If I could do it over, would I paint it again?
To be creative is a part of who I am at my core. I have never felt it so strongly within me as I do now, that I could have never done anything else in life with more passion. Every book I read about art and art history, reaffirms my desire to paint a history for myself and those around me. So much has been told about people lives, and yet so little is known about women in that process. Because often the stories are told by men, of men. This is not something new to many, but it is always a good reminder to have as we go through life.
I am reading the book by Katy Hessel, The Story of Art Without Men, I had so been looking forward to reading her book, as a follower of her account on instagram and also of her podcast. As I rejoiced in every word she is writing about these women, I realise I want to know more. Yet I know that finding out more about them will likely not be possible. This is by far the most comprehensive book I have read about women in art, and yet in a period of 300 years, between 1400 and 1700, there is only 17 women listed. It baffles me to think that of all the creative beings that must have passed this earth, so little is know about them.
Thanks to Katy Hessel, Frances Borzello, Jennifer Higgie, and other authors who are dedicating their lives and work to bringing to life, with their books the stories about these women.
The heartbreak I feel when I learn about the women who have been overlooked, or how women were relegated and excluded from art studies / practice and living to their full potential due to their gender, it still astonishes me to see that there are so many barriers still ahead of us. The sacrifices we must make on our personal lives and the way we are conditioned to roles (critiqued, offered little to no support, in our pursuits, is something I still cannot simply accept). I see my decision to be a painter, as nothing short of an act of defiance, and wherever I encounter an osbtacle, I take it as a personal challenge to remember that so many others before me dared and made a way for themselves.
I want to share two stories here that I still find outrageous and that not enough people know about:
“In his Natural History (AD 77), he recounts how the sculptor Butades of Corint discovered portraiture around 650 BCE thanks to his daughter Kora of Scion, ‘who, being deeply in love with a young man about to depart on a long journey, traced the profile of his face, as thrown upon the wall by the light of the lamp’…
But Kora is no the only woman Pliny mentions; he cites, six other women artists from antiquity, Aristarete, Calypso, Irene, Olympia, Timarete and Maia of Cyzicus; the last was a Roman painter from the first century BCE, who according to the historian ‘remained single all her life’ and rendered ‘a portrait of herself, executed with the aid of a mirror’ - the earliest mention of a self-portrait made with a mirror.”
The Mirror and the Palette by Jennifer Higgie
It was so inspiring to know that women had been dedicating to creative pursuits, and that this had been recorded from such a long time ago. But what was outrageous was to learn that self-portraiture has been considered to be the domain of men for too long. It is only fairly recently that self-portraiture by female artists is being explored, as in the books by Frances Borzello, Seeing Ourselves Women’s Self-Portraits and by Jennifer Higgie, The Mirror and the Palette, Rebellion, Revolution and Resilience: 500 Years of Women’s Self-Portraits. We will be forever indebted to them and all Art Historians who are devoting their time and efforts to do the hard work of finding the information and critically write about the context in which these women led artistic pursuits as professionals.
The second story is about two of the founding members of London’s Royal Academy of art: Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffmann. Two instrumental women in the creation of this institution, which were actively excluded from a portrait of the founding members by Johan Zoffany, the portrait is included below, and in it all the male founding members are in the attendance and depicted in a room with male models and sculptures around them. Both Mary and Angelica were incorporated as portraits in the wall. This on its own was something that stirred so many emotions in me of injustice, and this went further when I learnt that the academy did not accept women until 168 years later (in 1936), the member who was admitted was Lara Knight. This story is not the only of its kind in other major cities in Europe. Fine Art has been the domain of men, and will continue to be so unless more is done to achieve gender equality in the Arts.
I am also including portraits of Angelica Kauffmann, Mary Moser, and Lara Knight (in this order, below). I hope when you read this, something is also stirred in you to either want to learn more about women artists, or also equally importantly to share about your story with others, because each and everyone of our lives matter and what we go through. My assumption is that the reader of this post will be a woman, as I have yet to have male subscribers (who I welcome wholeheartedly and hope that they also get a desire to hear the stories about females through my paintings and my writings).
