Females Roles As Depicted in the Painting and in the Article essay
Women had great influence on the formation of modernism in the art history. Griselda Pollock proves it in her article Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity. According to the author, “Modernity is presented as a far more than a sense of being “up to date.”1 Female images take a special place in the representation of modernism in art. Modernity deals with both: male and female sexuality, but there is a close relationship between modernism, modernity and sexuality. Griselda Pollock focuses on the analysis of the art pieces, which reflect the usage of female images. There are several important arguments made by the author of the article in relation to the role of female images and femininity in modernism and modernity.
First, the author states that “sexuality, modernism or modernity cannot function as given categories to which we add women.”2 From the men’s perspective, women are presented differently because of social difference that plays an important role in gender relations. Artists use different dimensions of femininity which prove that women play an important role in the art formation. Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot are the most important impressionist female artists of the 19th century. They both use the female perspective to depict women and female way of life. Both, Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot depict things which surround women in their everyday life: they use “dining rooms, drawing rooms, bedrooms, balconies/verandas, private gardens” to portray the female’s leisure life. From this paintings, we can clearly see the limitation of space and location in the female’s life. Female impressionist artists could create their pieces of art only in limited domestic space and private area. They did not have equal conditions with male artists, because women used to have lower social status in comparison to men. In the art practice their homes and their private areas immediately become the subject matter of the domestic life. From the later discussion in the article, the appearance of women is discussed. Same as in the theater, we see the females are often sat in the backstage. We do not have the chance to view them from the close distance. Therefore there is still inequality between man and omen ad they do not possess equal social standing.
Secondly, the author states that “femininity is not the natural condition of female persons.” 4 Women are represented as sexual objects and “they are positioned as the object of the flaneur’s gaze.” Men are free to gaze at women and this way we may speak about sexual discrimination. For example in the western traditional art, the male artists traditionally use female nudity as a subject in their paintings. They use it to satisfy male’s ambitions and to give pleasure to the viewers. The artists use female images to highlight the role of female identity in the assessment of male superiority.
Thirdly, the rights of men and women are not equal and women are regarded as a lower social class. There were no protection for women, in addition, women felt unsafe entering a public sphere: “such as the masked ball or the cafe-concert constituted a serious threat to a bourgeois woman’s reputation, etc.” Weak position and the lower social standing of females in the society limited their opportunities. In the society of that time males were free to do anything they wanted. All these factors illustrate the lower position of the women and the power of males in the society. Also, Griselda Pollock argues that “femininity in its class-specific forms is maintained by the polarity virgin/whore which is mystifying representation of the economic exchanges in the patriarchal kinship system.”5 Therefore money and property influence human relations, especially marriage relations. Femininity can be defines as the ideology of female sexuality.
Lastly, the author states that femininity had a strong impact on women’s lives as it reflects the roles of women, their status and the effects of their sexuality.
In the Eva Gonzeles’s painting “A Box at the Italian Theatre”, we see a woman sitting in the centre, accompanied by a man standing next to her. This painting, does not clearly show the difference and inequality of females and males. Here, the woman is depicted in a public area, in the Italian Theatre; moreover the settings of the women’s domestic life from the reading is changed here. From the viewer’s perspective the female and male are standing in the same space. At the same time there are characteristic features form the painting which can give us more information about the male and female social roles of that time. These two figures are depicted in the same horizontal line, but they are depicted differently. The female figure is looking straightly at the viewer, but the male is turning his body and looking in a different direction. So, we can see that woman is watching a show and man is looking in some other direction. This way, the painting examines the “splitting of private and public with its double freedom for men in the public space, and the preeminence of a detached observing gaze, etc.” The facial expression of female from the painting does not show anything extraordinary. She is watching performance and is totally centered on what she observes. Male figure looks relaxed and distorted. He is looking at some other things, paying little attention to the actions on the stage. A certain difference in the depiction of women and men can be found. The freedom of men in any space, any location and the freedom of male’s gaze. They have the right to look at any things at any time in any space. Unlike the women, who are not free in their postures, gestures and desires. Moreover, «they were never positioned as the normal occupants of the public realm.” Therefore in this painting, although the female and male figures are placed in the same position in space, their postures and gestures, same as things they are looking at show their unequal positions.
In the Pollock’s article of Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity and the Eva Gonzales’s painting, we may find descriptions of social inequality and social discrimination of women in the 19th century society.
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