Seeing OurselvesThis fresh, richly illustrated book is the first in-depth presentation of how women artists have chosen to picture themselves. Beginning with the self-portraits of nuns in medieval illuminated manuscripts, Borzello reconstructs an overlooked genre and provides essential contextual information. She moves on to sixteenth-century Italy, where Sofonisba Anguissola painted one of the longest known series of self-portraits, recording her features from adolescence to old age. In 1630, Artemisia Gentileschi depicted herself as the personification of painting, and at the same time in the Netherlands Judith Leyster portrayed herself at her easel, as a relaxed, self-assured professional. In the 1700s, women from Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun to Angelica Kauffman conveyed, each in her own way, ideas of femininity and the artist's passion for her chosen field. And in the nineteenth century, as the doors to art schools began to open to women, self-portraits by the likes of Berthe Morisot, Marie Bashkirtseff, and photographers such as Alice Austen resonated with a newfound self-confidence. Seeing Ourselves concludes with the breaking of taboos in the twentieth century. Paula Modersohn-Becker imagines herself pregnant in her fantasy nude of 1906; Alice Neel paints herself naked at the age of eighty; and Frida Kahlo explicitly renders her own physical pain in a self-portrait complete with nails piercing her skin. And in recent decades, Cindy Sherman explores identity by transforming herself over and over into a cast of different characters, posing the questions that all the women in this enthralling book have faced when "seeing" themselves. |
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Alice amateur Ana Mendieta Angelica Kauffman Art Gallery art world Artemisia Gentileschi beauty Berlin body brush camera Clara Peeters classical Contemporary Art daughter depiction drawing easel eighteenth century Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun exhib exhibited face famous father female artist female self-portrait femininity feminist Florence France Frida Kahlo Garrard genre Gwen John hand Haudebourt-Lescot Helen husband Käthe Kollwitz lady Lavinia Fontana London looks male artists Marguerite Gérard Maria Cosway Marie Bashkirtseff married Mary Beale Mary Ellen Best miniature mirror mother Musée Museum of Art National Gallery nineteenth nude Oil on canvas opposite painting palette Paris pastel Paula Modersohn-Becker Photo courtesy photograph pose present Private collection professional pupils Rolinda Sharples Rome Rosalba Carriera Salon sculpture self-portrait self-portrait type sexual sister sixteenth century Sofonisba Anguissola still-life Studied style talent theme tradition twentieth century Uffizi vanitas viewer visual watercolour woman women artists women painters York young