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Section "Experiences as a female artist"
Anguissola's education and training had different implications than that of men, since men and women worked in separate spheres. Her training was not to help her into a profession wherein she would compete for commissions with male artists, but to make her a better wife, companion, and mother.[1] Although Anguissola enjoyed significantly more encouragement and support than the average woman of her day, her social class did not allow her to transcend the constraints of her sex. Without the possibility of studying anatomy or drawing from life (it was considered unacceptable for a lady to view nudes), she could not undertake the complex multi-figure compositions required for large-scale religious or history paintings.
Instead, she experimented with new styles of portraiture, setting subjects informally. Self-portraits and family members were her most frequent subjects, as seen in such paintings as Self-Portrait (1554, Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna), Portrait of Amilcare, Minerva and Asdrubale Anguissola (c. 1557–1558, Nivaagaards Malerisambling, Niva, Denmark), and her most famous picture, The Chess Game (1555, Muzeum Narodowe, Poznań), which depicted her sisters Lucia, Minerva and Europa. Painted when Sofonisba was 20 years old, The Chess Game is an intimate representation of an everyday family scene, combining elaborate formal clothing with very informal facial expressions, which was unusual for Italian art at this time. Her ability to capture personality and humor was part of her genius - challenging the dynamics of portraiture. [2] The realm of portraiture was safe for women since it "implied neither familiarity, nor any unbecoming breadth of experience,"[3] but she pushed the envelope by creating pieces in which her subjects appear to be living and breathing, showcasing her creative genius which was thought to only be possessed by men.[4]
Sofonisba Anguissola's self portaits also offer evidence of what she thought her place was as a woman artist. Normally, men were seen as creative actors and woman as passive objects, but in her self portrait of 1556, Anguissola presents herself as the artist, seperating herself from the role as the object to be painted.[5] Additional pieces show how she rebels against the notion that women are objects, in essence an intrument to be played by men. Her self portrait of 1561 show her playing an intrument, taking on a different role. [6]
She became well-known outside of Italy and in 1559 King Phillip II of Spain asked her to be lady-in-waiting and art teacher to Queen Elisabeth of Valois, who was only 14 at the time. Queen Elisabeth of Valois and Sofonisba became good friends, and when the Queen died ten years later, Sofonisba left the court because she was so sad. She had painted the entire royal family and even the Pope commissioned Anguissola to do a portrait of the Queen.[6]
- ^ Sylvia Ferino-Pagden and Maria Kusche, Sofonisba Anguissola: A Renaissance Woman, (Washington D.C.: The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1995).
- ^ Sylvia Ferino-Pagden and Maria Kusche, Sofonisba Anguissola: A Renaissance Woman, (Washington D.C.: The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1995).
- ^ Laurie Glenn, "Virtuous Ladies and Melancholic “Geniuses”: A Study of Gender-Based Creativity In Italy During the Early Modern Period" (MA diss., University of Victoria, 1999), 134.
- ^ Frederika Jacobs. "Woman's Capacity to Create: The Unusual Case of Sofonisba Anguissola," Renaissance Quarterly. 47, no. 1:(1994): 74-101.
- ^ Mary Garrard, "Here's Looking at Me: Sofonisba Anguissola and the Problem of the Woman Artist," Renaissance Quarterly 47, no. 3:(1994): 556.
- ^ Mary Garrard, "Here's Looking at Me: Sofonisba Anguissola and the Problem of the Woman Artist," Renaissance Quarterly 47, no. 3:(1994): 557.