Browse Exhibits (1 total)

"The beautiful seems right by force of beauty."

-Aurora Leigh, Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

            British society in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was saturated with patriarchal values and with that came a quite misogynistic conflation of aesthetic beauty and social worth. Particularly in regard to artistic representations of women and domesticity, it is clear that beauty and traditional femininity were used as devices to push a particular social narrative. While art may be an attempt to imitate life, it is not a mere reflection. Images of life are refracted through the minds of artists and presented in a new way, to either subtly or overtly present their message. When engaging with period drawings and portraiture, we must always keep in mind the intention of the artist and the cultural context of the intended audience.

            In the case of eighteenth and ninteenth century representations of women, conventional beauty was the tool manipulated by artists to push any number of political or social agendas. Women thought to be upstanding in character were characterized as more traditionally feminine, whereas those who defied some sort of norm or expectation were given plainer or even more masculine features. These artistic choices correlate directly to the attitudes surrounding the role of women in the public and private spheres. This exhibit will track representations of women from various roles in society alongside the changing socio-political climate of Britain, in order to understand how aesthetics of beauty were used as rhetorical devices by artists of the period.