Femininity And Masculinity In Eighteenth Century Art And Culture

Focusing on the visual arts and written texts, this book explores the nature of femininity and masculinity in 18th-century Britain and France. The activities and collective conditions of women as producers of art and culture are investigated, together with analysis of representation and the ways in which it might be gendered. This illustrated book should make an important contribution to debates on representation, constructions of sexuality and women as producers.

Art history has enriched the study of material culture as a scholarly field. This interdisciplinary volume enhances this literature through the contributors' engagement with gender as the conceptual locus of analysis in terms of femininity, masculinity, and the spaces in between. Collectively, these essays by art historians and museum professionals argue for a more complex understanding of the relationship between objects and subjects in gendered terms. The objects under consideration range from the quotidian to the exotic, including beds, guns, fans, needle paintings, prints, drawings, mantillas, almanacs, reticules, silver punch bowls, and collage. These material goods may have been intended to enforce and affirm gendered norms, however as the essays demonstrate, their use by subjects frequently put normative formations of gender into question, revealing the impossibility of permanently fixing gender in relation to material goods, concepts, or bodies. This book will appeal to art historians, museum professionals, women's and gender studies specialists, students, and all those interested in the history of objects in everyday life.

A Guide to Eighteenth-Century Art offers an introductory overview of the art, artists, and artistic movements of this exuberant period in European art, and the social, economic, philosophical, and political debates that helped shape them. Covers both artistic developments and critical approaches to the period by leading contemporary scholars Uses an innovative framework to emphasize the roles of tradition, modernity, and hierarchy in the production of artistic works of the period Reveals the practical issues connected with the production, sale, public and private display of art of the period Assesses eighteenth-century art’s contribution to what we now refer to as ‘modernity’ Includes numerous illustrations, and is accompanied by online resources examining art produced outside Europe and its relationship with the West, along with other useful resources

The eighteenth century is recognized as a complex period of dramatic epistemic shifts that would have profound effects on the modern world. Paradoxically, the art of the era continues to be a relatively neglected field within art history. While women's private lives, their involvement with cultural production, the project of Enlightenment, and the public sphere have been the subjects of ground-breaking historical and literary studies in recent decades, women's engagement with the arts remains one of the richest and most under-explored areas for scholarly investigation. This collection of new essays by specialist authors addresses women's activities as patrons and as "patronized" artists over the course of the century. It provides a much needed examination, with admirable breadth and variety, of women's artistic production and patronage during the eighteenth century. By opening up the specific problems and conflicts inherent in women's artistic involvements from the perspective of what was at stake for the eighteenth-century women themselves, it also acts as a corrective to the generalizing and stereotyping about the prominence of those women, which is too often present in current day literature. Some essays are concerned with how women's involvement in the arts allowed them to fashion identities for themselves (whether national, political, religious, intellectual, artistic, or gender-based) and how such self-fashioning in turn enabled them to negotiate or intervene in the public domains of culture and politics where "The Woman Question" was so hotly debated. Other essays examine how men's patronage of women also served as a vehicle for self-fashioning for both artist and sponsor. Artists and patrons discussed include: Carriera; Queen Lovisa Ulrike and Chardin; the Bourbon Princesses Mlle Clermont, Mme Adélaïde and Nattier; the Duchess of Osuna and Goya; Marie-Antoinette and Vigée-Lebrun; Labille-Guiard; Queen Carolina of Naples, Prince Stanislaus Poniatowski of Poland and Kauffman; David and his students, Mesdames Benoist, Lavoisier and Mongez.

This study joins the resurgent scholarship presently redressing the neglect of eighteenth-century visual culture since the beginning of the twentieth century. This volume offers nine contextual and cross-disciplinary essays that engage with a rich panoply of discourses ranging from art criticism to biography, to collecting and the art market, to art theory and practice and the institutions that shaped them, to beauty and fashion, sociopolitical and philosophical issues, gender studies, patronage, iconography, and print culture.

The fashioning of English gentlemen in the eighteenth century was modelled on French practices of sociability and conversation. Michele Cohen shows how at the same time, the English constructed their cultural relations with the French as relations of seduction and desire. She argues that this produced anxiety on the part of the English over the effect of French practices on English masculinity and the virtue of English women. By the end of the century, representing the French as an effeminate other was integral to the forging of English, masculine national identity. Michele Cohen examines the derogation of women and the French which accompanied the emergent 'masculine' English identity. While taciturnity became emblematic of the English gentleman's depth of mind and masculinity, sprightly conversation was seen as representing the shallow and inferior intellect of English women and the French of both sexes. Michele Cohen also demonstrates how visible evidence of girls' verbal and language learning skills served only to construe the female mind as inferior. She argues that this perception still has currency today.

A new collection of essays which challenges many existing assumptions, particularly the conventional models of separate spheres and economic change. All the essays are specifically written for a student market, making detailed research accessible to a wide readership and the opening chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the subject describing the development of gender history as a whole and the study of eighteenth-century England. This is an exciting collection which is a major revision of the subject.

From the mid-eighteenth century, critics and writers denigrated mythological subjects in French visual art and culture as symptomatic of the corruption of artistic standards. Mythological imagery was also perceived as largely subject to the whims of feminine taste. While recent studies have advanced exciting new approaches to the field of eighteenth-century art history, current work has continued to highlight the feminine subject. Representations of masculinity have yet to enjoy the same level of sustained scholarly attention. Further, many studies have focused on the later decades of the century and continue to minimise the socio-cultural significance and sub-textual references within mythological themes. An examination of early to mid-eighteenth-century representations of masculine deities Bacchus, Apollo, Pan, Marsyas and the satyr provide a point from which to reconsider conceptions of masculinity during this period. Exploring images alongside contemporary literature and commentaries which mirror scientific enquiry, medical debate, naturalism and materialist philosophy offers a greater understanding of the ways in which masculinity was constructed and maintained during this period. The representation of mythic masculinities engaged both artist and viewer in expressing codes of behaviour predicated on sensorial experience and self-discipline as a means through which to acquire knowledge and prestige. On the other hand, excess marked by the satyr's body led to charges of sub-masculinity, effeminacy, loss of self and the reversal of gender hierarchies. In this way, this thesis argues that images of mythological masculinities offer an alternative lens through which to consider the complexities of the period via the construction and elaboration of gendered bodies, identities and hierarchies.

A major task confronting today's scholars is the reclamation from near oblivion of a multitude of works of art, literature, music, scholarship, and other creative enterprises by eighteenth-century women. This fascinating collection provides a multifaceted approach to understanding the roles played by women as both creators of and subjects within works of art in the eighteenth century. A series of initial essays examines the biographical and historical conditions in which women of the times lived and worked. Some essays explore the attitudes of women themselves and how they perceived their roles, as well as their expectations expressed by male authors. Other essays focus on women's contributions to particular arts, notably poetry, the novel, music, and painting. A final section attends to research itself, reporting first on collaborative efforts to identify individual eighteenth-century women authors and discover trends in their writing. In addition, an alternative to the traditional scholarly methods course is provided in an example of the original research directed toward the rediscovery and understanding of the texts of Elizabeth Griffeth. This entertaining collection will foster new appreciation for the presence of women in the arts of the eighteenth century. An important contribution to women's studies, this volume is sure to be of special interest to students and scholars alike.

Author's previous publications include How to Study a Jane Austen Novel (Macmillan, 1987; (with others) Painting the Lion: Feminist Options in Ann Thompson and Helen Wilcox (ed.); Teaching Women, (MUP, 1989)