Post 4 17th and 18th Century HW 10/1 - BinChao Yang

 Chadwick, Chapters4

Court appointments exempted women from guild regulation during the Renaissance and they provided women artists with an important alternative to academies and other institutions which increasingly restricted or prohibited their participation. 

    - Although female artists at that time enjoyed relative freedom in the painting world, they were still bound by various guild regulations. They could only break free from these constraints through appointment by the court. It can be seen that female artists at that time did not have real creative freedom.

Not until 1599 was Hilliard granted an annuity equal to hers, forty pounds a year, and hers was higher than that granted to Holbein. Comparisons such as these can be misleading, however, as court painters were customarily paid with gifts as well as money.

    - Even though female artists earn higher annuity than male artists through their own abilities, it is still considered that they receive gifts and money from others. The abilities of female artists are deliberately belittled and despised.

 Chadwick, Chapters 5

“woman was the governing principle, the directing reason and the commanding voice of the eighteenth century.”

    - The next sentence in this passage is, “She was the universal and fatal cause, the origin of events, the source of things.” These are the words of the Goncourt brothers, in their work The Woman of the Eighteenth Century (1st edition 1862), which, despite exploring the role of the French woman in the Age of Enlightenment, her many aptitudes and capacities as well as her social status, still emphasises coquetterie (gallantry and seduction) as a form of control and assertion. 

As long as the woman artist presented a self-image emphasizing beauty, gracefulness, and modesty, and as long as her paintings appeared to confirm this construction, she could, albeit with difficulty, negotiate a role for herself in the world of public art.

    - At the time, female artists who wanted to gain a place in the public art world had to cater to stereotypes of women. This was done to please and appease the public and gain praise. However, the women depicted in these works were not real women, but fictionalized to cater to the public's aesthetic taste.

Guerrilla Girls

"While the male academics were off painting the "important" subjects of war and the gods, most women artists of the 17th and 18th centuries kept the home fires burning, perfecting the areas where they were allowed to excel"

Although women cannot participate in artistic creation, they still try their best to do their best in the family, which is something many men cannot do because they think it is a woman's job, but without the help of women, they may not be able to live a normal life.

First Great Seal of Elizabeth I, 1559, probably after a design by Levina Teerlinc

This is the first great seal of Elizabeth I, created by a female artist. It is a work of great commemorative and historical significance, symbolizing the rise of women and the enhancement of women's voice.