Feminist Art History and Woman's Career in Art
18th-century French Female Artist Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun
Aug 14, 2009
Feminist art historical research shows that in a male dominated art world of the late eighteenth century France, a woman painter could become a successful professional and achieve fame.
Although Vigée-Le Brun gained public renown as an artist, she never did attain the status of an 'Old Master'. Her mere attempt to become a history painter did not fit in with the contemporary notion of femininity constructed by male dominated society. Her work was always judged against masculine criteria.
Madame Le Brun's Entry into the Royal Academy
Vigée-Le Brun was admitted to Academie Royale on 31 May 1783 despite the Academy's policy to limit female membership to only four women at a time. Her admission, however, caused some controversy. Many academicians opposed her candidacy because her husband was an art dealer and the Academy prohibited their members to be involved in direct sales of art.
As a favourite painter of the queen Marie-Antoinette, Le Brun was accepted by direct order of the king. But despite her success in penetrating the patriarchally governed fortress, Le Brun's ambitions to enter the Academy as an history painter remained unfulfilled as they would have been for any other woman artist of the period.
Educational Restrictions of Women
Categorization of artists within the Academy was determined by their reception piece, a work of art submitted as a condition of entry. However, the educational restrictions imposed on women meant that the history genre was exclusive to men. Anatomically accurate drawing was one of the principal skills required for representation of historical figures and mythological heroes. Studying a male nude in life class was a standard condition for succeeding in the history genre. Women were not allowed to attend life drawing classes and so were limited to portraiture and still-life.
Reception Piece: Peace Bringing Abundance
Determined as she was, Le Brun submitted what could be classified as an history painting, an allegory Peace Bringing Abundance, as her reception piece. Two semi-naked female figures personifying Peace and Abundance are floating as if suspended in the air, in an embrace. The clever choice of the subject featuring only female figures meant that she didn't have to study male nude in order to produce a work of the highest genre.
Feminine History Painting
Peace Bringing Abundance was subsequently judged as a 'feminine' painting. Not did the painting depicted female figures but its technique deviated from strict linearity, precision and sobriety of the conventional history pieces . Contrary to this trend, Vigée-Le Brun used warm colours, soft modelling, flowing lines and fluttering drapery are suggestive of feminine handling. Some scholars argue that she may have employed precisely those 'feminine' characteristics in her art in order to prove that art produced by a woman could demonstrate mastery equivalent to that of male colleagues.
Success in a Male Art World
Nevertheless, in producing her 'female' version of a history painting Peace Bringing Abundance, she used the source available to a woman artist, her natural familiarity with the anatomy of a female body. This testifies to her determination to succeed in the male dominated territory and to her innovative strategy to enter the Academy as a professional woman.
Although painted in 1780, the allegory was exhibited at the Salon in 1783. Later, it was moved to the Academy's exhibition hall at the Louvre. After the Academy was dissolved in 1793, the painting was relocated to the Ministry of Interior.
Source:
Perry, Gill: Gender and Art, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1999
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