Heroínas Catálogo de La Exposición

Heronas
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Heronas
Comisario
Guillermo Solana
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Fundacin Caja Madrid
Del 8 de marzo al 5 de junio de 2011
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Patronato de la Fundacin
Patronato de la Fundacin
Coleccin Thyssen-Bornemisza
Caja Madrid
Agradecimientos
Presidenta
Presidente
El Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza desea expresar su
ngeles Gonzlez-Sinde Reig
Rodrigo de Rato Figaredo
agradecimiento a las siguientes personas e instituciones
Vicepresidenta
Patronos
as como a todos los prestadores que han preferido
Baronesa Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza
Enedina lvarez Gayol
guardar el anonimato:
por su especial ayuda y colaboracin en este proyecto,
Juan Jos Azcona Olndriz
AES+F, Marina Abramovic, Ruth Addison, Joree
Patronos
Francisco Baquero Noriega
S.A.R. la Infanta Doa Pilar de Borbn
Pedro Bedia Prez
Mercedes del Palacio
Luis Blasco Bosqued
ngeles Albert de Len
Carmen Cafranga Cavestany
Carlos Ocaa Prez de Tudela
Arturo Fernndez lvarez
Jack F. Becker, Neal Benezra, Efran Bernal, Dirk Boll,
Sir Norman Rosenthal
Jos Manuel Fernndez Norniella (Vicepresidente)
Serge Le Borgne, David R. Brugham, Christian Bhrle,
Archiduquesa Francesca von Habsburg-Lothringen
Jorge Gmez Moreno
Katharina Bttiker, Olivier Camu, Andr Cariou, Joo
Miguel Satrstegui Gil-Delgado
Javier Lpez Madrid
Castel-Branco Pereira, Marie P. Charles, Blandine
Ramn Caravaca
Guillermo R. Marcos Guerrero
Chavanne, Gilles Chazal, Claudia Cremonini, Guy
Jos Ricardo Martnez Castro
Cogeval, Anna Coliva, Caroline Collier, Alexandra
Mara Corral Lpez Driga
Mercedes de la Merced Monge
Conde, Renee Cox, Keith Cunliffe, Juan Curto,
Jos Antonio Moral Santn (Vicepresidente)
Batrice Debrabandre, Melanie Dnakbar, Michel
Director Artstico
Ignacio Navasqes Cobin
Draguet, Susan Dunne, Danilo Eccher, Andrea Emiliani,
Guillermo Solana
Jess Pedroche Nieto
gueda Beatriz Esteban, Gerhard Finckh, Nancy Floyd,
Jos Mara de la Riva Amez
Susan Fuld, Julia Fullerton-Batten, Adam Geary, Steven
Director Gerente
Estanislao Rodrguez-Ponga y Salamanca
L. Grafe, Deborah Gribbon, Stphanie Guex, Andrew
Miguel ngel Recio Crespo
Mercedes Rojo Izquierdo
J. Hall, Hilary Harkness, Mona Hatoum, Wolfgang
Ricardo Romero de Tejada y Picatoste
Heilmann, Regina Heilmann-Thon, Elena Hernando
Virgilio Zapatero Gmez (Vicepresidente)
Gonzalo, Meredith Hilferty, Paula Hornbostel, Mark
Secretaria
Antin, Anton Kern Gallery, Janine Antoni, Christopher

T. Apostle, Lszlo Ban, Don Bacigalupi, Sean Baggaley,
Clemente Barrena, Barret Collection, Christoph Becker,
Hughes, Jenkins Johnson Gallery NY, Sarah Jones,
Rosala Serrano Velasco

Director Honorario
Adilman, Juana de Aizpuru, Mara Alonso, Eleanor
Secretario
Roswitha Jufnger, Peggy Kaplan, Samuel Keller,
Miguel Crespo Rodrguez
Isabelle Klinka, Johann Krftner, Irina Lebedeva,

Frederik Leen, Annie Leibovitz, Anni Leppl, Louise
Toms Llorens
Director
Lippincott, Cristina Lucas, Luhring Augustine Gallery,
Rafael Spottorno Daz-Caro
John Madir, Tanya Marcuse, Peter C. Marzio, Bernhard

Mendes Brgi, Lorenza Mochi Onori, Sandy Nairne,
Antonio Natali, Magnus Olausson, Annie ONeill,
Alfred Pacquement, Nicholas Penny, Juan Antonio
Prez Simn, Bonnie Pitman, Timothy Potts, Earl A.
Powell III, Rene Price, Guillermo de Osma, Kendall
Rabun, Sean Rainbird, Pipilotti Rist, Hugh Roberts,
Joan Rosaenbaum, Axel Rger, Natalia Sacasa, Julie
Saul, Charles Saumarez-Smith, Hans-Werner Schmidt,
Pilar Serra, Tatyana Shaparenko, Colin Simpson, Kiki
Smith, Solfrid Sderlind, Kathleen Soriano, Thomas D.
Staley, Brian Stewart, Evert J. van Straaten, Dominique
Szymusiak, Jacques Taddei, Maija Tanninen-Mattila,
Benno Tempel, Guy Tosatto, Stefania Ulivieri, Laura
Steinberg & Bernardo Nadal-Ginard Collection, Alice
Vaganay, Antoine Verney, Claudia Wanner, Ron Warren,
White Cube, Wit Karol Wojtowicz, Lawrence J.
Wheeler, Aurora Zubillaga, Miguel Zugaza
En colaboracin con
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Prestadores
Alemania
Berln
Galerie Max Hetzler
Leipzig
Museum der Bildenden Knste
Schweinfurt
Museum Georg Schfer
Stuttgart
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
Wuppertal
Von der Heydt-Museum
Austria
Salzburgo
Residenzgalerie Salzburg
Viena
Liechtenstein Museum
Blgica
Bruselas
Muses Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique
Espaa
Madrid
Calcografa Nacional
Cmara Oscura Galera de Arte
Fundacin Lzaro Galdiano
Galera Guillermo de Osma
Galera Juana de Aizpuru
Galera Pilar Serra
Museo Nacional del Prado
Estados Unidos
Atlanta
Nancy Floyd
Austin
Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas
at Austin (Nickolas Muray Collection)
Boston
The Lachaise Foundation
Chestnut Hill
Laura Steinberg & Bernardo Nadal-Ginard Collection
Cleveland
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Dallas
Dallas Museum of Art
Barret Collection
Filadela
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
Goldenale
Maryhill Museum of Art
Houston
MFAH-The Museum of Fine Arts
Nueva York
Galerie Lelong
Hilary Harkness
Julie Saul Gallery
Luhring Augustine Gallery
Neue Galerie New York
Renee Cox
Ronald Feldman Fine Arts
The Jewish Museum
The Pace Gallery
The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation
Omaha
Joslyn Art Museum
Pittsburgh
Carnegie Museum of Art
Providence
The Rhode Island School of Design Museum
Raleigh
North Carolina Museum of Art
San Francisco
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Southport
Hall Collection
Toledo
Toledo Museum of Art
Washington
National Gallery of Art
Finlandia
Helsinki
Anni Leppl
Ateneum Art Museum
Francia
Bayeux
Muse Baron Grard
Grenoble
Muse de Grenoble
Nantes
Muse des Beaux-Arts de Nantes
Niza
Muse des Beaux-Arts
Muse Matisse Le Cateau-Cambrsis
Orleans
Muse des Beaux-Arts dOrlans
Pars
Centre Georges Pompidou / Muse national
dart moderne
Collection Arsfutura-Serge Le Borgne
Muse dOrsay
Muse Marmottan-Monet
Petit Palais-Muse des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris
Quimper
Muse des Beaux-Arts
Hungra
Budapest
Szpmuvszeti Mzeum (Museum of Fine Arts)
Italia
Bolonia
Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna
Grosseto
ASL9 Grosseto, Comune de Castel del Piano (GR) Sistema
Museale Amiata (Comunit Montana Amiata Grossetano)
Florencia
Galleria degli Ufzi
Npoles
Polo Museale Napoletano
Roma
Museo Galleria di Villa Borghese
Turn
Galleria Civica dArte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino
Venecia
Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca dOro
Mxico
Mxico D. F.
