In order to study the image of women in painting as reflecting changes in political and social context, I have chosen three works of art by three different artists, from three different periods. I will study these paintings in their historical context as a mirror of the evolutions of values. The first one is The Judgment of Paris by Jean Antoine Watteau (1718-1720). Watteau painted this work during the Regency of Philippe d'Orléans, which is a period of detente after the austerity of Louis XIV's last years. Mores (especially sexual mores) were much more relaxed and free, and the aristocracy lived in a luxurious and magnificent way. At the Royal Court, life was flighty and frivolous, and debaucheries were sometimes organized. This mood was reflected in arts, and Watteau symbolizes lightness, even though his art is very deep and poetic.
[...] It is particularly true in Watteau's small-scale panels that were free of any academic ambition, such as The Judgment of Paris. In this painting, Venus surrenders her beauty to the look of Paris, under Minerva and Juno's angry gaze[2]. In the centre of the panel the goddess of love whom we see the back, is portrayed as a desirable woman, with voluptuous forms. On the left, Mercury is standing beyond Paris who is tending the golden apple to Venus. Paris is naked but his sex is hidden. [...]
[...] To conclude, the image of women in paintings is very differently used. I think that the three paintings I have chosen are a good demonstration of this variety. In Watteau's Judgment of Paris, the woman is passive and objects of our gaze, she is an ideal fantasy. This painting was owned by a doctor, in order to be hung in a house, hence its small side. It is a painting to be looked everyday, especially by men, so it could be hung in his private cabinet. [...]
[...] Therefore, the aim of the portrait is to rehabilitate the image of the Queen, to show a responsible and good mother. But as I will show, this painting is actually both an image of a Queen and an image of a mother. Vigée-Le Brun had a rival woman portraitist: Adélaïde Labille-Guiard. They had a similar style but a different patronage. They were received by the Academy on the same day in 1783. Labille-Guiard was the official portraitist of Mesdames, King's aunts; while Vigée-Le Brun was the official portraitist of the Queen. [...]
[...] In Le Bénédicité, there is a come back to moral values, after the “debauchery” of the Regency. The mother is laying on the table, there is no servants. Children are absorbed in their thoughts. Gazes are converging: the mother and the older girl are looking at the little girl. It forms a circle, like others circles: the table and the plates. The scene is a bourgeois inside, with kitchen utensils dish warmer down right on the ground, plates, forks and spoons on the table, a jug on the buffet, bottles and receptacles on the rack) and attributes of childhood (toy drum hung on the small child armchair, skittle down left on the ground). [...]
[...] In 1778, she made her first portrait of the Queen, Marie- Antoinette en grand habit de cour. In this painting, Marie-Antoinette is depicted in a white satin dress, a rose in her right hand. Before this, the Queen was disappointed by every portrait because she doesn't believe their looked like. Marie-Antoinette en grand habit de cour was made to be sent to Marie-Thérèse from Austria, mother of the Queen. Her mother wanted a portrait of her daughter in luxury appearance. [...]
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