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.

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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.