Coleccin Prez-Simn
Pases Bajos
Amsterdam
Van Gogh Museum
La Haya
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag
Otterlo
Rijksmuseum Krller-Mller
Polonia
Lancut
Muzeum Zamek w ancucie
Portugal
Lisboa
Coleco Banco Esprito Santo
Fundao Calouste Gulbenkian
Reino Unido
Birkenhead
Williamson Art Gallery and Museum
St. Edmundsbury
St. Edmundsbury Heritage Service
Cambridge
The Fitzwilliam Museum
Exeter
Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery
Falmouth
Falmouth Art Gallery
Kilmarnock
East Ayrshire Council
Londres
Mona Hatoum
National Portrait Gallery
Royal Academy of Arts
Royal Collection
Tate National
The National Gallery
Oldham
Oldham Art Gallery
Rusia
Mosc
Triumph Gallery
State Tretyakov Gallery
Suecia
Estocolmo
Nationalmuseum
Suiza
Basilea
Kunstmuseum Basel
Fondation Beyeler
Le Locle
Muse des Beaux-Arts
Zrich
Galerie Katharina Bttiker Art Nouveau-Art Dec
Hauser & Wirth
Kunsthaus Zrich
Ucrania
St. Dnipropetrovsk
The Dnipropetrovsk Museum of Art
Y otros coleccionistas que han preferido
permanecer en el anonimato.
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Ministerio de Cultura
El Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza y la Fundacin Caja Madrid abren este ao su

programa de exposiciones con una atractiva propuesta: Heronas, comisariada por
Guillermo Solana.
El acuerdo de colaboracin suscrito entre ambas instituciones, punteras dentro del panorama cultural espaol, ha permitido el desarrollo de un proyecto ambicioso que analiza la gura de la mujer dentro de la cultura occidental al margen
de los estereotipos dominantes. El objetivo de esta exposicin es dar una visin de
la gura femenina como mujer fuerte: activa, independiente, desaante, inspirada,
creadora, dominadora y triunfante, estableciendo un dilogo entre el arte de otros
siglos y la creacin actual.
Siguiendo un orden temtico, la muestra explora los escenarios y las vocaciones de las heronas: la iconografa de la soledad, el trabajo, la embriaguez, el deporte, la guerra, la magia, la religin, la lectura y la pintura. En cada captulo de la
exposicin se yuxtaponen obras de distintas pocas, lenguajes y medios artsticos
para provocar una reexin sobre lo que cambia y lo que permanece a travs de
esas diferencias. Y en cada seccin, una o varias voces de mujeres artistas, sobre
todo contemporneas, responden a las imgenes creadas por sus colegas varones.
Un proyecto tan complejo no hubiera sido posible sin la cooperacin de los
prestadores, que han cedido obras de un gran valor artstico. Por eso queremos dar
las gracias tanto a los museos espaoles y extranjeros como a los coleccionistas
privados que tan generosamente han contribuido. Y queremos transmitir nuestro
reconocimiento al esfuerzo de todas aquellas personas que han colaborado en la
realizacin de la exposicin.
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Presidente del Patronato de la Fundacin Caja Madrid
Hace ya nueve aos que la Fundacin Coleccin Thyssen-Bornemisza y la Fundacin Caja Madrid iniciaron un novedoso proyecto de colaboracin consistente
en la organizacin conjunta de grandes exposiciones de arte moderno y contemporneo. Esta asociacin no es slo novedosa, tambin es virtuosa a juzgar por,
entre otros criterios, la muy favorable respuesta del pblico que en la ltima exposicin recientemente concluida, Jardines impresionistas, ha batido un nuevo
rcord de asistencias.
La identicacin de capacidades complementarias, la bsqueda de sinergias y
la elaboracin de formas de relacin constructivas entre dos instituciones proyectadas con igual vocacin a la difusin de la alta cultura han dado un fruto abundante y duradero: excelente crtica, mxima asistencia, ampliacin de la oferta
cultural y turstica y la multiplicacin de espacios culturales en los ejes histricoartsticos de Madrid.
No han sido ajenos a la consecucin de estos logros una comunicacin y difusin especializada y bien planicada, guiones y equipos cientcos del mayor valor
y un deseo sincero por llegar a la mayor cantidad posible de pblico mediante una
verdadera didctica de la contemplacin y comprensin del arte, sin renunciar a
la exigencias cientcas. Responsables de estos logros son los equipos tcnicos y
cientcos de nuestras instituciones, ejemplos de colaboracin inteligente y bien
avenida.
En esta ocasin presentamos la exposicin Heronas que hace el nmero diecisis de nuestro programa de exhibicin conjunta. Su comisario, Guillermo Solana,
director artstico del Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, nos propone una alegora sobre
los diversos roles de la mujer en el arte occidental, desde el Renacimiento a nuestros das, que desdicen los estereotipos ms convencionales asignados a su gnero:
madre y objeto ertico, destacando aquellos otros igualmente connaturales pero
menos apacibles: guerrera, bacante, trabajadora, mrtir, hechicera o herona.
El esfuerzo de organizar y montar una exposicin como la presente se funda
en primer lugar en la posibilidad de reunir un nmero muy elevado de obras de
arte de las ms reputadas colecciones del mundo. A sus propietarios o representantes hay que agradecer su imprescindible colaboracin.
El atractivo de la idea desarrollada en esta exposicin y la belleza y ecacia de
las obras que la ilustran auguran, una vez ms, un xito estimable.
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Guillermo Solana
Director artstico del Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Heronas es una galera de mujeres fuertes. En el vasto territorio del arte occidental hemos ido a buscar las guras femeninas activas, independientes, desaantes,
inspiradas, creadoras, dominadoras, triunfantes: guras que pueden ser fuentes de
empoderamiento (empowerment) para las propias mujeres. Como no obstante la
mayora de esas imgenes han sido creadas por hombres en el seno de una secular
tradicin patriarcal, en cada uno de los espacios de esta exposicin hay una artista
contempornea para dar la rplica. Demasiado numerosas para nombrarlas aqu,
estas creadoras vivas son las verdaderas protagonistas de esta exposicin.
