Victorian Female Artists Essay - 2146 Words

The Victorian period was an era of constantly shifting and contradicting ideologies concerning women, which extended over many areas of society and culture including politics and the media, the family and domestic field as well as the contemporary and traditional beliefs within the art institutions. The body of the belief systems about women and the feminine ideal that are present in each of these areas involve a combination of established or traditional ideas versus those of a contemporary and revolutionary nature. Whether traditional or revolutionary these evolving ideologies played a consistent and prominent role in regulating the methods by which women produced their art and the subject areas and genres in which they employed†¦show more content†¦Flower painting was thought to be a suitable subject for women to pursue because it occupied a low rank in the hierarchy of genres which would not intimidate them and it therefore seems that if a female artist dared enter the masculine sphere of the fine arts she was generally pressured to conform to the rules that were established by men. It was noted that fruit and flowers are always welcome from the hands of ladies, which displays the way that women were slowly penetrating the masculine spheres and being excepted into educational institutions but it also demonstrates the extent that traditional ideologies about women were still a prominent and consistent issue guiding their efforts. It may be argued that there are a number of reasons as to why society considered this to be an appropriate subject matter, however few of them seem to suggest that it was due to the female artists own, autonomous choice. Firstly, when considering the female artist being limited to produce her art in the home due to the established belief that this was where she ought to be, one can see how limited her choice of subject matter becomes simply for practical reasons relating to physical space. Also, to consider again the ideal Victorian female who is seen as delicate and considered closer to nature than men, flowers seem to be an appropriate theme not only because they can be physically accessible to women in the home and garden, but also becauseShow MoreRelatedLily Briscoe s Influence On Gender Roles And Expectations Essay1600 Words   |  7 Pagestrue to herself and found it a difficult task to conform to society’s conventions as it relates to gender roles and expectations. 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