Goddess, Muse, Creator

WHY THE TITLE?

When I thought it up months ago, I feared I could not show enough work by women, and would have to fill it out with work about women. How wrong I was! "Goddess" has gone; "Muse" almost so. The course is now all about CREATORS—eight centuries of art, music, or poetry created by women—plus the women of power who supported them.

SKIP TO DETAILS OF THE CLASSES

The image above shows a woman painting, but not just any woman. This is Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1652), a female master in the male world of baroque Rome. The daughter of a painter, she was raped in her teens by one of her father's students, took the case to court, and then had to submit to torture to prove that her accusation was not frivolous. Many of her paintings were a lot less benign than the Self Portrait as the Muse of Painting shown here; she specialized in Biblical heroines such as the wrongly-accused Susannah, or Judith and Jael, both of whom took bloody revenge against male oppressors. Her story, though, raises interesting questions about how far it is permissible to view an artist's oeuvre in the light of her bio, or indeed her gender.

But Artemisia was largely an exception. It would not be until modern times that women artists (including composers and poets) would equal men in number, though seldom in commercial success. And recent scholarship has thrown light on the achievements of many women in previous centuries whose work was sidelined then or neglected since—a formidable canon. Hence the third and most important word of my title, CREATOR. This course will celebrate the achievement of women artists of all kinds, wherever reproductions and recordings are available to do them justice. Some classes will comprise short vignettes of notable creators over the centuries, such as the poet Christine de Pizan (1364–1430), the composer Francesca Caccini (1587–1640), or Artemisia herself. Others will be more like themed recitals, for instance looking at artists who worked from the convent, or celebrating the astonishing range of music, art, and verse produced by women in the new milennium.

A full treatment of women's roles in the arts, though, demands also the first two words of the title. GODDESS can be dealt with quickly: it refers to the ways in which women have been extolled by male artists as ideals of beauty and virtue, a pedestal which may be less an honor than a limitation. The term MUSE is also a male construct, though it leads to an interesting discussion of how art can be inspired and shaped by the women who became its subjects. We shall also look at the dynamic of female creative artists in largely male groups such as the Impressionists, Les Six, or Bloomsbury. And we shall absolutely consider the role of women as patrons, from royal figures such as Elizabeth I and Catherine the Great to collectors such as the Cone Sisters and Gertrude Stein.

The names mentioned in the syllabus below are representative only. Many important figures may appear in the classes that are not listed here (such as Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, Amy Beach, Florence Price, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Louise Nevelson from early-20th-century America alone). Conversely several of the names that are listed may not figure in the final presentation. Click the links above for a printable syllabus, either in a two-page version (flat) or a two-sided one (foldable) for use with two-sided printers; I shall also produce weekly handouts in the same two formats; the RESOURCES link under each image will turn GREEN when these are ready. Over the next few weeks, I hope to add biographical notes, some reading suggestions, and other supporting materials. rb.

The image shows Pygmalion, an 1890 painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme. A male artist creates an ideal female image, and brings her to life, where she remains his creature. This introductory class offers a background to the rest of the course: the traditional view of women in the arts, idealized as models of virtue and purity—placed on a pedestal, as it were, but seldom allowed to step off it as creators in their own right. Of course we also sometimes see the opposite view, not virgin but whore. Only when artists move away from the extremes and show women in a nuanced manner, as we begin find especially in literature, do we get the promise of seeing them as complex human beings and thus potentially as agents on their own behalf.

A look at the often extraordinary work produced by women who were nuns in convents. Most spectacularly, we have the poetry, music, and painting of the multi-talented Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179), the "Sibyl of the Rhine." In individual arts, we have the poetry of Saint Teresa of Avila (1515–82), the painting of Plautilla Nelli (1534–88), and the music of Vittoria Aleotti (1575–1620) and Isabella Leonarda (1620–1704). Or the extraordinary case of the Mexican poet Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1648–95), who was forced to renounce her writing in an oath signed in her own blood.

A secular pendant to the previous class. Medieval and Renaissance women who have carved a place for themselves as professional creative artists at a time when most fields were dominated by men. Among the artists whose work we shall sample are the Italian-born French poet Christine de Pizan (1364–1430), the Florentine sculptor Properzia de' Rossi (1490–1530, the only woman given her own chapter in Vasari's Lives of the Artists, 1568), the composer Francesca Caccini (1587–1640, the first woman to write an opera), and of course our headline artist, painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1653).

Women have also made their mark on the arts through their commissions and patronage. Some might be ruling monarchs: think of Elizabeth I and Shakespeare or the French regent Catherine de Medici and Rubens. Others might be the wives or mistresses of potentates, seeking for a sphere in which their personal influence might be given free rein: Isabella d'Este commissioned many major artists and writers of the Renaissance, and Madame de Pompadour played a similar role in the French rococo. Inevitably, most the artists involved were men, though the portraitist Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755–1842) spent six years of her life in the court of Catherine the Great.

The painter of the picture above is the Swiss-born English artist Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807). The subject is the Roman matron Cornelia who, when visited by a friend wanting to display her jewelry, replied that her true treasures were her children. It is interesting that when Kauffmann moved from portraiture into the "higher" field of history painting, she should choose to depict the ideal mother. Do women artists particularly excel in domestic subjects? To what extent is the smaller scale of the works of so many female painters, poets, and composers—portraits and short lyric pieces—constrained by their domestic responsibilities? Or, in the case of the once-popular American poet Phillis Wheatley (1753–84) by her status as a slave?

