Julia Dabbs

In recent years the life stories of early modern women artists have inspired many works of biofiction; yet often authors know more about what the artists created than the facts of their lives. This essay will explore the intermediality between visual and verbal content by exploring the role of art in two recent novels on the Italian Renaissance painter Sofonisba Anguissola: Donna DiGiuseppe's Lady in Ermine: The Story of a Woman Who Painted the Renaissance and Chiara Montani's Sofonisba: Portraits of the Soul. In the process I will explore the Renaissance paragone debate and consider how verbal descriptions of artworks may (or may not) enhance our understanding of the artist's fictionalized character.

Recent historical essays on early modern women artists have focused, very legitimately and usefully, either on the contributions of selected women to the history of art (Bohn, “From Oxymoron to Virile Paintbrush: Women Artists in Early Modern Europe,” 2013), or on the state of research (ffolliott, “Early Modern Women Artists,” 2013). Although assessing the visual production of women artists in this period is important work, this essay will instead focus on particular historical perceptions of the early modern woman artist, and attempt to dissuade us of lingering stereotypical notions that, I believe, continue to limit our understanding of who she was, and who she could be. For example, were women artists merely isolated phenomena in this period, as both early modern biographers and more recent textbook authors might have us believe?  Did they only work in the fields of painting and embroidery?  Were women artists primarily the pawns of artist-fathers, or of royal patrons, and thus lacking agency in their careers?  Was it obligatory to give up their career once they married and had children?  And, to come full circle, is the delayed identification and integration of early modern women artists into historical discourse entirely due to misogynistic attitudes of oppression in the early modern period, which purportedly limited or denied recognition of early modern women’s achievements?  Through the use of primary sources from the period, in addition to examining more recent scholarship, we will seek to uncover some of the veils that continue to obscure our vision of these creators.

In her seminal book on The Obstacle Race:  the Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work, Germaine Greer writes of the ridicule faced by eighteenth-century painters Anna Dorothea Lisiewska-Therbusch and Giulia Lama as they reached middle-age due to their purported lack of physical attractiveness. This chapter will follow up on Greer’s work and further examine verbal and visual characterizations of older women artists of the early modern period (i.e. 1400-1800) to consider whether this discourse of humiliation was the norm, as well as to see how such characterizations compare to those of elder male artists.

The painter May Alcott Nieriker (1840-1879), sister of famed novelist Louisa May Alcott, is a striking example of a middle-class woman who was able to achieve professional success in the U.S. and in Europe even though she lacked sustained instruction, income, and connections. This essay will first consider Alcott Nieriker’s circuitous artistic path before focusing on how she sought, through her published travel writings, to empower other women of modest means to follow in her footsteps. Particular attention will be given to her groundbreaking guidebook, Studying Art Abroad & How to Do It Cheaply (1879), which not only provides practical advice for unaccompanied women travelers, but also embeds critical commentary on the discriminatory conditions faced by women artists, and advocates for change.

Available electronically:  https://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/autumn16/dabbs-on-the-travel-writings-of-may-alcott-nieriker

The Multivalence of
May Alcott Nieriker’s Studying Art Abroad & How To Do It Cheaply


In the latter half of the nineteenth century an increasing number of American artists, both male and female, sought inspiration and instruction in the leading art centers of Europe, such as Paris, Munich, London, and Rome. Like other travelers of the period they recorded and shared their experiences by means of letters, journals, and literary narratives. In contrast to these traditional modes of documentation, though, one publication stands out as a particularly unique contribution to the fields of both travel writing and art history:  May Alcott Nieriker’s Studying Art Abroad & How to Do It Cheaply (1879). Alcott Nieriker (1840-1879), sister of the famous novelist Louisa May Alcott, was an aspiring painter whose life was tragically cut short at the age of 39. She  traveled throughout Europe to study art in the 1870’s, and just prior to her death published the first travel guidebook intended for women artists, who were beginning to go abroad independently in greater numbers. This paper will situate Alcott Nieriker’s guidebook in the context of other travel literature for artists in order to demonstrate its originality and subsequent potential influence. Additionally, it will be shown that Studying Art Abroad not only served as an empowering guidebook, but simultaneously functioned as a venue for Alcott Nieriker to offer artistic and social criticism regarding discriminatory practices faced by women artists, criticism that might otherwise have been more difficult to bring to the public’s attention. "

"ABSTRACT

Through an examination of life stories concerning the artists Rosalba Carriera, Maria Barbo, and Giovanna Fratellini, this essay will show that the biographical portrayal of the female artist shifts significantly in the eighteenth century from a Renaissance standard that emphasized feminine appearance and conduct to one that adopted aspects of the male prototype for artistic greatness.  The rhetorical reformulation is particularly evidenced in anecdotes found within their life stories, which reveal a broader cultural perception of essential traits of “the artist” – and that have not been previously considered in relation to women.  Nevertheless, absolute biographical parity was still not possible, as a latent misogynism continued to undermine the representation of the female artist’s achievements, appearance, and character."

The struggles and achievements of forty-six notable women artists of the early modern period, as documented by their contemporaries, are uniquely brought together in this anthology. The life stories presented here are foundational texts for the history of art, but since most are found only in rare volumes and few have been translated into English, until now they have been generally inaccessible to many scholars. Originally published in biographical compendia such as Vasari's Lives of the Artists, the writings included here document not only the lives of relatively well known women artists such as Artemisia Gentileschi and Sofonisba Anguissola, but also those who have languished in obscurity, like Anna Waser and Li Yin. Each life story is preceded by a brief introduction to the artist as well as to her biographer, and the texts themselves are annotated to provide necessary clarification. Beyond their documentary value, these stories provide fascinating insight as to how men commonly characterized women artists as exceptions to their sex, and attempted to explain their presence in the male-dominated realm of art. The introductory chapter to the book explores this intriguing gender dynamic and elucidates some of the strategies and historical context that factored into the composition of these lives. The volume includes an appended index to women artists' life stories in biographical compendia of the period

AT THE AGE OF SEVENTY-FIVE, the noted American portraitist Alice Neel (1900–1984) turned the mirror on herself and remarkably began painting her first self-portrait (completed 1980; National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; fig. 1). In this image Neel represents what possibly no female artist previously had done: a self-portrait as a completely nude older woman. She does not hide the visible signs of aging, preferring to reveal herself with characteristic honesty and vulnerability. Yet also pride: Neel has positioned herself rather regally on an upholstered chair,