A la hora de los agradecimientos, quiero nombrar en primer lugar a la profesora Roco de la Villa; juntos discutimos, con la conanza de nuestra vieja amistad,
el planteamiento y el itinerario de la exposicin, que se beneci de sus valiosas
objeciones y sugerencias. Ella era tambin la persona ms autorizada para hacerse cargo del ciclo de conferencias y el simposio que acompaan a la muestra. Mi
agradecimiento se extiende a las profesoras Carmen Gallardo y Amelia Valcrcel,
que me hicieron el honor de escribir para este catlogo. La profesora Ftima DezPlatas revis mi propio texto desde el punto de vista de la cultura clsica, ponindome a salvo de algunos errores lamentables. Excusado es decir que slo yo soy
responsable de los defectos y olvidos que hayan sobrevivido.
Como siempre, son los prestadores quienes hacen posible todo lo dems. Entre todas las instituciones que han colaborado generosamente en nuestro empeo, quiero destacar a la National Gallery de Londres por el prstamo excepcional
de las Jvenes espartanas de Degas, un testimonio nico en la emergencia de la
conciencia feminista al nal del siglo XIX. Entre los coleccionistas privados, a Juan
Antonio Prez Simn, que nos ofreci, como en tantas ocasiones, los ricos fondos
de su coleccin. De Concha Hernndez parti la feliz iniciativa para que esta exposicin se englobara en el festival Ellas Crean.
Mi reconocimiento a nuestros socios de la Fundacin Caja Madrid y en particular a Rafael Spottorno, que recibi este proyecto con una comprensin generosa
y crtica al mismo tiempo. Mi agradecimiento, en n, a todo el equipo del Museo
Thyssen-Bornemisza, y muy especialmente a la coordinadora de la exposicin,
Laura Andrada, que ha llevado sobre sus hombros el peso de todas las gestiones y
ha luchado por el proyecto con ms pasin y constancia que nunca.
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ndice
17
Heronas
Guillermo Solana
53
Artistas heronas
Roco de la Villa
83
De la mirada a la palabra.
Cuatro heronas mticas
Carmen Gallardo
105
Mujeres de poder
Amelia Valcrcel
117
Heronas
120
Solas
130
Caritides
144
Mnades
164
Atletas
178
Acorazadas
194
Amazonas
218
Magas
230
Mrtires
238
Msticas
248
Lectoras
266
Pintoras
289
English Texts
325
List of Works
331
Bibliografa seleccionada
Marina Abramovic
La cocina I. Homenaje
a santa Teresa, 2009
[detalle de cat. 79]
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Edgar Degas
Jvenes espartanas desafiando
a sus compaeros, c. 1860
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Guillermo Solana
Heronas
Para mi madre, mi primera herona
Tienen que desnudarse las mujeres para entrar en el Metropolitan Museum of Art?, era
la pregunta provocadora que las Guerrilla Girls basaban en hechos contundentes: Menos
del 5 por ciento de los artistas del Departamento de Arte Moderno son mujeres, pero el 85
por ciento de los desnudos son femeninos [g. 1]. La imagen de la mujer ha sido sobreexplotada en el arte occidental y esa sobreexplotacin est ligada a la pregunta clsica de
Linda Nochlin: Por qu no ha habido grandes mujeres artistas?. Cuanto ms difcil ha
sido el acceso de las mujeres reales a la creacin artstica, ms han proliferado las mujeres
representadas en la pintura o la escultura. Como si la presencia multiplicada de la mujer
en cuanto objeto de la representacin pretendiera compensar su agrante ausencia como
sujeto creador de las imgenes.
fig. 1
Guerrilla Girls
Do women have to be naked
to get into the Met. Museum?,
Nueva York, 1989
De la abrumadora cantidad de guras femeninas representadas en el arte occidental,

la inmensa mayora viene a reducirse a dos estereotipos complementarios: la maternidad
y el objeto ertico, la madonna y la pin-up. Ahora bien, la misma cultura que impone esos
estereotipos dominantes genera contratipos y excepciones que ponen en cuestin los roles
de gnero. La mitologa griega, tan obviamente patriarcal, produjo tambin constelaciones
ginocntricas, como las de rtemis y Atalanta, las mnades y las amazonas. Inventados para
exorcizar la amenaza de la alteridad femenina, esos mitos encierran un potencial crtico. En
su ensayo clsico sobre la risa de Medusa, Hlne Cixous reconoci en la Gorgona la expresin femenina excluida por la cultura patriarcal; las artistas feministas han transformado
con frecuencia un estereotipo misgino en una imagen subversiva.
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Heronas
Guillermo Solana
Qu signica el ttulo Heronas? La historia del arte occidental abunda en imgenes

de mujeres seductoras, complacientes, sumisas, vencidas, esclavizadas. Pero el objeto de
nuestra exposicin son las guras de mujeres fuertes: activas, independientes, desaantes, inspiradas, creadoras, dominadoras, triunfantes. O bien, para usar una palabra clave
de la agenda feminista en las ltimas dcadas: esta exposicin se interesa por aquellas
imgenes que pueden ser fuentes de empoderamiento (empowerment) para las propias
mujeres.
Los inventarios de heronas tienen una larga historia, desde los primeros catlogos de
mujeres clebres de Hesodo y Homero, donde ellas slo guraban como accesorio de los
varones: a ttulo de madres e hijas, esposas o amantes de los hroes o de los dioses. El primer compendio de mujeres ilustres por sus propios mritos fue el De claris mulieribus de
Boccaccio, que segua la huella del De viris illustribus de Petrarca. Inspirada por el texto
de Boccaccio, pero decidida al mismo tiempo a corregir su punto de vista, Christine de
Pizan, escribi en 1405 la primera defensa de las mujeres escrita por una mujer: Le Livre
de la cit des dames [vanse gs. 18 y 19]. Si se permite el anacronismo, Christine de Pizan
fue la primera feminista porque atribuy la desventaja de la mujer, no a la naturaleza, sino
a la costumbre. Su texto inaugur una larga Querelle des Femmes que ha durado siete siglos
y todava sigue abierta.
Nuestra exposicin es tambin una especie de ciudad de las mujeres centrada especialmente en el ciclo de la modernidad, desde el siglo XIX hasta la actualidad. Siguiendo
un orden, no cronolgico, sino temtico, explora los escenarios y las vocaciones de las heronas: la iconografa de la soledad, el trabajo, el delirio, el deporte, la guerra, la magia, la
religin, la lectura y la pintura. En cada captulo de la exposicin se yuxtaponen obras de
distintas pocas, lenguajes y medios artsticos para provocar una reexin sobre lo que
cambia y lo que permanece a travs de esas diferencias. Y en cada captulo, una o varias
voces de mujeres artistas, sobre todo contemporneas, responden a las imgenes creadas
por sus colegas varones.
La primera condicin de la herona es la soledad y el primer captulo de la exposicin
presenta a mujeres solas, comenzando por las imgenes modernas de heronas antiguas
como Penlope e Igenia. En su espera y su nostalgia, actitudes aparentemente pasivas,
hay un germen de autonoma e incluso de resistencia. Las heronas modernas de la soledad, por otra parte, ya no se identican con Penlope, sino con Ulises; no esperan al hroe
ausente, sino que se convierten en viajeras como l.
