Women as both creators and objects of beauty, women as creators of their own beauty, is a fascinating new theme of study in Gender and Women Studies!
I have recently been reading a book about self-portraits and found information about some fascinating women artists from ages of old. Sofonisba Anguissola (1532-1625) from Italy, was a famous artist in her day, and "the most prolific maker of self-portraits before Rembrandt". Her sister Lucia was also excellent. Their father was artist Amilcare Anguissola; he encouraged all his six daughters to be artists, and had Lucia and Sofonisba apprenticed to local portrait painters. However, the circumstances of the Aguissola sisters were the exception, and not the rule, in this male-dominated age.
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-after 1653) also from Italy, was a famous artist as well, her idiom, "heroic and non-domestic, her scale monumental". Artemisia had been raped by a friend of her father's: she did not hesitate to bring him to justice and have him convicted. Well done!
Women managed to blossom despite millenia of terrible oppression by patriarchy; they managed to acquire their rights after decades of struggle. If today I am able to write this blog, it is because of that struggle, and for nothing else.
Have a beautiful day and be well! xxx
P.S. The book I am referring to is The Self-Portrait: A Cultural History, by James Hall.
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