important in Rogiers
Deposition, c. 1435-28 (Prado).
25
(No Transcript)
26
Female saints extend the meanings of Mary

• The power of virginity, which often gives female
  saints miraculous power to survive sadistic
  tortures.
• The key Marian traits of maternal devotion,
  infinitely nurturing and suffering for the sake
  of others.
• The legends (and images) of female saints offered
  a female presence within a patriarchal religion
  and, to some extent, a sense of empowerment for
  female Christians.
• Yet, the beauty and the bodies of female saints
  are punished in the legends self-mutilation and
  mutilation by others are common.
• In Magdalenes case, her corrupt prostitutes
  body is punished by her own asceticism as a
  convert to Christ.
• Three examples Saint Lucy, Saint Mary
  Magdalene, Saint Catherine of Alexandria.

27
Lucy (Lucia), patron saint of Syracuse (Sicily)

• Lucy was a historical figure who was martyred
  under Diocletian in the early 4th century, but
  her legends were fantastic.
• She gave her riches to the poor in response to
  her mother being healed at the shrine of St.
  Agatha.
• Her betrothed, upset by the loss of wealth,
  denounced her as a Christian.
• The story of her torture exhibits the magical
  power of virginity
• She was tied to oxen to be dragged to a brothel
  but they were unable to move her.
• She was burned, molten lead was poured in her
  ears, her teeth were pulled, and her breasts cut
  off.
• She was boiled in oil and urine, but finally died
  when she was stabbed with a dagger in the neck.

28
Lucy gives her riches to the poor in this 14th c.
Italian painting by Jacobello del Fiore (Fermo).

29
Veronese, The Last Communion of St. Lucy (1582,
Washington).
30
The episode of the oxen in the background.
31
A mixture of death and desire (for the Body of
Christ)
32
The most startling of Lucys legends is a story
of self-mutilation upset by her
suitors preoccupation with her beautiful eyes,
she tore them out. God later restored her
sight. Franciso Zurbarans St. Lucy, 1625-30,
Washington, D.C.
33
Female beauty punished.
34
Domenico Beccafumi, 1521, Siena.
35
Mary Magdalene

• Beautiful, sexual, with an intensely emotional
  expression of faith, Magdalene was the ultimate
  example of the female penitent.
• After she was miraculously transported to
  Provence, she meditated and fasted in the
  wilderness like a female John the Baptist,
  disregarding her beauty and her body itself.
• A composite figure, taking aspects of female
  characters mentioned in the New Testament.
• The anonymous repentant harlot who washed
  Christs feet and dried them with her hair (Luke
  VII 36).
• Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus of
  Bethany. This character sat and listened to
  Christ while Martha busily ministered to him as a
  hostess (John XI 2 Luke X 38-42).
• Mary of Magdala from whom Christ exorcized 7
  devils (Luke VIII 2) present and weeping at the
  Crucifixion, anointed Christs body for burial,
  and was the first person to see the risen Christ.
• Although a composite, her character was extremely
  appealing and held great meaning.

36
Titians version of the Penitent Magdalene,
1530-35(Pitti, Florence). He made many such
images, as they were in great demand. Her
penitent image allowed for both the eroticism of
her semi-naked form and empathy with her intense
devotion to Christ (see Mary Garrard in Titians
Women).
37
Federico Barocci, Noli Me Tangere (c. 1590,
Munich) (John XX 14-18) Do not touch (or hold)
me, for I have not yet ascended to my
Father Christ is going to prepare a place for
his followers in heaven Marys place now is with
the community of the living. Christ lovingly
sends her back to tell the disciples the news of
his Resurrection. The many artistic images of
this episode inevitably suggest the great human
love (and desire?) between Christ and Magdalene.
38
Desire for the touch, the Body of Christ?
39
Donatellos wood and polychrome sculpture In the
Duomo Museum, Florence, 1455, shows fhe once
beautiful body (still detectable) ravaged by
punishing fasting and meditation. Female beauty
and sexuality is set in opposition to Christian
faith.
40
Redeemed from her former life as a prostitute
loss of outer beauty but inner faith.
41
Saint Catherine of Alexandria Model for the
Learned Woman