What happens when two creative artists are linked by emotional bonds? We look at Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–47) and her brother Felix, and the tragedy of Camille Claudel (1864–1943) and her lover Auguste Rodin. Married artists include two poets: Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61), more famous than her husband at the time, and Sylvia Plath (1932–63), whose husband Ted Hughes could not cope with her needs. Paula Becker (1876–1907) had a loving husband in the older painter Otto Modersohn, but her artistic development could only take place apart from him. And the composer Alma Schindler (1879–1964) ended her career when she married Gustav Mahler, but continued as the muse and lover of many other men of genius, after and even before his death.

Nowhere is the female star more extravagantly worshipped as a goddess (hence the word diva), yet more insistently depicted as a victim, than in romantic ballet and opera. But women seldom were in control. Although bel canto coloratura gives the performer some creative autonomy, actual female opera composers used to be rare: there is the former singer Pauline Viardot (1821–1910) in the 19th century and the formidable English composer Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944) at the turn of the 20th, and many more today. On the other hand, female choreographers such as Bronislava Nijinska (1891–1972) in ballet and Martha Graham (1894–1991) in modern dance have played a major part in shaping the dance scene today.

In England at least, women came to the fore as novelists sooner than they did in other fields; think only of Jane Austen (1775–1817), Emily Brontë (1818–48) and her sisters, or George Eliot (1819–80). You could say much the same of poets like Emily Dickinson (1830–86). Perhaps this is because writers did not need to be admitted to professional academies before taking up the pen. But a further question: are the heroines in novels written by women necessarily more inward, more complex, than those in novels written by men?

Most artistic groups seem to have been founded and largely peopled by men, but there have been some women who have nevertheless flourished in their company, such as Berthe Morisot (1841–94) among the Impressionists (picture above). The class will consider a lesser-known Impressionist, however, Marie Bracquemond (1840-1916), together with three other remarkable artists: Benedetta Cappa (1897-1977; Futurists), Hannah Höch (1889-1978; Berlin Dada), and Lee Krasner (1908-84; Abstract Expressionists). Segments on novelist Virginia Woolf (1882-1941; Bloomsbury Group) and composer Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983; Les Six) will bring the total to a round half-dozen.

Throughout the 20th century, wealthy women played an extraordinary role in supporting contemporary artists and, eventually, bringing their work to the American public. We have Isabella Stewart Gardner (1840–1924) and the extraordinary museum she bequeathed to the people of Boston. We have the Americans Claribel (1864–1929) and Etta Cone (1870–1949) supporting Matisse and others in Paris, while their friend Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) was one of the first to recognize the genius of Picasso. We have Katherine Dreier (1877–1952), a painter herself, bringing the works of the European avant-garde to New York. And we have the gallerist and collector Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979) whose museum in Venice is one of the most remarkable collections of Modernist art in the world.

We have encountered pioneering feminists in earlier classes: Christine de Pizan (1364–1430) wrote a book about celebrated women in history; Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–97), the mother of Mary Shelley, published her Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792; and Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) made an impassioned plea for creative economy in A Room of One's Own (1929). This class will look at their successors: women who have made womanhood an essential part of their work. Their anthem might be the iconic 1971 song, "I am Woman, Hear Me Roar," by Helen Reddy (1941–2020). The images above show a 1906 self-portrait by Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907), the first woman artist to paint herself naked, and The Dinner Party (1979), a monumental work by Judy Chicago (b.1939), with place-settings for 39 women in history around a triangular table.

The Twenty-First Century has seen an astounding flowering of talented women in all fields of artistic creation. This final class will celebrate work produced in the past two decades—indeed the past two years, if possible. It would be premature to single out names, but I can comment on the three Black artists shown here. Composer Nkeiru Okoye (b.1972) is of mixed American and Nigerian heritage; her 2020 work Black Bottom was commissioned by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Painter Nideka Akunyili Crosby (b.1983) was born in Nigeria; much of her work, which won her the MacArthur Award in 2017, is about her marriage to a white American artist. African American poet Amanda Gorman (b.1998) delivered her poem "The Hill We Climb" at the 2021 inauguration of President Biden, the youngest ever poet to be so honored.

OSHER AT JHU, BALTIMORE CAMPUS : TUESDAY MORNINGS, FEBRUARY 21 TO MAY 9, 2023

Artemisia Gentileschi: Allegory of Painting (Self Portrait)

	February 21

Gérôme: Pygmalion. Inset: Elizabeth Siddal, Rossetti's muse and a painter and poet herself	RESOURCES

	February 28

Plautilla Nelli / Hildegard von Bingen (inset)	RESOURCES

	March 7

Properzia de' Rossi / Francesca Caccini (inset)	RESOURCES

	March 14

Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun: Countess Golovina / Isabella d'Este (inset)	RESOURCES

	March 21

Angelica Kauffmann: Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi / Phillis Wheatley (inset)	RESOURCES

	March 28

Alma Mahler by Oskar Kokoschka, one of her lovers / Camille Claudel (inset)	RESOURCES

	April 11

Lady Edna Clarke-Hall: Cathy and Heathcliff / Jane Austen by her sister Cassandra (inset)	RESOURCES

	April 18

Berthe Morisot: Beneath the Lilac at Maurecourt / Virgina Woolf by her sister Vanessa Bell (inset)	RESOURCES

	April 25

Isabella Stewart Gardner (Sargent) / Gertrude Stein (Picasso), Peggy Guggenheim (Janet Scudder)	RESOURCES

	April 4

Marie Laurencin / Martha Graham (inset)	RESOURCES

	May 2

Judy Chicago: The Dinner Party, detail / Paula Modersohn-Becker (inset)	RESOURCES

	May 9

Nideka Akunyili Crosby: Nyado / Amanda Gorman and Nkeiru Okoye (insets)	RESOURCES