Page 29 - Contemporary Art and Old Masters

After the fall of Isabella II, Joanna I of Castile became the
favourite figure among history painters, who would ignore
historical exactitude to stoke the myth of her madness,
a sign of the prejudices that had accumulated regarding
women and their supposed inability to govern. These images
make it evident that even after the end of the nineteenth
century, recognition of the royal dignity and political power
of women continued to raise representational problems.

THE PATRIARCHAL MOULD
In the late nineteenth century, the State shifted its attention
from history painting onto works of social denunciation, and
to a lesser extent onto the so-called “subjects of the day”,
reflected in scenes that became vehicles for the validation
of customs and the legitimisation of social practices. Within
this second category, there was a particular interest in
girls’ schooling. Although the law recognised the right of
women to a primary education, this remained differentiated
by sexes, a question that drew a string of criticisms from
writers like Emilia Pardo Bazán. Alongside scenes of
girls’ schools, where the pupils were shown being taught
unimportant things with their teachers or classmates, it was
also frequent to find pictures of parents and grandparents
gravely lecturing their daughters or granddaughters on moral
values, and so producing a hierarchical discourse.
In the meantime, the patriarchal message of feminine virtue
also found its way into artistic expression, and the “angel
of the hearth” gave way to more realist images of wives
subordinated to their husbands in the new context of social
painting.

THE ART OF INDOCTRINATION
Some of the works shown in the official exhibitions were
centred on a paternalist notion of the day that women
needed men’s restraint to prevent them from being swept
away by their uncontrollable emotions. Artists interpreted
this supposed emotional nature as part of women’s charm
but also as a sign of their weak character, an idea they
represented in light-hearted images with titles like Pride,
Laziness or Thirst for Vengeance, all clearly critical beneath
their inconsequential appearance. The representation
of madness or witchcraft was used to explore the same
concept, associating woman with states of mental
imbalance or some inexplicable connection with the realm
of the occult and the irrational. However, other artists
preferred to show them enjoying themselves in recreational

Full Body Self-portrait
María Roësset Mosquera, MaRo (1882-1921), Oil on canvas, 1912. Madrid,
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.
Photo © Museo Nacional del Prado

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