5/2/07 - History of Art - Women and the Visual Arts in the Later Middle Ages

In illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, pictures of crowned figures tend to be men rather than women. Yet the Bible Moralisée shows a queen placed on a par with the king. However, she doesn't seem very important and she is surrounded by men.

Women are not very well documented, so what did they contribute to the visual arts in the later Middle Ages?

In the eighteenth century there were some extinguished female practitioners of art, and art became a part of formal education. For example, see the Self-Portrait of Angelica Kauffman, c.1770 who was a member of the Royal Academy, and Elisabeth Vigée-Brun, c.1780, her equivalent in France. It was not typical, but still possible, for women painters to be considered equal to men.

However, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, this was almost impossible. Between 1292 and 1314, tax records in Paris indicate that there were eight women manuscript illuminators active in the city. Some of them were inn-keepers, so probably didn't make enough money from art to earn a living.

Instead, women were encouraged to take up embroidery. English embroidery of the 13th and 14th centuries was made by women, but the designers were men. That is, the men were considered intelligent because they carried out the creative aspect of the task, and the women carried out the laborious part.

Bourgot le Noir and her father Jean painted the Petites Heures, but it is difficult to tell their styles apart. The daughter may have been the more advanced artist because the most recent work of the manuscript, such as the coat of arms, is very finely done.

Illumination was considered the best way for women to learn art. For example, Dürer once wrote in his travel diary in 1521: "Master Gerhard, the illuminator, has a daughter about 18 years old named Susanna. She has illuminated a little picture of Our Lord on a little sheet, for which I gave her 1 florin. It is wonderful that a woman can do so much."

In the later Middle Ages, there were new opportunities for women to determine the development of the visual arts, especially in the fields of patronage and iconography.

In Van der Goes' altarpiece it was much debated which King of Scotland is depicted. It wasn't until much later that people began to notice the heraldry in his wife's portrait, which indicate that they are James III and Margaret of Denmark.

the patron of Van der Goes' Portinari Altarpiece was a banker. In his portrait, the area around his head was painted later, as he probably didn't have time to sit for it originally. The women appear to have been painted at the same time as the main body of work, indicating that they had a lot more time to spare. The number of children depicted help us to work out the correct date of the altarpiece. Notice that the mother looks gaunt, probably from bearing so many children. She was about 18 in this portrait, yet in a portrait done when she was 14 she appears to be much healthier. Notice also that she wears similar clothes and jewellery for each one; as if she has put on her best clothes for the sitting.

Women past child-bearing age were encouraged to follow art, besides which their husbands were always busy and travelling a lot. When her husband was away, the Duchess of Burgundy supervised the artwork of the Chartreuse de Champmol, yet she got no credit for it.

When soldiers died in the Hundred Year War, it was the task of their wives and sisters to commission tombs for them. For example, the Duke of Savoy's tomb was commissioned by his widow, Margaret of Austria. She sacked a famous artist who argued with her and hired German and Dutch artists instead.

Literature was also an increasing option for women. Boccaccio depicted two women artists in his Book on Famous Women. It is also interesting to see how the technical process of painting has been depicted.

Christine de Pisan thought women could do as well as men and attempted to counter male prejudice by giving portrayals of her work (completed herself) to famous men and women.

The man worshipping the virgin in Van Eyck's Madonna of Chancellor Rolin is shown on equal terms with the Virgin, and he doesn't have a patron saint who was supposed to introduce him to the Virgin. In an altarpiece by Van der Weyden, the Chancellor is shown on equal terms with his wife.

On the exterior of the Chartreuse de Champmol there is sculpted the Last Judgement, where men go to heaven and it is mostly women who go to hell. Van der Weyden challenged this in his painting of the Last Judgement by depicting equal numbers of men and women going to heaven and hell. In the later Middle Ages representations of women often portray them in a more favourable light than was generally the case earlier. New interpretations of marriage enabled women to be depicted on equal terms with men. When previously there had been no need for a priest or witness to marriage ceremonies, men were entitled to leave women 'holding the baby' as it were. Now a new law was introduced that made marriage legally binding.

In Van Eyck's Arnolfini Portrait, using the left hand suggested that she was of lower birth than her husband. There is a union between the two, but whether it shows a marriage or a betrothal is unclear. Notice that the mirror shows witnesses and the artist.

Engraving introduced new conventions in which women could be elevated above men. Sometimes, men were made a fool out of, such as in Aristotle and Phyllis, a German engraving c.1475. Women were depicted in the light of male audiences and sexualised, for example in jean Fouquet's Madonna and Child, early 14502, in which the Madonna has the features of the Queen.

In the spheres of patronage and iconography women played an increasingly vital role in the development of the visual arts. The court and other secular spheres offered women opportunities to develop their skills as patrons, without being constrained by the teachings of the Church. Although these changes led to a kind of liberation for some women, it opened the way for new kinds of exploitation based on visual sensuousness of the female body. In promoting the appearance and standing of women in society, artists by the early sixteenth century also had to confront their sexuality. See this demonstrated in Albrecht Dürer's The Women's Bathhouse (woodcut c.1496) and A Woman Dressed to go to Church (watercolour 1500).