Toda una tradicin de la pintura del siglo XIX se centra en la pica de la campesina. El
captulo segundo est dedicado a segadoras y espigadoras, aguadoras y lavanderas, mujeres
robustas y monumentales que sostienen como caritides la arquitectura de la familia y de
la sociedad. La retrica de estas imgenes tiene un valor ambiguo: por una parte celebran
a la mujer trabajadora, pero exaltando al mismo tiempo su servidumbre como un destino
natural y eterno. Hijas de la Tierra y atadas a ella para siempre, las campesinas-caritides
son heronas encadenadas.
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La bacante aparece a veces en la pintura como un juguete ertico-decorativo creado

para el deleite del voyeur. Pero detrs de este papel acecha la terrible violencia de las mnades mitolgicas, dotadas de superpoderes: capaces de arrancar con sus manos un gran
rbol o despedazar un toro (o a un hombre). La mnade furiosa, destructora de hombres
y rebelde al orden patriarcal, que fascin a algunos artistas del siglo XIX , es un tpico
ejemplo de imagen recuperada por las artistas contemporneas como fuente de empoderamiento.
Como rtemis y sus ninfas, la mortal Atalanta rechaza los poderes de Afrodita y destaca en los ejercicios supuestamente masculinos: la caza, la lucha cuerpo a cuerpo, la carrera.
La gura de Atalanta encierra una amenaza potencial contra los roles de gnero que ha
sido desactivada una y otra vez, desde el propio Ovidio hasta las interpretaciones pictricas del mito. En la pintura victoriana, no obstante, la iconografa de cazadoras y atletas
antiguas ser rescatada para imaginar la emancipacin del cuerpo femenino y el derecho
al deporte como precursor en la conquista de otros derechos sociales y polticos.
La primera parte de la exposicin culmina en la imagen de la mujer guerrera. En primer
lugar, las vrgenes guerreras, doncellas acorazadas segn el prototipo de Juana de Arco. La
armadura permite a la mujer travestirse para ejercer una actividad tpicamente masculina,
pero al mismo tiempo es una metfora ecaz de la virginidad. En el arte del nal del siglo
XIX , en artistas tan diversos como Edgar Degas y Franz von Stuck, las guerreras se despojan de la coraza, regresando a la imagen original de las antiguas amazonas y acercndose,
al mismo tiempo, a las reivindicaciones feministas que hacen eclosin en esa poca.
Si en la primera parte de la exposicin, en el Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, domina el
poder fsico de las heronas, la segunda parte, en las salas de la Fundacin Caja Madrid, explora los poderes espirituales de magas, mrtires y msticas, estigmatizadas con frecuencia
como brujas, locas o histricas. Muchas veces las magas en la pintura han sido reducidas
al papel de la femme fatale, denida con relacin al deseo masculino, ignorando lo que hay
en ellas de semejantes a Orfeo, de sabias que humanizan y civilizan a bestias y hombres.
Las santas mrtires no son simplemente vctimas, sino heronas triunfantes, a rmativas
in extremis. La levitacin de las msticas puede ser una imagen de la experiencia de la mujer
en etapas de transicin como la adolescencia.
Un sedimento de los poderes espirituales tradicionalmente atribuidos a las mujeres
queda en la gura de la lectora. El ltimo captulo de la exposicin est dedicado a las imgenes que las mujeres han creado ante el espejo: el desarrollo del autorretrato de las pintoras desde Sofonisba Anguissola hasta Frida Kahlo.
* * *
19
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Edvard Munch
Atardecer, 1888
[detalle de cat. 5]
Soledad y viaje
Nostos, el regreso a casa, es uno de los grandes temas de la literatura griega antigua. En la
Ilada, el nostos constituye una peligrosa tentacin del hroe y, como para compensar, en
la Odisea se convierte en la empresa heroica central: el viaje de retorno a taca, diferido
por innumerables obstculos. El nostos se desdobla en dos roles tpicos: el hombre ausente
y la mujer que le espera en casa. A la lucha de Ulises contra todo lo que le retiene en el mar
le corresponde la resistencia de Penlope contra los pretendientes. El valor heroico de esa
resistencia estriba en que Penlope no est bajo la custodia de ningn varn (ni marido, ni
padre, ni el hijo, demasiado joven). La soledad le proporciona una rara autonoma.
El tipo de Penlope en el arte antiguo es una gura sentada, con las piernas cruzadas y
la cabeza cubierta y apoyada en la mano, en la actitud de la melancola. La gura de Soledad
de Frederick Leighton adopta esa postura [cat. 3]. Est en el fondo de una caverna profunda, como una tumba, que podra aludir al tero, a la concavidad del cuerpo femenino. Su
situacin, sentada en alto, con los pies colgando, la hace parecer dependiente, como condenada a una forzosa minora de edad.
La Penlope de Antoine Bourdelle [cat. 4], en cambio, se ha puesto de pie; su movimiento
de cadera y la pierna adelantada revelan un impulso decidido. Frente a la soolienta Soledad de Leighton, la Penlope de Bourdelle parece estar despertando, quiz elevndose a
otro nivel de conciencia. El escultor tom su actitud de un dibujo en el que haba captado
a su alumna Cloptre Sevastos admirando las esculturas hindes en el British Museum.
En contrapunto con Penlope, otra herona griega nos trae su propio nostos. Es Igenia,
ofrecida por su padre Agamenn como vctima propiciatoria al zarpar hacia Troya y rescatada por la diosa rtemis. En las tragedias de Eurpides y Goethe, Igenia vive a salvo
como sacerdotisa de la diosa en la lejana costa de los tauros, pero sufre la nostalgia de Grecia. El pintor Anselm Feuerbach estuvo obsesionado media vida por esa gura de Igenia,
a la que represent en tres versiones pictricas distintas. En la segunda versin [cat. 2],
la herona aparece sentada a las puertas del templo de rtemis y mirando con aoranza
hacia el mar que la separa de Grecia. Su cuerpo, indicado por los clsicos pliegues, se dispone majestuoso como en un relieve antiguo. La tragedia reside en la diferencia entre el
cuerpo y la cabeza. El cuerpo est encadenado a la roca, fundido con ella, como enterrado
en vida; slo la cabeza emerge por encima del horizonte y vuela lejos, al otro lado del mar. Y
el rostro de Igenia aparece en prol perdu, elusivo, en fuga. Igenia es una anti-Penlope,
porque no espera al que regresa: es ella quien anhela regresar. Pero Igenia no es todava
Ulises, porque no controla su propio destino. Aora su tierra al modo de las troyanas cautivas (como Briseida y Criseida, Casandra y Andrmaca), convertidas en esclavas y alejadas
de su patria.
La soledad de las heronas modernas parece ms abstracta. Atardecer es la primera aparicin de la melancola en la obra de Edvard Munch [cat. 5]. La joven del sombrero amarillo mira hacia la lejana, pero mira sin ver, sumida en sus pensamientos, inaccesible para
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Heronas
Guillermo Solana
Edward Hopper
Habitacin de hotel, 1931
[cat. 6]
nosotros. Sabemos que es la hermana menor del pintor, Laura, en los estadios iniciales
de su esquizofrenia. Munch la pintar, aos despus, internada en el asilo de Gaustad, en
un cuadro titulado Melancola (1900-1901). En Atardecer, delante de Laura se insina una
sombra, un fantasma; la reectografa infrarroja revela que all hubo una mujer de pie, con
un vestido largo. Al borrar esa gura, el pintor cre un poderoso vaco central y una fuerte
asimetra que volvera a utilizar muchas veces para expresar la melancola y la locura.
