Women Artists in 19th and 20th Century

471 Words2 Pages
What major contributions did women make to the arts in the nineteenth and twentieth century? Female artists managed to dominate in high arts facing many difficulties in training, trading their work and gaining recognition. They contribute to the arts especially during the nineteenth and twentieth century. Women involved in making art increased in Europe after the French Revolution during the nineteenth century. Firstly, amateur talents in drawing and watercolour were encouraged as part of a good bourgeois education in the upper-class milieu. For instance, Berth Morisot and her sister Edma, both French painters, were encouraged at an early age to porsue art studying with two private art instructors Geoffry-Alphonse Chocarne and later with Joseph Guichard. Secondly, other women turned for education to the studios of established artists or to private academies often at great expense. Courses were based on the mastery of human anatomy through the study of the live nude model. Lastly, many women turned to portraiture, genre painting, landscape and still life. For example, Rosa Bonheur made her reputation by specializing in the popular field of animal painting, whereas the American painter Mary Stevenson Cassatt dedicated his art to children. Many female artists were closely associated with successful male artists as their pupils, models, or daughters. Firstly, many of them enjoyed a significant degree of public acclaim in this period like Berthe Morisot, whose acceptance into avant-garde circles was facilitated by her close relationship with Manet, her brother-in-law, for whom she also posed on several occasions. Lastly, female artists were also promoted by the Society of Women Artists established in London in 1850s, the Paris Salon where American Elizabeth Jane Gardner was the first artist to exhibit in 1866 and the École des Beaux-Arts which opened its doors
Open Document