Some Reasons behind the (Self-)Portrait (Part 1)

Articles in this Topic Discussions in this Topic

Dec 5, 2004

In the years immediately preceding and following the French Revolution, the number of women artists exhibiting in Paris began to climb. Before 1791, only members of the Académie Royale could exhibit at the biennial Salon; however, there were other venues of which non-members could take advantage. Because women were discouraged from undertaking history painting, they frequently produced the next "highest" genre in the canon, which was portraiture and self-portraiture. In this article, I shall focus on self-portraits by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun and her former student Marie-Guillemine LaVille-Leroulx-Benoist, as well as a portrait of a student of David produced by another woman.

As I noted in a previous article,(1) the dominant philosophy of late eighteenth-century France was based on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Emile, part of which stresses that women live only for their husbands and children. Vigée-Lebrun, who thought highly of the book, has been criticised by some feminist scholars for her emphasis on women's looks and men's minds. During the late 1780s, she produced two self-portraits with her daughter.

Big

Both paintings depict mother and daughter as beautiful and sharing an unbreakable bond. Both paintings were also produced in the artist's typical soft rendering of women sitters. Critics argue that these examples were Vigée-Lebrun's way of conforming to Rousseauist ideology.

In 1783, she produced Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat, which was based on a similar painting by Peter Paul Rubens.(2) She portrays herself wearing leisurely attire of the upper bourgeoisie and wearing her hair and makeup in a style to enhance her beauty. However, she also adds her palette and paintbrush. Griselda Pollock argues that this depiction combining "feminine" primping and a symbol of an active occupation conveys a contradiction between the ideas of "woman" and "artist."(3) Gen Doy counter-argues that all three self-portraits convey just the opposite: that women could fulfil their "feminine" obligations of the time and still have successful careers as artists. Just focusing on the self-portraits of the artist and her daughter, Doy points out that, with physical and sociological complications that accompanied motherhood in the late eighteenth century, Vigée-Lebrun was documenting an achievement. Not only had she survived childbirth and postpartum issues, she had also managed to maintain her career.(4)

I am inclined to agree with Doy. After all, if Vigée-Lebrun had wished to conform to contemporary expectations of women, she would have abandoned her career, regardless of her dedication to and love for it.(5) In a time when beauty and motherhood were regarded as important "achievements" for women, she knew that, in order for her to succeed in her career, she had to depict herself as a beautiful, loving mother in addition to a talented artist. This marketing strategy proved successful, since she remained a popular portraitist, even after she fled France during the Revolution.

Go To Page: 1 2

The copyright of the article Some Reasons behind the (Self-)Portrait (Part 1) in Women Painters is owned by Jessica Cresseveur. Permission to republish Some Reasons behind the (Self-)Portrait (Part 1) in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.