Igual que el cuadro de Munch, Habitacin de hotel de Edward Hopper [cat. 6] es una
imagen moderna de la melancola (inspirada quiz en la Melancola de Durero, como ha
defendido Margaret Iversen). Una mujer est sentada en la cama, leyendo un papel amarillo; la sombra sobre el rostro nos impide descifrar su expresin. El sombrero en la cmoda,
los zapatos, las maletas sin abrir, el abrigo en el silln nos revelan que ese cuarto no es
su propio cuarto, sino una habitacin provisional. Como est leyendo un papel amarillo,
alguien podra recordar la Betsab de Rembrandt leyendo la carta del rey David [g. 2] o
esas mujeres de Vermeer que leen cartas de amor o de desamor. Pero en el registro donde
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fig. 2
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

Betsab en el bao, 1654
leo sobre lienzo, 142 x 142 cm
Muse du Louvre, Pars,
inv. MI 957
Josephine Nivison, la esposa de Hopper, anotaba las circunstancias de cada cuadro, encontramos esta descripcin: Habitacin de hotel. Una chica alta con camisa rosa, cabello castao, leyendo un horario (amarillo). El papel no es la carta de un ausente, sino un horario de
trenes o de autobuses. La mujer moderna protagoniza el nostos no ya como Penlope, sino
como el viajero Ulises.
Sarah Jones ha confesado la inuencia en su obra reciente de una pintura tarda de
Hopper, Luz del sol en una habitacin vaca (1963). La fotografa pertenece a una serie
de jvenes en su cuarto, a veces sentadas en su cama [cat. 7]. Esa cama nos remite a los
divanes de psicoanalista que Jones ha fotograado obsesivamente desde hace ms de
una dcada. El divn es el lugar donde se revive el pasado para librarse de su hechizo. Las
cortinas estampadas me parecen evocar un hogar que lo fue, pero se ha vuelto extrao,
ajeno. La fotografa de Sarah Jones es quiz la imagen de un nostos fallido, de quien vuelve a su lugar de origen y no lo reconoce como propio. You cant go home again, no puedes
volver a casa
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Heronas
Guillermo Solana
Campesinas, caritides
El historiador del arte Heinrich Wlfin anot en su diario en mayo de 1885: Sobre lo pico. Mi viaje me ha brindado un momento en que he credo sentir el espritu de lo pico.
Sucedi en Rotenburgo: estbamos en el patio derruido de un antiguo monasterio, rodeados
de ruinas, pero sobre los muros grises y los tejados rojos sonrea luminoso un cielo azul de
primavera y una suave brisa en las ores blancas de un manzanito. En el viejo huerto monstico haba una mujer cavando la tierra: el trabajo humano primordial y eterno. En aquel
momento sent algo de la esencia de lo pico: la contemplacin de mundos pasados y la intuicin de la relacin siempre igual entre la naturaleza y el ser humano otorgaban al espritu
aquella calma y recogimiento moral que con razn llamamos pico.
Suena extrao reconocer lo pico no en la gura de un conquistador, un Alejandro o
un Bonaparte, sino en una annima campesina cavando la tierra. Todo comenz quiz en
1851, cuando Jean-Franois Millet expuso en el Saln su solemne Sembrador, sacando a
las guras campesinas de la pintura de gnero para elevarlas a la condicin de alegoras del
Trabajo y la Tierra. Poco despus, otro pintor, Jules-Adolphe Breton, codicaba el realismo
campesino de Millet, haciendo de las mujeres sus protagonistas ms frecuentes. Las robustas campesinas de Breton se recortan heroicamente contra el cielo del alba o el crepsculo
[cats. 10-12 y 14] y el pintor, que era tambin poeta, glosa en sus versos sus resonancias clsicas. En su libro Les Champs et la mer evoca por ejemplo a la espigadora como una Ceres de
la Galia que lleva a la espalda su carga de espigas de oro. O compara con estatuas de mrmol a las campesinas bretonas que van a la fuente con el nfora en la cabeza. Las lavanderas,
al caer el sol, se agigantan y tienen el aire de antiguas canforas. Las canforas, al transportar sobre su cabeza o sus hombros el peso de un fardo, una cesta o un cntaro, se parecen a caritides, poderosas columnas que soportan la arquitectura eterna de la Familia y la Sociedad.
La pintura campesina de Millet y Breton gener un movimiento en la segunda mitad del
siglo XIX, representado por epgonos como Lon Lhermitte, Julien Dupr o Jules BastienLepage, que combinaban en distintos grados el idealismo acadmico y el realismo fotogrco. Pero sus ecos se propagaron en un mbito ms amplio, que incluye pintores tan diferentes como el academicista William-Adolphe Bouguereau y el impresionista Camille Pissarro.
La segadora de Bouguereau [cat. 8] fue atacada en las reseas del Saln de 1872 porque se
vio en ella un ensayo (fallido) del artista por emular a Breton. La autoridad de esta Segadora
no reside slo en su actitud segura y en su complexin miguelangelesca. Deriva tambin del
hecho de que una segadora sosteniendo una guadaa es, en el lenguaje de la alegora, un inequvoco emblema de la muerte. Pissarro prescinde, en su campesina [cat. 15], de toda declamacin, pero conserva en su sencilla prosa un ncleo pico: tambin ella es una herona.
Ese ncleo sobrevivi a la gran demolicin de las vanguardias del siglo XX. Hacia 1928,
el pionero que haba sido Malvich regres a las campesinas que pintaba antes de la Gran
Guerra, con sus vacos rostros ovalados. La Muchacha con palo rojo [cat. 16] posee la concrecin de un retrato; pero al mismo tiempo parece llevar una mscara. El palo que sostiene
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(un rastrillo u otra herramienta agrcola) la convierte un poco, como a la campesina de

Pissarro, en una imagen de la fuerza equilibrada. Su rigidez solemne, hiertica, reaparecer
en La red de Maruja Mallo [cat. 17]. Poco despus del estallido de la guerra civil y de emigrar
a Amrica, Mallo se entreg a lo que ella misma denominaba la religin del trabajo, una gloricacin de los trabajadores, especialmente campesinas y pescadoras acompaadas por
smbolos msticos (como el pez y la estrella). Los dos protagonistas de La red tienen rasgos
andrginos, que impiden decidir si se trata de dos mujeres o de un hombre y una mujer.
Janine Antoni crea poderosas constelaciones simblicas utilizando objetos cotidianos y
su propio cuerpo. Su Caritide [cat. 13] es una fotografa invertida de la artista de espaldas
con un cntaro en la cabeza. El cntaro es una imagen inmemorial del cuerpo femenino, de
su silueta curva y de la concavidad del tero. En el folclore patriarcal, el cntaro roto representa la virginidad perdida; aqu se convierte ms bien en un gesto de ira contra los roles de
gnero impuestos a la mujer. La eterna caritide se niega a seguir sosteniendo el mundo y se
pone a caminar sobre la cabeza.
