VI: The 19th Century (& beyond) -- “Woman” and “the feminine” 11/29/2018 VI: The 19th Century (& beyond) -- “Woman” and “the feminine” In the 1800s, particular images and concepts of “woman” came to dominate cultural production. The feminine domestic sphere becomes increasingly important with advances in industrial production of goods. Thus, the visual arts, architecture, and even national politics circulate around women, whether “white,” immigrant, or slave. On into the 20th Century, “woman” remains a central figure and element in American arts & culture. 11/29/2018 Dr. Nick Melczarek 2004

Previous images of “woman” in American culture What images of women have we encountered in “American” cultural production? What ideas of “woman” did they project? See Pohl P.171

Women and American art -- early 1800s 11/29/2018 “Woman” as ideal of “nature,” “naturalness”= Body, abundance, sexually available; pure and seductive Emotional & unintellectual; need of rescuing Domestic “angel of the house,” guardian of virtue “Mother” the ideal of domestic harmony Harmony of household = harmony of nation Ambivalent treatment of women and African Americans within domestic scenes Upper-class women important as commercial consumers of goods often produced by lower-class & immigrant women in factories & mills.

“Woman” as object in male world John Vanderlyn’s Ariadne Asleep on the Isle of Naxos (1809-14) Pohl p.172 Compare to Vanderlyn’s Murder of Jane McCrea (Pohl p.108) How does the classical myth invoked here interact with Vanderlyn’s representation of Ariadne? What accounts for this painting’s social failure?

White woman as object in an “ethnic” world 11/29/2018 White woman as object in an “ethnic” world Hiram Powers’ The Greek Slave (1846) Pohl p.259 How does this portrayal compare/contrast to other idealized images of women? How does Powers’ sculpture contrast specifically to Vanderlyn’s Ariadne (p.172)? Why did this sculpture socially succeed, where Vanderlyn’s painting failed?

Making house: immigrant female domestics Kiss Me and Kiss the ‘Lasses (1856) Pohl p.173 Shake Hands? (1854) Pohl p.263 What do these works by Lily Martin Spencer tell us about attitudes toward servant women? What elements of “ethnicity” do these women exhibit? Of “lower class”?

The houses they made: 19th-Century domestic architecture The rich: Biltmore Estate, Ashville N.C. (c.1895) 4 acres, 175,000 square feet (88 average-sized homes today); required 438 employees in 1894 The working class: urban home block (c. mid-1800s)

Sisterhood is Powerful: Suffragism, Seneca Falls, & Women’s Writing 11/29/2018 Sisterhood is Powerful: Suffragism, Seneca Falls, & Women’s Writing Mid 1800s, (black & white) women had No vote, and held no public offices Restricted rights to inheritance, property, wage assurance Little legal protection from abuse, adultery, child-napping No legal say in reproductive rights Often to work outside, but still maintain, the home Women’s Suffrage (vote) Movement & Abolition Movement arise together 1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton (& Lucretia Mott), “The Seneca Falls Declaration” for (white) women’s freedom [online reading] Continued arguing around relation of slaves’ rights and women’s rights: 1851 Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I A Woman?” [online reading] (later) Kate Chopin, “The Story of an Hour” [online reading]

Clothes & the woman: Seneca Falls wear c.1852 11/29/2018 Clothes & the woman: Seneca Falls wear c.1852 How does this image of Sufragettes compare to male-produced images of women?

“Gilded Age” Aesthetics 11/29/2018 “Gilded Age” Aesthetics Post Civil War art movement, of American artists who had traveled to Europe and Asia -- the “Gilded Age” or “American Renaissance” “arts for art’s sake” = focus on the quality of the art itself, not any moral story built into it -- Whistler’s statement on p.270 Highly artificial and idealized; influenced by European and Oriental (Japanese) art -- eventually became American Impressionism 11/29/2018 Dr. Nick Melczarek 2004

Disrupting the field: “woman” & the Aesthetics 11/29/2018 Disrupting the field: “woman” & the Aesthetics Arrangement in Grey and Black No.1: The Artist’s Mother 1871-72 (Pohl p.270) How does each image compare to other images of women? What ideals do they uphold? What ideals do they challenge? How? James McNeill Whistler Symphony in White No.1: The White Girl 1862 (Pohl p.270)

Influence from France: Edouard Manet’s Olympia (1863) Pohl p.279 11/29/2018 Influence from France: Edouard Manet’s Olympia (1863) Pohl p.279

New (male-created) visions of “woman” 11/29/2018 New (male-created) visions of “woman” John Singer Sargent Madame X (Mme. Gautreau) (1884) How does this portrait compare/contrast to that of Isabella Stewart Garnder (1888) Pohl p.277? What concept of “woman” does Sargent present here?

“Woman” as difference Sargent, Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1892-93) 11/29/2018 Sargent, Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1892-93) compare/contrast to Madame X (right).

More than the “angel of the house” 11/29/2018 More than the “angel of the house” Abbot Thayer, Angel (1889) Pohl p.272 Thayer sought to turn the females in his paintings into “higher beings.” How does such a work project “Christian ideals” of “woman”? Contrast to Sargent’s portraits?

“Woman” as domestic object 11/29/2018 “Woman” as domestic object William Merrit Chase, In the Studio (1880) Pohl p.273 Compare/contrast to Portrait of Miss Dora Wheeler (1883) Pohl p.275 What relation do such works develop between their human subjects and surroundings?

“Woman” redefined by women : Self-made “new” women 11/29/2018 “Woman” redefined by women : Self-made “new” women Self-motivated, adventurous, self-aware Celia Beaux, M.Adelaide Nutting (1906) Pohl p.280 Cf. Sita and Sarita (1893-94) Pohl p.278

Not the same old “mother” 11/29/2018 Not the same old “mother” Mary Cassatt Mother and Child (1905) Pohl p.298 The Boating Party 1893-94 (Pohl p.298) Compare/contrast Cassatt’s images of women and motherhood to others we’ve seen. How do they compare to the images of motherhood on the facing page?

Jump ahead: “woman” in the 20th-century Alexandre Hogue,Erosions No.2 Mother Earth Laid Bare (1938) Pohl 405 Diego Rivera, Allegory of California (1931) Pohl 384 On what traditional concepts of “woman” do these images rely? In what ways might they equally question those concepts?

Barbara Kruger, Your Body Is a Battleground (1989) Pohl 507 On what traditional concepts of “woman” do these images rely? In what ways might they equally question those concepts? Compare to Whistler’s works, Pohl 270? Alice Neel, Margaret Evans Pregnant (1978) Pohl 484

“Women Emerging” themes, terms, concepts, artists 11/29/2018 Previous concepts of “woman” “Woman” as ideal Suffrage & Seneca Falls Vanderlyn, Ariadne Powers, The Greek Slave Women and the Aesthetics movement Ideals of the aesthetics movement Whistler, Sargent, Thayer, Chase Beaux, Cassatt Rivera, Hogue, Neel, Kruger 11/29/2018 Dr. Nick Melczarek 2004