Event Title
Faculty Mentor
Niria Leyva-Gutierrez
Major/Area of Research
Arts Management
Description
Throughout the Baroque period, and much of art history, women were
portrayed as either saints or sinners, pictures of purity or wicked temptresses.
Women have known little middle ground historically, despite occupying
diverse roles and representing half the world’s population. In the
Baroque, Catholic-dominated period, this polarization prescribed women the
biblically-based roles of either saint or “sinner.” Jusepe de Ribera’s “The Holy
Family with Saints Anne and Catherine of Alexandria” (1648), exemplifies
women’s roles as saint, mother and virgin, depicting each with soft, feminine
energy surrounding baby Jesus. Relation to men bounds Maryóher lack of
intimacy with men, her purity; her birthing of Jesus, her importance. Valetin
de Boulogne’s “Christ and the Adulteress” (1618) displays the ìsinfulî woman
as a scantily clad adulteress (notably without a co-adulterer), mobbed by
men, is presented to Jesus for judgement. Women see some alternative roles
in Northern “genre paintings” like Johannes Vermeer’s ìYoung Woman with
a Water Pitcherî (1662), which depicts a chaste wife in an idyllic home. Both
monikers reference her value to men and, while neither saint nor sinner, her
flat, domestically-bound role is clear. Mythological themes were women’s
only freedom, as in Peter Paul Rubens’ “Venus in Front of the Mirror” (1614).
Venus, naked but aware of the viewer, attempts no modesty, exuding sexuality
as she commands eye contact. She is neither sinner nor whore nor
related to any man. With limited exception, Baroque women rarely found
representation outside their relation to men, something not improved for
hundreds of years.
presenter image
Included in
Female Identity in Baroque Art
Throughout the Baroque period, and much of art history, women were
portrayed as either saints or sinners, pictures of purity or wicked temptresses.
Women have known little middle ground historically, despite occupying
diverse roles and representing half the world’s population. In the
Baroque, Catholic-dominated period, this polarization prescribed women the
biblically-based roles of either saint or “sinner.” Jusepe de Ribera’s “The Holy
Family with Saints Anne and Catherine of Alexandria” (1648), exemplifies
women’s roles as saint, mother and virgin, depicting each with soft, feminine
energy surrounding baby Jesus. Relation to men bounds Maryóher lack of
intimacy with men, her purity; her birthing of Jesus, her importance. Valetin
de Boulogne’s “Christ and the Adulteress” (1618) displays the ìsinfulî woman
as a scantily clad adulteress (notably without a co-adulterer), mobbed by
men, is presented to Jesus for judgement. Women see some alternative roles
in Northern “genre paintings” like Johannes Vermeer’s ìYoung Woman with
a Water Pitcherî (1662), which depicts a chaste wife in an idyllic home. Both
monikers reference her value to men and, while neither saint nor sinner, her
flat, domestically-bound role is clear. Mythological themes were women’s
only freedom, as in Peter Paul Rubens’ “Venus in Front of the Mirror” (1614).
Venus, naked but aware of the viewer, attempts no modesty, exuding sexuality
as she commands eye contact. She is neither sinner nor whore nor
related to any man. With limited exception, Baroque women rarely found
representation outside their relation to men, something not improved for
hundreds of years.