Mnades y bacantes
fig. 3
Dioniso cabalgando una

pantera. Suelo de mosaico
de la Casa de Dioniso en Pella
Finales del siglo IV a. C.
Museo Arqueolgico de Pella,
Macedonia
En la pintura del siglo XIX, la bacante ebria y libertina puede ser una perfecta incitacin
al voyeurismo amparada en la dignidad de los modelos clsicos. Dentro de ese gnero del
erotismo arqueologizante se encuentra la Bacante cabalgando una pantera de Bouguereau
[cat. 18], que formaba parte de una serie de pinturas destinadas a decorar una mansin parisiense, imitando las guras de antiguos mosaicos romanos. Lo curioso es que Bouguereau
se inspir en un mosaico donde quien cabalga sobre la pantera no es una mnade, sino el
mismsimo Dioniso [g. 3]. Otra pieza de inspiracin antigua es Mnades exhaustas despus
de la danza, de 1874 [cat. 19], una obra inacabada de Alma-Tadema, cuyas guras evocan
el tipo clsico de la mnade dormida sobre una piel de pantera (una versin de la cual es el
famoso Hermafrodita dormido).
Pero la bacante como sueo ertico implica un reverso de pesadilla: los mismos artistas
acadmicos que pintaron el encanto de las mnades se interesaron por su feroz misandria.
Como para vengar su uso como objetos ertico-decorativos, mnades y bacantes regresan
con una amenaza de castracin y de muerte. Charles Gleyre, que haba producido bacantes
sensuales para deleite del mirn masculino, pint su Penteo perseguido por las mnades, hacia 1865 [cat. 20] inspirndose en el terrible argumento de las Bacantes de Eurpides. Con
el n de vengarse de Penteo, Dioniso le incita a disfrazarse de mujer para espiar los ritos de
las mnades en el bosque; pero se trata de una trampa: ellas le descubren y le despedazan
(incluida su madre, Agave, que le arranca la cabeza tomndolo por un len). El violento dina mismo de la composicin de Gleyre no tiene precedentes en la pintura antigua.
La muerte de Orfeo de mile Lvy [cat. 21] se ajusta mejor a los modelos clsicos: ya en
los vasos del siglo V el poeta mtico apareca tendido por tierra, abrazando la lira contra
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Heronas
Guillermo Solana
su pecho y rodeado por las atacantes. En el cuadro de Lvy, la cadena de mnades danzantes que desciende hasta el cuerpo vencido del poeta encarna una sisterhood, una temible
solidaridad entre mujeres. Frente a ese poder irresistible, el cuerpo de Orfeo yace blandamente, con una cierta ambigedad sexual. Penteo y Orfeo, vctimas de las mnades furiosas, comparten el mismo destino de feminizacin.
Lo que los idealistas acadmicos describen como tragedia, el realista Lovis Corinth lo
aborda en tono satrico, casi de caricatura [cat. 24]. Sus bacantes regresan de la orga abrazadas a un Sileno obeso y ebrio que, como Orfeo, aunque de otro modo, parece afectado
por los efectos de una invisible castracin: este Sileno ambiguo podra confundirse de lejos
con otra bacante. Podemos preguntar cul es el blanco de la stira de Corinth. Acaso los
principios acadmicos del desnudo ideal? O se trata quiz de una burla misgina, dirigida
contra las mujeres emancipadas? Quiz no sea intil recordar al respecto las reexiones
de Julia Kristeva sobre lo abyecto del cuerpo materno para la mirada patriarcal o las de
Mary Russo sobre el valor transgresor de lo grotesco femenino (female grotesque). La
Iris de Rodin [cat. 23] no es una mnade, pero su danza obscena encarna ese mismo aspecto grotesco y abyecto del cuerpo femenino.
Situada en la iconografa que venimos siguiendo, la Bacante de Mary Cassatt resulta
extraa [cat. 22]; slo una mujer artista poda escapar al mismo tiempo al voyeurismo y al
horror misgino. Su bacante es una zngara de rostro frgil, enfermizo, que toca los cmbalos con una expresin de melancola, no de embriaguez: una especie de bacante mstica.
Las mnades terminaron por alistarse en el combate feminista. Una prueba es esa pieza de Nancy Spero que reproduce una copa tica del siglo V a. C. [cat. 26]. La estrategia
de Spero consiste en construir una simultaneidad de mujeres a travs del tiempo, una
especie de panten de guras femeninas de distintas pocas y culturas. En sus collages
conviven las diosas antiguas (como la babilnica Tiamat, la egipcia Nut [cat. 27] y la griega
rtemis) con mujeres modernas; danzantes griegas y campesinas vietnamitas, plaideras
egipcias y atletas olmpicas. Protesta y celebracin, furor poltico y delirio dionisaco se
funden tambin en la obra de una artista ms joven, Pipilotti Rist. La ms elocuente mnade contempornea es la protagonista de su pieza Ever is Over All [cat. 28], esa muchacha
de vestido azul y zapatos rojos que sale a la calle risuea, con la alegra de un da de esta,
blandiendo el tirso de las mnades antiguas.
Cazadoras y atletas
Abandonada al nacer, Atalanta fue amamantada por una osa y rescatada por unos cazadores que la criaron. Dos centauros trataron de violarla, pero ella los mat. Consagrada
a rtemis/Diana, seora de los bosques y las eras, y protectora de las mujeres, Atalanta
aparece a veces en los vasos griegos representada como una mnade (con serpientes y pieles de eras) o como amazona arquera. Sus grandes pasiones son la caza, el combate y la
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carrera. Participa, con Meleagro y otros hroes, en la cacera del jabal de Calidn, donde
asesta el primer golpe al animal. En los juegos en honor del rey Pelias, combate cuerpo a
cuerpo con Peleo. La tercera historia es la de la famosa prueba que Atalanta impone a sus
pretendientes: se casar con quien la venza en una carrera (pero el derrotado morir). Uno
de ellos, Hipmenes, acude a Afrodita, quien le ofrece tres manzanas doradas para arrojarlas al paso de Atalanta. Hipmenes es el instrumento de Afrodita/Venus para vencer a Atalanta y, a travs de ella, a rtemis (en el relato de Ovidio, es Venus quien le cuenta la historia
de Atalanta al cazador Adonis).
La historia de la carrera prenupcial parece inventada para desactivar el potencial subversivo de la gura de Atalanta. Las versiones pictricas de dicha carrera slo agravan esa
tendencia. Guido Reni concibe la escena como una extraa danza en la oscuridad, un paso
de ballet entre dos desnudos [cat. 29]. La carrera est en su punto medio: Hipmenes ha
arrojado la segunda manzana y se reserva en su mano la tercera. Aunque la carrera avanza
de izquierda a derecha, las dos guras se mueven en sentidos opuestos. Como ha sealado Marc Fumaroli en un brillante comentario, el cuadro de Reni sugiere una alegora.
Atalanta, al ir a recoger la manzana, se inclina hacia el suelo, casi a cuatro patas, y todo su
cuerpo queda por debajo de la lnea del horizonte, como atrapado en la tierra y la noche.
En cambio, Hipmenes se yergue, y su tronco, sus brazos y su cabeza se elevan sobre el
hori zonte, entrando en la regin celeste donde ya despunta la aurora. Adems, como
sugiere Fumaroli, Reni ha prestado a Atalanta las caderas y las formas de una Venus.
