A thorough analysis of how the concepts of "Woman" and "Femininity" unfold inside the broader spectrum of Impressionist painting by male as well as female artists.
Woman in the Impressionist era had many faces. These range from woman as mother and centre of the family to women of the working class, respectable ladies of the bourgeoisie, right to the demi-mondaines and 'fallen Women'. But the theme of Women also functions as a lens through which to examine the avant-garde position of the Impressionists and their mutual differences in the technical level of painting. The fundamental thesis is that the painting of the avant-garde did not just represent but acted out a series of conceptual and historical shifts by repeating traditional, visual schemata and doing it with a difference which added new meanings, which themselves contributed visually to the breakthrough of the Modern. The concept of New Woman came into existence in this confrontation of conflicting interests.
The exhibition takes as its introduction two works by Manet, 'Portrait de Jeanne Duval. La Maîtresse de Baudelaire couchée', 1862, together with the 'Portrait de Zacharie Astruc', 1866. From this point of departure the catalogue traces the representation of women as it was manifested in the work of the Impressionists in the 1870s and the early 1880s. The volume includes a number of works from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek collection as well as from private and public institutions from around the world. The exhibition concludes with individual works from the beginning of the 1890s, which emphasise the highly individual positions of the artists in relation to this subject.
- Publication Date:
- 01 / 01 / 2007
- 280 x 240 x 29mm