• Said to have been executed under Maxentius in the
  early 4th c.
• Of royal birth and well-educated, she is a
  Christian version of Hypatia, a female
  philosopher who died at the hands of fanatical
  monks in the early 5th c.
• The emperor Maxentius desired her and tried to
  undermine her faith. Having failed, he sent 50
  philosophers to do the job.
• Through her eloquence and learning, Catherine
  converted the philosophers who were then put to
  death by Maxentius!
• Bound to a spike-studded wheel, Catherine was
  about to be tortured when a thunderbolt exploded
  the wheel.
• She was beheaded and carried by angels to Mt.
  Sinai where her relics are believed to be buried.
  

42
Caravaggio, St. Catherine, 1598-99, Thyssen
Collection, Lugano. Catherine is an elegant,
aristocratic figure, sitting by the spiked wheel
and holding the knife that stabbed her.
43
Masolino da Panicale, Catherine Debating with the
Philosophers, San Clemente, Rome, c.
1430. Considering that women were forbidden to
speak in public, this must have been empowering
to women.
44
Catherines Mystic Marriage by Correggio,
1525-26, Louvre, in which a vision of Christ
places a ring on Catherines finger (originally
a painting of Christ and Mary brought to life by
Catherines prayers). Catherine becomes a Bride
of Christ, but this is also a tender,
maternal image.
45
Lucas Cranach The Elder, Martyrdom of St.
Catherine, Budapest, 1515.
46
Michael Erhardt, Beheading of Catherine,Berlin, 14
80. (a fitting end for the intellectual woman?)
47
Artemisia Gentileschi, Self-Portrait (?)
as Catherine, Uffizzi, 1613-20. Artemisia taught
herself to read and write. Does she convey the
intellectual aspect of her art here?
48
Ancient heroines like Lucretia demonstrate a
similar combination of empowerment and punishment

• Lucretias story, told by Livy and Ovid, was
  fundamental to the founding of the Roman
  Republic.
• A matron of great virtue and beauty, Lucretia
  was raped by the Etruscan prince Tarquin.
• When Tarquin threatened to kill her and a slave
  and put them in bed together, Lucretia succumbed
  to him because of dishonor this would cause to
  her husband.
• Although raped, she would still have been
  considered an adulterous woman.
• She killed herself with a knife in front of her
  husband and kinsmen because she did not want
  adultery to be excused by rape and to
• recover her familys honor.
• In retaliation, her husband and kinsmen
  overthrew Etruscan rule.

49
In this decorative wall panel by Botticelli (c.
1500, Gardner Museum, Boston),Lucretias dead
body inspires the Roman men to revolt. It is
framed by the rape on the left and the suicide on
the right. The violation and sacrifice of a
womans body serves as the catalyst for male
action.
50
(No Transcript)
51
(No Transcript)
52
In the early modern period, images of Lucretias
suicide reinforced the chastity of wives, as in
this portrait of a Venetian woman by Lorenzo
Lotto in London, 1530s. The inscription
(from Livy) After Lucretias example, let no
violated woman live. Note the cradle
emphasizing the connection of sex and
procreation.
?
53
Lucas Cranach the Elder did numerous images of
Lucretia (here, a painting in Berlin, 1533)
they were In great demand by his patrons at in
the Wittenberg court and university. There is
no reason for her to be nude the image is
erotic (sado-erotic?).
54
Dürers panel in Munich, 1517, in which he
avoids eroticism and hysteria, and envisions
Lucretia as a martyred female saint.
55
Titians Rape of Lucretia in the Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge, 1571. Tarquins knee and a
bunched cloth stands for his penis as the
heroines body becomes an object of desire for
the male spectator.
56
Rembrandts moving portrayal of Lucretia in
Minneapolis,1666, probably a portrait of
Hendrikje Stoffels. Rembrandt associated this
with Hendrikjes situation a moral dilemma she
could not win, living in sin with a man who
could not marry her.