Feminist Self Portraits
Representation of the female body, cultural perception, and
art style to show that the works of their art changed the rules, broke
barriers, and challenged the status quo through their self-portraits for women
equality.
Figure 1. Paula Modersohn-Becker, Self-Portrait with an
Amber Necklace, 1906. Oil on canvas, 61 cm x 50.2 cm (24 in x 19 3/4 in).
Private Collection.
Figure 2. Frida Kahlo, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and
Hummingbird, 1940. Oil on canvas, 61.25 cm x 47 cm (24.11 in x 18.5 in). Nickolas
Muray Collection.
Germany and Mexico sits in two different ends of the world,
yet Paula Modersohn-Becker and Frida Kahlo responded to women equality through
self-portraits. Modersohn-Becker was a German painter who painted Self-Portrait
with an Amber Necklace in 1906. ‘[She became one of] the first modern woman
artist to challenge centuries of traditional representation of the female body
in art.”[1] On the contrary, Kahlo was a Mexican painter who painted
Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird in 1940. “[Similar to Paula,
Frida was] one of the women to fully express herself through art, a feminist
putting women’s issues at the forefront of her work.”[2] The analysis of
Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace and Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and
Hummingbird will focus on the representation of the female body, cultural
perception, and art style to show that the works of their art changed the
rules, broke barriers, and challenged the status quo through their
self-portraits for women equality.
Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace by Modersohn-Becker is
a painting of herself pregnant facing the viewer while nude. She is framed in a
frontal position from the stomach and up. Paula paints her skin tone in warm
colors using tan and pinkish hues. Brighter pink is used to emphasizes her
nipples. Around her neck lies an brown amber necklace that sit over her breast.
In the background, she painted dark green leaves and some red and white florals
that complements her body tones. To engage with the audience, she paints
herself holding two pink flowers with a bright green stem in her hands. In
addition, she uses bluish undertones to enhance the features in her eyes. Her
posture tilting to the side seem like she is expressing sexuality but in naturality
she is asserting herself in the frame.
Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird by Kahlo
is also a painting of herself. However, she is not nude or pregnant. Frida
faces her viewer in a frontal position from the waist and up taking majority of
the painting. She’s uses tan, light brown, and pinkish hues to convey her skin
tones. Frida wears a pure white short sleeve shirt to cover her body. On top of
the shirt and around her neck is a necklace made out of thorns that has a
hummingbird attached to it. The humming bird is seen to be dead because it is
painted black and lifeless. The thorns pierces her neck by her painting red
drips of blood running down the neck. On her face, she darkens her mustache and
unplucked eyebrows. To the left side of her shoulder lies a black small monkey
and on her right side of her shoulder lies a black cat with yellow squinting
eyes. Frida brightens her painting using a bust of bright color green leaves in
the background. She distinguish the leaves with different patterns and
textures.
In 1906 were the beginnings of the first wave of feminism
where women were the minority that was fighting for change. In the same year,
Modersohn-Becker painted Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace to change the
rules in European representation of the female body. Women nudity in early
modern Europe made women “invariably oppressed, excluded, and
marginalized….women were viewed as inchoate or failed men.”[3] Paula paints
herself standing in front of a garden while nude. She holding a flower and she
is slightly smiles, knowingly that she is bare chested as she embraces her
female body. Being the first pregnant women to paint herself nude changes
traditional representation of the female body. “[W]omen and Sexuality in German
political and cultural circles… the ‘good’ mother had become the focus of
widespread concern about function in the family and in the perpetuation of the
race. For [Paula]… to paint the nude body of the mother, was to confront
directly the contemporary inscription of gendered differences on the body.”[4]
Female nudity is powerful and Becker was able to paint the her own bare body
not as a sexual objectification but to show freedom of the female body. Her
painting changed the European concept of seeing women as a sex object to the
ultimate expression of woman’s emancipation.