Rechazando con el gesto a esta voluptuosa gura que le persigue, Hipmenes levanta el
pie del suelo, como si se echara a volar (a su espalda, el velo es un ala metafrica). Es difcil
imaginar una lectura del mito ms desfavorable para la herona y para las mujeres en general que la de Reni.
En contraste con l, la interpretacin del clasicista francs Nicolas Colombel [cat. 31],
ms convencional, reintroduce en la escena el paisaje que Reni haba excluido y hace presidir la carrera a un Eros-Himeneo con la antorcha y la corona (un motivo que procede de las
representaciones antiguas de la carrera). La postura de Atalanta es bsicamente la misma
que en Reni, pero aqu, en vez de la contraposicin losca entre lo masculino-celeste y lo
femenino-terrestre, lo que se propone es simplemente la sumisin de la esposa al marido,
la moraleja trivial de la erecilla domada.
Atalanta es la precursora mtica del atletismo femenino. Desde comienzos del siglo XIX,
los avances de los programas de educacin fsica para muchachas preceden a la conquista
de sus derechos polticos y sociales. Dos pintores victorianos expresan el haz y el envs de
esos progresos: la realidad y la utopa. William Powell Frith vio a unas damas practicando
el tiro con arco en un lugar de la costa y recre la escena utilizando a sus tres hijas como
modelos [cat. 33]. Su cuadro escenica el conicto victoriano entre la difusin del deporte
femenino y unas ropas ridculamente inadecuadas. En los ltimos quince aos del siglo,
un nmero creciente de asociaciones y publicaciones promovieron el derecho de la mujer
al deporte y la correspondiente reforma del vestido. En una poca en que todava se usaba
27
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Heronas
Guillermo Solana
28
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fig. 4
Edgar Degas
Miss La La en el Circo
Fernando, 1879
leo sobre lienzo,
114,2 x 77,5 cm
The National Gallery,
Londres, inv. NG 4121
James Tissot
Las damas de los carros
(Circo), 1883-1885
[cat. 35]
el corset y la crinolette, Leighton suea con un cuerpo femenino libre de toda constriccin
[cat. 34]. Aunque su cuadro se presenta como una escena de gnero, probablemente alude
a la historia de Nausicaa, que en la Odisea apareca jugando a la pelota (una estudiosa alejandrina del siglo II a. C. atribuy a Nausicaa la invencin del juego de pelota). La gura que
lanza la bola tiene un aire andrgino y su actitud, signicativamente, fue juzgada anormal y carente de gracia en algunas crticas de la poca. En conjunto, la relacin entre los
cuerpos y las tnicas con el paisaje circundante sugieren una nueva armona entre el cuerpo
femenino y la naturaleza.
En los ltimos aos del siglo XIX, la vocacin atltica femenina tuvo un escenario marginal: el circo. Al regresar a su nativa Francia en 1882, tras once aos de xito en Londres,
James (o Jacques) Tissot concibi una serie de pinturas tituladas La Femme Paris donde
la mujer moderna aparece paseando por el parque, cenando en un caf al aire libre, despachando en una tienda, asistiendo a un baile o al teatro. Las damas de los carros [cat. 35]
completaba esta serie con la artista de circo. Estas damas de aire marcial recuerdan, como
notaron los crticos, a la estatua de la libertad de Bartholdi, que se haba presentado en la
Exposicin Universal de 1878. Tissot conocera, por otra parte, los apuntes y el cuadro en
el que su amigo Degas haba inmortalizado las proezas de la famosa Miss La La [g. 4], que
en el Circo Fernando se haca izar de una cuerda sujeta con los dientes. El circo es una extraa versin del estadio antiguo donde rtemis y Atalanta pueden ganarse la vida como
acrbatas y trapecistas, domadoras y ecuyres.
Vrgenes acorazadas
Los griegos, que imaginaron las mnades, inventaron tambin el mito colectivo de las
amazonas. Amazona, a-mazon, segn la etmologa popular, signicara sin pecho y no,
como arm Hipcrates y se ha repetido tantas veces desde entonces, que las amazonas
se mutilaran un pecho para disparar el arco, sino porque de algn modo eran equiparadas a las adolescentes pberes. Esquilo y Herodoto las llamaron parthenoi: no vrgenes en
sentido literal, sino jvenes solteras. Pero el cristianismo asumi literalmente la idea de
la virgen guerrera. La amazona clsica resurge en el siglo XV en la gura de Juana de Arco,
una gura liminar que combina cualidades masculinas y femeninas. En su famoso poema
Diti de Jehanne dArc, escrito en vida de la Doncella, Christine de Pizan la compar con
las heronas bblicas Esther, Judit y Deborah, pero tambin con Josu y Geden. La ponder sobre Hctor y Aquiles (Tel force not Hector nAchilles!) pero elogindola al mismo
tiempo con imgenes femeninas, al decir de ella que alimentaba de sus pechos a Francia
con la dulce y nutritiva leche de la paz.
Esa sntesis de rasgos de los dos gneros se traslada a la iconografa de Juana. En
una de las primeras imgenes que conservamos de ella, una ilustracin annima para Le
Champion des dames de Martin Le Franc, la Doncella aparece armada con lanza y escudo,
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Heronas
Guillermo Solana
fig. 5
Judit y Holofernes y Juana

de Arco, en Martin le Franc,
Le Champion des dames, 1451
Bibliothque Nationale de
France, Pars, Ms. Fr 12476
Marina Abramovic
Virgin Warrior Piet
(with Jan Fabre), 2005
el torso y las piernas cubiertos por la armadura, y la cabellera suelta [g. 5]. En el primer
monumento a Juana de Arco, erigido hacia 1502 en el Puente de Orleans, la encontramos
vestida de armadura y la melena hasta la cintura, arrodillada con Carlos VII ante una imagen de la Virgen y Cristo crucicado. Exactamente como en la pintura del taller de Rubens
[cat. 36], que combina la coraza con la melena roja. Los mismos cabellos pelirrojos con que
la representa Dante Gabriel Rossetti en la ltima obra que pint [cat. 37].
La esplndida cabellera de Juana en estas imgenes, que contradice desde luego los
testimonios documentales segn los cuales Juana llevaba el pelo corto, parece inventada
para compensar la dureza masculina de la coraza. Pero la coraza misma no est exenta de
ambigedad. Como ha sealado Marina Warner en su libro sobre Juana de Arco, la armadura puede ser una metfora de la virginidad; en el altar Albrecht (pintado antes de 1440,
quiz todava en vida de Juana) la Virgen Mara aparece, en su advocacin como turris
davidica, llevando una armadura completa, cubierta eso s con una falda (y la cabellera
rubia cayendo por la espalda).
Las resonancias de Juana de Arco llevaron la imagen de la virgen guerrera ms all
de Francia. Los nuevos poetas italianos Boiardo, Ariosto y Tasso, que se inspiraron en la
pica medieval francesa, reinventaron la gura de la Doncella guerrera. Boiardo y Ariosto
tuvieron su Marsa y su Bradamante, mientras que Tasso, en su Jerusaln liberada, creaba los personajes de Clorinda y Herminia. Delacroix pint la escena en que Herminia,
revestida de armadura, sorprende a un viejo pastor y su familia, pero ella les tranquiliza
[cat. 38]: no tienen nada que temer. La virgen guerrera reconcilia la fuerza belicosa y la
dulzura pastoral (Juana de Arco era tambin, como deca Christine de Pizan, una simple
bergire, una pastora).
