I like boring things.
Hayv Kahraman
“Games are the first learning tools in a child’s life so inserting this sort of innocence and naivety that is then combined with the notion of the perishable flesh and how frail our bodies really are, is the essence of these works. Each one of these paintings has a polarity of the plasticity and transfiguration of the flesh with the pretense and innocence of a child’s toys. The puzzles add another dimension to this all by creating a layer of separation and detachment to our flesh.” Hayv Kahraman
The imagery of women at the turn of the century, part II
RE: my post on the imagery of women in the 19th century. Considering the ideal was so unrealistic it’s only natural that a countermovement uprooted. This marks the first wave of feminism. Contrary to now, the bigger part of the first feminist movement believed women were asexual. Christabel Packhurst, the sufragette leader, said: “woman is physically complete without sex; she’s needed for the man, but he isn’t needed for her”. It seems ludicrous now but Packhurst believed woman would eventually rule man because of this. Luckily there were still voices of reason, though sadly in a smaller movement of feminism, who believed in complete equality. I absolutely love this quote of Olive Schreiner on this topic: “My main point is this: human development has now reached a point at which sexual difference has become a thing of altogether minor importance. We make too much of it; we are men and women in the second place, human beings in the first.”
Because of this uproar in independent women, theories began to spring to prove female inferiority. Carl Vogt proved this with a pseudo-science: Craniometry. Craniometry measured people’s intelligence with the size of their skull. Women have a smaller skull and are therefore less intelligent. It’s astounding to think how much of this myth is still alive in people’s minds. Just under a year ago I had this thrown at me in a (admittedly, drunken) discussion of female and male intelligence. Obviously, this is completely false but people in the 19th century just assumed this without questioning. The great Darwin took this as truth too and in his Descent of Man he used this as an argument to prove the infamous inferiority of women. Darwin believed women didn’t evolve as much as men from their childhood and are therefore closer to nature and consequently closer to humankind’s animal descent. Considering the influence Darwin had with his Origin of Species you can only imagine the influence of this theory. Alongside of Darwin’s misogynist pseudo-science many, many more theories began to spring until women were eventually seen as animal-like and even seen as degenerative. Women and female characteristics were soon linked with the downfall of society.
The fine arts were the most obvious in bringing forward these theories and you could soon see a rise of women as animals, women dancing madly naked in nature, women trapped in their own reflection and of course the countless Salomé’s and Judith’s who were hungry for the death of mankind. Some examples which I’ll discuss later on a little more in-depth:
The imagery of women at the turn of the century
During mid-19th century the middle class gained in economic power and businessmen sought ways to find credit. Due to not having yet fully established the bank of England and credit checks not being invented yet, Bram Dijkstra argues that ‘one’s worth was established by word of mouth’, and ‘evidence of the eye’. Middle class women who used to wear plain cotton dresses now became elaborately dressed and in short, fashion plates. This confining dress was the first step towards the true virtue, which the Christian businessmen desired in their women. These men were unable to be virtuous themselves in a whirling new economic world of vicious commerce, however a man’s wife could. More so even she could protect her husband’s soul by being as virtuous as humanly possible: she has soul-healing power.
Typical of this time Jules Michelet wrote in 1859 “The man passes from drama to drama, not one of which resembles another, from experience to experience, from battle to battle. History goes forth, ever far-reaching, and continually crying to him: Forward! … The woman on the contrary, follows the noble and serene epic that nature chants in harmonious cycles, repeating herself with a touching grace of constancy and fidelity. … She it is who, at twenty, and at thirty, and all her life long, will renew her husband every night, as he returns deadened by his labour.”
As women found themselves to be forced into this stifling deaf and mute role, more and more women ostensibly became ill and even found an ultimate escape in death. Slowly but surely this strange revolt became passive and eventually became a morbid beauty ideal that persistent well into the new millennium. After all, “the more intense the struggle, the more impressive the triumph of true virtue.”
Naturally this became apparent in the arts and I’d like to point out to some works that are especially troubling for me to read and see and I daresay more fascinating; I guess I’m morbid? I’d like to follow this up with several posts and the iconology of this all. I guess we’ll see if I’ll actually do this but here’s the first batch of paintings that are indeed tempting in their soft imagery.
Ophelia also fits in this role perfectly while we see sick women slowly becoming ‘mad’ while the fascination with mental illnesses and the “degeneration” of people, society and women at the turn of the century. I’m getting back to that in another post.
You can clearly see the “beauty of tuberculosis” in the lank limbs and dark circles under Ophelia’s eyes. Let’s not even get started about the pubescent look of this girl.
More morbid became the increasing eroticisation and fascination of the female dead body.
The more I’m studying this subject, the more I’m seeing some really fucked up resemblance in today’s fashion scene; how many editorials of lank pubescent looking girls staring soullessly have you seen? And what about the increasing editorials featuring supposed dead women? But that’s another rant for another day.