Femininity Revealed, Concealed, Altered, and Examined

POST 4

Alejandro Hincapie

            Throughout history, economic and cultural conditions have largely dictated what areas of life women were designated to and what womanhood and femininity at large represented to the societies that put women in those positions. What’s more, art has often demonstrated how a woman’s femininity can be reveled, concealed, altered, or examined when that woman is placed in a particular setting, in particular conditions, or under particular historical circumstances. The following works by female artists range from late 19^th century American paintings to contemporary photography. They all demonstrate how a woman’s femininity and womanhood can be revealed, concealed, altered, or examined in a new way when they are placed in a particular setting. 

Cecilia Beaux. Dorothea in the Woods. 1897. 

            Cecilia’s Beaux’s 1897 painting Dorothea in the Woods demonstrates how a female’s presence in a natural environment heightens the connection between notions of budding femininity and the fertile qualities of nature.  The oil painting, currently on display at the Newark Museum in an exhibition entitled Angles & Tomboys, is described by its label as “an unconventional portrait” in which the artist captures the developing sexuality, self-examination, and self-absorption of adolescent years (Angles & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art).  Furthermore, the complexity of the subject’s psychological state is suggested by glum, introspected, and guarded expression (Angles & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art). With the authenticity of her young being established, it becomes important to consider the portrait’s setting; Dorothy is seated alone in a forested area (Angles & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art).  Her presence in such a natural environment associates her with, as the painting’s label states, “growth, fecundity, and the natural world” (Angles & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art). This connection is further implied by the exaggerated manner in which her fingers are rendered; they seem to connect with the exposed roots of the tree on which she leans (Angles & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art). As demonstrated, the presence of a young girl and her developing psychological and sexual state in the middle of a forest interior conjures up associations between burgeoning femininity and the ever-rejuvenating essence of nature. It is on these connections that notions of “Mother Earth” are perhaps grounded on.

Alice Barber Stephens. The Women in Business. 1897. 

            The 1897 painting The Women in Business by American painter and engraver Alice Barber Stephens also demonstrates how a women’s presence in a particular setting reveals the connection between womanhood and larger forces at play in society. Also on display at Angels & Tomboys, the work is a grisaille--a painting done largely in monochrome (Angles & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art). In this case, in black, white, and brown (Angles & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art). The work contrasts wealthy consumers against the working poor inside a massive late 19^th century department store (Angles & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art).  Stephens' scene includes a child stop assistant who wears, as the work’s label states, a “sad, serious expression” (Angles & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art). This is juxtaposed with a fashionably dressed female shopper sporting an indulgent expression (Angles & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art).  The presence of women--both young and old, and poor and rich--in the large department store underscores the importance of women as both facilitators and targets of American consumerism in the late 19^th century—a time of unprecedented economic growth for the country. Indeed, as the painting’s label asserts, “Gilded age consumerism was often associated with women” (Angles & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art).

Dorothea Lange. Shipyard Workers, Richmond, CA. 1942.

            Dorthea Lange’s photographs of shipyard works in early 1940’s Richmond, California is an example of how the placement of a woman in a particular role in a particular historical setting works to conceal and alter her femininity. From 1942 to 1944, Lange worked to document the major socio-economic shifts that were taking place in Richmond, California as a result of the booming shipyard industry sparked by the onset of World War II (In Her Eyes: Women Behind and in Front of the Camera). The most notable of changes was that women became integral to the workforce and worked alongside men (In Her Eyes: Women Behind and in Front of the Camera). In one photograph, on display at the Newark Musuem’s In Her Eyes: Women Behind and in Front of the Camera exhibit, Lange captured one women dressed in masculine work clothes; women were forbidden from wearing feminine clothes as to not distract their male coworkers (In Her Eyes: Women Behind and in Front of the Camera). The clothes she wears work to conceal her femininity on a surface level, rendering her genderless (In Her Eyes: Women Behind and in Front of the Camera). However, as the photograph’s label notes, “traditional feminine attributes… peek under handkerchief and flower stems peer out of her paper bag” (In Her Eyes: Women Behind and in Front of the Camera).  Lange’s photograph demonstrates how socio economic changes can directly alter the appearance of women, concealing the visual markers of their femininity and in turn, how others perceive them--another example of context working to alter a woman's perceived femininity. 

Another photograph taken by Stummer of residents of
Newark'sCentral Ward. 

            The work of another photographer, Helen M. Stummer, also demonstrates how context can affect a female’s perceived womanhood. Stummer has documented the lives of impoverished people around the world, particularly in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Newark, New Jersey (In Her Eyes: Women Behind and in Front of the Camera). In Shelly’s Children, the photographer captured a little girl holding a baby who initially appears to look like a ragdoll (In Her Eyes: Women Behind and in Front of the Camera). The girl is complete unaware of Stummer’s presence and is thoroughly engaged with the baby who sleeps on her (In Her Eyes: Women Behind and in Front of the Camera). As the photograph’s label states, in clutching the baby, the little girl’s “assumes an adult role that disregards her own innocence” (In Her Eyes: Women Behind and in Front of the Camera).  By simply holding an infant, the little girl instantly becomes endowed with the role of a mother—of caregiver and nurturer. The context of impoverished conditions strips the scene of both subject’s innocence, conjuring the reality of the question of the little girls’ future.

Cindy Sherman. Untitled. 1979. 

Finally, the work of Cindy Sherman also explored female sexuality through the contexts she puts herself in her photographs. In the 1978's, as Chadwick explains in Women, Art, And Society, Sherman "began placing her own body in the conventions of advertising and film images of women" (Chadwick 383). This largely sexually infused posed in revealing outfits sported with blank facial expressions. Through these completely staged photographs derived from mass media, Sherman is able to expose the "fiction of a [the] 'real' woman behind the images that Western culture constructs for our consumption in film and advertising media" (Chadwick 383). Furthermore, these images are constructed in a vein that suggests a certain stability to the femininity and sexuality of the woman in them, but in posing, Sherman is directly challenging hat notion of feminine stability (Chadwick 383). By creating the context herself, Sherman is able to dictate what specific aspect of female sexuality and womanhood she is commenting on.

As demonstrated in the works above,  a woman’s femininity and womanhood can be revealed, concealed, altered, or examined in a new way when they are placed in a particular setting, in particular conditions, or under particular historical circumstances. These works also demonstrate how notions of womanhood have been socially constructed in connectons with other forces such as nature and consumerism, as well as highlighting how fragile these notions are as they pertain to immediate physical circumstances.

*Image descriptions link to image source

Work Cited

"Angles & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art.”  Newark Museum. 49 Washington Street, Newark, NJ 07102. 23 Nov. 2012.

Chadwick, Whitney. "Women, Art, and Society." New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 1990. Print.

“In Her Eyes: Women Behind and in Front of the Camera.” Newark Museum. 49 Washington Street, Newark, NJ 07102. 23 Nov. 2012.