Similar to Paula, Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and
Hummingbird by Kahlo has also changed the rules of Mexican representation of
the female body. Frida painted her self-portrait in 1940s during the time when
“conservative Catholic women is an established subspecialty in Mexican women’s
history….[and] female activism in Mexico was … [in] defense of traditional
gender roles.”[5] However, Frida wasn’t scared to change the Mexican Catholic
conservative beauty dilemma of women sexuality. Frida kept her mustache and
un-plucked eyebrows in her Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird
painting. According to Karin Lesnik-Oberstein’s book The Last Taboo: Women and
Body Hair claimed that “signifier such as ‘hair’ is too bound to notions of
sexuality and gender”[6] to Kahlo’s painting. Frida gave the Feminism idea of
having the power for women to choose what she can do with her own body. Like
Becker’s painting, Frida ‘s painting was able to show freedom of the female
body by rejecting the conservative ideas of beauty and grew a mustache and
unibrow to protest these standards of beauty.
Furthermore, Paula has also broken barriers by using
European cultural perceptions in her art to fight for women equality.
Modersohn-Becker paints herself only wearing an amber necklace that rests
between her breast. In Europe at the time, it is believed that the amber
necklace is to comfort babies when they are teething. “Amber products are sold
in local pharmacies in many European countries including Switzerland, Germany
and Austria where Amber has been respected for its medicinal qualities for
centuries.”[7] As Paula is wearing her amber necklace representing motherhood
outside naked, she is dealing with the interface between public and private
lives. “[In Germany,] feminists of the nineteenth and much of the twentieth
century often gloried motherhood as the basis of women’s claim to dignity,
equality, or a widened sphere of action in both public and private spheres.”[8]
Paula uses her culture that believes that amber necklace is for baby teething
and applies it to equal women rights though motherhood.
Similarly, Frida has also broken barriers by using Spanish
Mexican cultural perceptions in her art to fight for women equality. In
Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, Frida uses Mexican and Aztec
symbols to express her pain as a feminist. Paula wasn’t the only one who uses a
necklace as symbolism. Frida painted thorns around her neck as if it was used
as a necklace. On it is a humming bird that is hanging from the thorns laying
on her throat. “[In] ancient Aztecs of central Mexico recognized the
hummingbird … represented things like life, creation, inspiration and promise.
Other central American cultures viewed the hummingbird as a symbol of love,
sexuality and fertility.”[9] However in the painting, Frida paints the humming
bird black and dead. “This might be a symbol of Frida herself. Frida spent most
of her life in physical pain after the bus accident happened when she was
eighteen. After that she endured about thirty-five operations to fix her body.
She spent so many years bedridden and cannot bear any children.”[10] Feminist
embrace their control of their reproductive rights of their decision on whether
they want to be pregnant and how they give birth. In this case, Frida is unable
to become pregnant. “Women are defined by their ability to have a child, and
when it doesn’t quite work out that way, whether it is by choice or
miscarriage, our culture attaches a stigma and blame to them.”[11] By Frida
using the Mexican symbol of the humming bird, she was brave to address the
stigma and shame that is around miscarriages that plays a big part of the
reproductive rights and justice. Her painting is showing that she has
experienced it and as a feminism is not scared of admitting it.
Lastly, Modersohn-Becker challenged the status quo of German
Expressionism art style. German Expressionism is a movement based on the artist
emotion, feelings or ideas that is simplified by shapes, colors, and
brushstrokes.[12] However, feminist interpretations like Paula has changed the
artistic tradition of German Expressionism. “[T]he Expressionist attitude
toward women is indeed for the most part “conservative,” it is conservative in
its own unique and characteristic way…[t]he dominant tendency in Expressionist
circles is to define the two sexes as polar opposites, which, moreover,
function in highly distinct male and female social spheres.”[13] Paula
challenged the status quo of German Expressionism by providing the sensitive
portrait of herself in Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace. Paula painting
herself naked especially pregnant while naked was seen to be outside the norm.
“[Her] self-portrait nudes universalize the images, but the careful scrutiny of
the female body and the frank confrontation between the women and the artist
fuse the issues of femaleness and creativity in new ways.”[14] Her art has
paved the way for future female artist because she broken the strict seclusion and
lower status of women. Paula’s Self-Portrait with an Amber Necklace is a piece
of artwork that proves that women have the power to not be pressured to conform
the male dominate art and conservative way by challenged the status quo of
German Expressionism.
