Object Of Frailty Or Strength Men Can't Comprehend

They say behind every good man is a great woman, yet men seem to rule society. Correction, they do, and it would seem that for the most part like every other industry that we have created in our society, both the creator and spectator were male. Throughout the ages we look back at the past, at art world specifically, and we can see that the female figure has been analyzed for everything it can be worth in its physical properties. That is to say that for a large portion of time we have only seen women as an object and not much was looked at past that. Now, in our self-proclaimed Modern times we invite the idea that we look at women with more depth. Understanding that they are and always have been the counterpart constituents of males.

In the Victorian ages we looked upon women with a glare, almost perverse in its lack of intimacy and sympathy for the female model. No different had the view been ages before that. There was a very rigid system that adhered the gender role of male to be superior to that of female. Leaving the female to be seen as subservient and needy. She was precious and important because she was fragile. Her roles as house wife, were seen to be appropriated to her adequacy, whether because a man had good intention of keeping his female counterpart out of stress or simply to empower his own ego, it cant be denied that back then, women were just plain sought out to be nothing more than the bearer of children and the housewife. But like every good system breaker, a person who breaks the ideals of a social construct and pattern, there were two female artists that had always done work that brought controversy, forced viewers to look at society apart from themselves, and pose the questions of what could actually be changed.

In our visit to the Newark Museum there was an interesting artist that had been shown in the exhibition on display called Angels and Tomboys, Lilly Martin Spencer. One painting in particular of her was famous for the capture of women during the civil war. The painting was important for it time because it demonstrated women in a different light. In the painting, War Spirit at Home, the depiction is of a grandmother that is drying off dishes while the mother is both tending to the newborn and reading the newspaper. The newspaper being a depiction of a woman who kept herself educated, mentally strong. The three children who play toy soldiers emulate the father’s bravery for being in the battle only furthermore compliment this. The painting itself holds at great amount of history for giving a reference of what women attribute during times of war, which is far from the nude poses that most artists painted just for the enjoyment of the male crowd.

By comparison, a few decades later an emerging Spanish artist that never really claimed the title of surrealist was making beautiful self-portraits that depicted a woman far from just joys of being posed in the nude. Frida Kahlo’s self portrait entitled, The Broken Column, shows a dreamlike landscape with a gruesome depiction of her own spinal injury. Well worth the shock value though is the idea that by her painting her own pain she was actually bringing the audience to her reality, the opposite of what surrealists were doing. Which was bringing audiences to the dreams of artists. During a time a time in which Freud’s psychology brought the idea of the subconscious mind in every one; artists would use this concept to interpret dreamlike landscapes and still lives that flipped normality’s into subjects that would cause awe, to the point of either being humorous or sickening. 

Frida’s work had this attribute but her life was something that by many would be considered a dream with her injuries, and tumultuous relationship with Diego Rivera, she lived a turbulent, passionate life that filled with heartbroken romance. That, until this day, can still be considered a dream to many of us but it is that gift of her biography that shows us a woman apart from just an object of attraction. That there was something more to a woman’s value emotionally, she would drink like a man would drink, lust like a man would lust, and hurt like a man would hurt. The fact that her life had embodied so many emotions helped respect the idea that her paintings were not just self-portraits but tales of all women. A small but important similarity in the artist is their topic of choice, women in society. Although, Frida’s self-portraits are more of stories about herself, she is a woman in society narrating her own story of what it is to be a female artist in an art world filled with men. While Lilly’s work contributes the narratives of the difficulties that women of average class in America faced.  Both contributed to paint a picture of women in society, one from the perspective of a viewer looking at women in society and the other with perspective of the viewer looking from within a woman at society.

In conclusion, defining modernism as a time period in history that we accept art as having more a social value constructed into it, it would be important to note how we see gender as topic in our own societies. Defined by culture, shaped by nature, and studied by science women, have made an impact shape our world by defining themselves as the strengths that men hold as weaknesses. Living in a Post- Modern society it is sad to see that the equality is still not fully there but at least the struggle will create a topic of inspiration for more women to rise. Make a voice about how women should be defined in society just as the brave women of past did, Frida Kahlo and Lilly Martin Spencer.

References:

Hunter, Sam, John Jacobus, and Daniel Wheeler. Modern Art. Third ed. New York: 
Prentice Hall, 2004. Print.
Newark Museum. Angels & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art. Newark: 
Newark Museum, 2012.