Women in Art: In Memoriam of the WRI
There is a post that I’ve been forcing myself not to write, and this is about the recent announcement of the “discontinuance” of the Women’s Research Institute at BYU. I have felt at a loss as to how to respond meaningfully to this development. I have joined the Facebook “Save BYU’s Women’s Research Institute” group, talked to a number of faculty and students, followed the letters to editor and media attention given to this, and am drafting a personal letter to the administration. And I have decided that I want to surround myself with images that bespeak the significance and power of women in art and culture. So I am inviting all local students to come to my office and put up a postcard or color copy of a work that promotes these ideals. If you aren’t close to campus, respond to this post with your selection and I’ll put it up. This will be my own “pictorial call to arms” (said of David’s Oath of the Horatii), an installation to remind all of the critical causes and communities at stake here.
Conversation topic: What is your favorite “femocentric” artwork and why?
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I remember the first time I visited the French Panthéon. I was completely enchanted by the paintings which ring the interior space. The depictions of Saint Genevieve and Jeanne d’Arc captivated me. I was there on a day when there was almost none else and I just walked around and around the building thinking, “In a place dedicated to all the great men of France, the space is dominated by women.” The Puvis de Chevannes are amazing and I have always loved Jeanne’s story.
I think it appropriate to contribute Kathe Kollwitz’s, “Boy With Arms Around a Woman’s Neck”. Kollwitz, a woman torn between feminist roles, through her work revealed the raw anguish, love, and pain that she cycled through as a woman artist and mother in a man’s world. She shared in the struggles of others, dipped in and out of her own personal hell, and rose above in her own way. Through it all she found her own happiness, producing a work like this one that is much more appreciated when there is an understanding of the sacrifice that is behind the beautiful moments as a woman.
The Grotto of the Nymph at Stourhead is named for a breathtaking installation within: a nearly life-size lead copy of the Vatican’s Sleeping Ariadne is placed within a vaulted chamber, lit mysteriously and theatrically from above as if by Bernini. Her pedistal is a natural spring that cascades around her and down the plinth into a pool used as a cold plunge bath. Some scholars believe that the Grotto’s creator, Henry Hoare, installed the statue as a tribute to his beloved wife, Susan, who died eight days after childbirth. Visible from the Grotto is the churchyard, across the lake, where Susan is interred. An inscription on the rim of the cold bath cautions visitors, “Ah, spare her slumber, gently tread the cave…” In the cemetary and the grotto, Henry Hoare established dual monuments to Susan in his two vernaculars, Christian piety and Pagan classicism. Although Hoare was a young man when he was widowed, he never remarried, and regularly kept vigil in the icy waters at the foot of Ariadne.
I’ve always liked Judy Chicago’s “Dinner Party”. My high school AP Art History teacher recreated it for a large project to display in the school and encouraged each of us to invite a woman who had inspired us. I chose Amelia Earhart. We had to create a place setting for the guest of our choice. It was (and Judy’s installation still is) a moving way to honor women throughout history, creating a space for them – an empty chair at a table is never really “empty”.
Caspar David Friedrich’s “Woman Before the Rising Sun.” That’s the first thing that popped into my head. I believe I remember you saying that Caroline, Friedrich’s wife in the painting, was pregnant at the time he created it. I love the sway in her stance, and her arms open to the light, as if she were one with the new dawn — like the life dawning inside of her. She looks so capable and powerful, like a contemporary goddess.
I keep vacillating between two works to post on here: Fragonard’s “Young Woman Reading” (1776) and Barbara Kruger’s “Your Gaze Hits the Side of my Face” (1981-83). I guess in a way, both of these works are similar. Both female figures are in profile and reject the male gaze. I love that Fragonard’s woman is empowered with a book in her hand – she is a thinking, intelligent subject instead of just eye candy for the (male) viewer.
Whenever I see Fragonard’s painting, I am reminded of the art book Women Who Read Are Dangerous. Have you seen it? It’s a fun collection of paintings that depict women reading.
Along these lines, I am sad that the WRI will not be able to promote women’s reading and research. Will you please include a Fragonard and Kruger image in your pictorial call to arms? I would like to be included in the protest. If people think women who read are dangerous, they should just wait to see what happens when our option for reading/researching is limited. I’m getting riled up…
I was so saddened when I heard about this decision (through facebook of all places). It reminded me of the graduate class I took from you in the Fall of 2006 where the entire class was dedicated to the study of women artists. My paper that semester addressed Elisabeth Vigee-Le Brun’s works that focused on motherhood and I remember distinctly your comments on how my paper would make a good feminist paper with just a bit of revamping. How I loved that class!! Please include Vigee-LeBrun’s work of Marie Antoinette and her Children. It’s interesting that one of the more popular images of Louis XVI’s reign (pre-revolution) is one that depicts his wife and is painted by a woman.
Now, as a mother of a daughter myself I am so sad that the WRI will be discontinued at BYU and with it, the symbolic message (intentional or not) that it sends. Hopefully enough women (and even men!) protesting this decision in an effective way will make it so that the WRI may return
Hello Heather! So happy to have found your wonderful blog!
Can we include a portrait of a medieval mystic in the mix? The manuscript illumination, The Exemplar, portrays the Dominican nun Elsebeth Stagel crowned with a laurel wreath and conversing with the Virgin Mary, while her confessor and male overseer, Henry Suso, prays before both figures. This image shows us how the religious women of this era not only gained voices in a male-centered culture, but their voices were celebrated and respected because they were feminine.
I was saddened to hear the news of WRI. As a grad student, I received a grant through this institute that funded a trip to New York, where I found key information for my thesis and had my first experience with primary research. If ‘they’ do shut down WRI, I’m afraid it will be a huge step in the wrong direction and lessen BYU’s reputation as a strong academic institution.
I remember the first time I visited the French Panthéon. I was completely enchanted by the paintings which ring the interior space. The depictions of Saint Genevieve and Jeanne d’Arc captivated me. I was there on a day when there was almost none else and I just walked around and around the building thinking, “In a place dedicated to all the great men of France, the space is dominated by women.” The Puvis de Chevannes are amazing and I have always loved Jeanne’s story.
I remember the first time I visited the French Panthéon. I was completely enchanted by the paintings which ring the interior space. The depictions of Saint Genevieve and Jeanne d’Arc captivated me. I was there on a day when there was almost none else and I just walked around and around the building thinking, “In a place dedicated to all the great men of France, the space is dominated by women.” The Puvis de Chevannes are amazing and I have always loved Jeanne’s story.
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