In addition, Kahlo has done the same by challenging the
status quo of Surrealism art style. Surrealism is an philosophical movement
that explores the mind, championing the irrational, poetry and
revolutionary.[15] However comparable to Paula, Frida’s feminist
interpretations has also changed the artistic tradition of Surrealism. “One
point of controversy is to what extent female surrealists have been properly
acknowledged. The….silence against female artists in general, this was even
worse within surrealism because of its misogyny.”[16] Unfortunately, Frida as
well as other women artist had to work harder in order to be recognized
compared to the male artist in Surrealism. Although, her moment was brief and
ambiguous in the surrealist movement she was able to her girl power to not be
under the male dominate movement. She challenged the status quo of Surrealism
by painting Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird of her
psychological agony of not being able to have kids. “This in itself was commendable
for she concentrated on her self-awareness and artistry in a society and a time
that prohibited women from pursuing a career much less portraying aspects of
women’s lives, such as abortions, which were considered wholly inappropriate
topics.”[17] Frida has become an art heroism in the feminist community because
of the way she changed the artistic tradition by challenging the status quo of
Surrealism.
All in all, despite from coming from two opposite parts of
the world they became an international legend for women’s rights through art
within their self-portraits. They showed that the works of their art change the
rules in both European and Mexican concept of women sexuality, broke barriers
in European and Mexican concept of culture, and challenged the status quo of
surrealism and German Expressionism completely through feminism. They
emphasized themselves as the subject and not as an object to establish awareness
of women’s existence that male artist counterparts has failed to do. Without
Paula Modersohn-Becker and Frida Kahlo we would not have knowledge of women
objectivation in art.
[1] Dane Radycki, Paula Modersohn-Becker the First Modern
Woman Artist (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 1.
[2] Alessandra Foresto, "17 Things You Didn't Know
About Feminist Icon Frida Kahlo," POPSUGAR Latina, August 26, 2017,
https://www.popsugar.com/latina/Frida-Kahlo-Facts-43548151.
[3] Penny Richards and Jessica Munns, GENDER,POWER AND
PRIVILAGE IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE (London: Pearson/Longman, 2003), 7-20.
[4] Griselda Pollock, Generations and Geographies in the
Visual Arts: Feminist Readings (London: Routledge, 1996), 162.
[5] John French, “Women in Postrevolutionary Mexico: The
Emergence of a New Feminist Political History,” Latin American Politics and
Society, (2018): 175.
[6] Karin Lesnik-Oberstein, The Last Taboo: Women and Body
Hair. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 193.
[7] "What Is An Amber Teething Necklace (Learn From The
Experts), " Amberartisans.com, accessed April 23, 2018,
https://www.amberartisans.com/amtene15.html.
[8] Patricia Herminghouse and Magda Mueller, Gender and
Germanness: Cultural Productions of Nation (Oxford: Berghahn, 1998), 113.
[9] "Symbolic Hummingbird Facts,"
Whats-Your-Sign.Com, accessed April 24, 2018,
http://www.whats-your-sign.com/symbolic-hummingbird-facts.html.
[10] "Self-Portrait With Thorn Necklace And
Hummingbird, 1940, By Frida Kahlo," Frida Kahlo.org, accessed April 24,
2018,
https://www.fridakahlo.org/self-portrait-with-thorn-necklace-and-hummingbird.jsp.
[11] Ally Boguhn, "4 Ways To Stop The Silence And
Stigma Around Miscarriages," Everyday Feminism, accessed April 24, 2018,
https://everydayfeminism.com/2014/10/stop-shaming-miscarriages/.
[12] "Art Term - German Expressionism,” Tate, accessed
April 25, 2018, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/g/german-expressionism.
[13] Barbara D. Wright, ""New Man," Eternal
Woman: Expressionist Responses to German Feminism," The German Quarterly
60, no. 4 (1987): 582-583.
[14] Whitney Chadwick, ‘The Independents,’ Women, Art, and
Society (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990), 271.
[15] "Art Term – Surrealism,” Tate, accessed April 26,
2018, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/surrealism.
[16] "Surrealist group of Stockholm,"
Surrealistgruppen, accessed April 26, 2018,
http://www.surrealistgruppen.org/surrwomen.html.
[17] Jo-Ann Reeuwyk, “Feminism’s Response to The Art World
and Art Education,” Simon Fraser University, (April 1990): 26.
Comments
Post a Comment