La otra guerrera del Tasso, Clorinda, protagoniza una tela de Domenico Tintoretto
[cat. 39]. Tancredo se enamora de Clorinda, que combate en el campo enemigo. Durante
una batalla nocturna, la hiere mortalmente y la reconoce cuando ya es irreparable, pero
ella se convierte al cristianismo antes de morir. Tintoretto pinta el momento en que Tancredo trae el agua en su yelmo para bautizarla. La historia nos devuelve una vez ms a las
amazonas y a la historia clsica de su reina Pentesilea, muerta por Aquiles, que se enamora
de ella en el momento supremo. En la iconografa clsica de esta escena, el hroe griego sostiene en sus brazos a la amazona moribunda. Una versin actual de esa escena combinando
amor trgico y piedad religiosa lo encontramos en la performance Virgin Warrior/Warrior
Virgin de Marina Abramovic [cat. 40], que tuvo lugar en Pars, en el Palais de Tokyo, en
diciembre de 2004.
Las historias de vrgenes guerreras implican con frecuencia el intercambio de roles de
gnero. Un caso singular es el de la Atenea de Rembrandt [cat. 43], que perteneci al Hermitage antes de ser vendida al magnate Calouste Gulbenkian. El cuadro guraba como una
Palas en el primer catlogo manuscrito del Hermitage, de nales del siglo XVIII, pero en el
inventario contemporneo de la coleccin Baudouin, de la cual proceda la obra, reciba
el ttulo de Retrato de Alejandro con la armadura de Palas (en la literatura posterior, ha
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Heronas
Guillermo Solana
recibido an otros ttulos: Marte, Retrato de Tito y Joven guerrero), de donde surge
un curioso dilema. Si el Rembrandt representara a la diosa Palas vestida con armadura, se
tratara de un caso de travestismo por as decir convencional; pero si el tema fuera Alejandro disfrazado con la armadura de Palas nos hallaramos ante un caso de travestismo al
cuadrado.
En sus reveladoras fotografas de la serie Undergarments and Armor [cat. 44], Tanya
Marcuse plantea el paralelismo de sabor fetichista entre las armaduras y los viejos corss. Estructuras que ahorman la carne para someterla a unos roles de gnero prescritos.
Instrumentos de tortura para exaltar la fuerza o la belleza del cuerpo. La perfeccin fsica
como metamorfosis kafkiana que convierte a sus vctimas en escarabajos.
El retorno de las amazonas

En el catlogo de la quinta exposicin del grupo impresionista, en 1880, guraba un cuadro
de Edgar Degas titulado Petites lles spartaites provoquant des garons [cat. 45] y datado
veinte aos atrs, en 1860, pero la obra no lleg a exponerse, quiz porque el pintor no estaba del todo satisfecho, a pesar de que lo haba retocado recientemente, eliminando algunos
detalles arqueolgicos y dando a sus adolescentes un aire contemporneo. El cuadro, como
explic el propio Degas, se inspiraba en un pasaje de la Vida de Licurgo de Plutarco donde
se describe la educacin de estilo viril de las jvenes espartanas; al fondo aparece el propio
Licurgo con las matronas espartanas.
El joven Degas pint las Jvenes espartanas sin duda como un arreglo de cuentas con la
tradicin neoclsica francesa. Richard Brettell ha visto en ella una parodia de El juramentode los Horacios de David [g. 6], donde una marcada escisin compositiva separa a los
hombres juramentados del grupo de mujeres llorando su suerte. En Degas se invierten los
roles, y es el grupo femenino el que juega el papel activo, agresivo. Conocemos por Daniel
Halvy la descripcin que Degas ofreca del cuadro: Son las jvenes espartanas desaando
al combate a los jvenes. Norma Broude ha aportado el testimonio de otro amigo de Degas, el crtico italiano Diego Martelli, que resumi as el tema: Las jvenes espartanas que
excitan a los jvenes a la carrera, que decida, como era la ley de aquel pueblo, sobre su sumisin. Las palabras de Martelli sugieren que podra tratarse de una carrera como prueba
prenupcial, no muy distinta de la de Atalanta. En una interpretacin ms arriesgada, Carol
Salus ha conjeturado que Degas pretenda representar ciertos rituales de cortejo entre los
jvenes espartanos.
Quiz no sepamos nunca exactamente lo que el pintor se propuso: si el desafo de las espartanas invitaba al combate o a la carrera y si tena o no connotaciones de cortejo. Pero en
todo caso, el cuadro plantea, con sabor inequvocamente moderno, la cuestin de la emancipacin de las mujeres. Sobre Degas ha pesado una injusta fama de misgino que Norma
Broude refut hace ya tiempo. Bastar con recordar que Degas pint, en la misma poca que
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fig. 6
Jacques-Louis David
El juramento de los Horacios, 1785
inv. 3692
Edgar Degas
Jvenes espartanas desafiando
a sus compaeros, c. 1860
[cat. 45]
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Heronas
Guillermo Solana
fig. 7
Edgar Degas
Escena de guerra de
la Edad Media, c. 1865
85 x 147 cm
Muse dOrsay, Pars,
inv. RF2208
sus espartanas, dos escenas con mujeres fuertes como protagonistas: su Semramis construyendo Babilonia y su Escena de guerra de la Edad Media [g. 7]. Norma Broude ha demostrado con abundantes datos que el cuadro de las espartanas reeja un fenmeno social que
Degas no pudo ignorar: el creciente activismo feminista en Francia en la dcada de 1870,
que culmin en el primer congreso feminista internacional, el Congrs International du
Droit des Femmes en 1878.
Con las espartanas de Degas regresaron a la pintura del nal del siglo XIX las vrgenes
guerreras, pero liberadas de la armadura, semidesnudas, ms cerca de las amazonas antiguas. Este retorno de las amazonas es aun ms explcito en la obra del alemn Franz von
Stuck [cats. 48-50], que la hace objeto de sus fantasas arqueologizantes. Las amazonas de
Stuck aparecen combatiendo a centauros, que como ellas son criaturas salvajes en la frontera de lo humano. A pesar de sus grandes diferencias, Degas y Stuck comparten en este caso
una irnica distancia respecto al mito, y la conciencia de que toda imitacin del arte antiguo
tiene algo de pastiche.
Las amazonomaquias de nuestro tiempo oscilan entre la violencia de Stuck y el espritu
deportivo de Degas. El antiguo vorticista William Roberts ingres en la Royal Academy en
1966 con su revisin pop de este motivo tan acadmico [cat. 46]. Una vuelta de tuerca en esa
lnea pop, las Bellezas de la Galia de antao (2001) de Hilary Harkness [cat. 47] sugiere una
irnica visin postfeminista. Las Jvenes espartanas de Degas evocaban una cierta barbarie
adolescente que reaparece intensicada en la obra del colectivo ruso AES+F [cat. 51]. En
sus paisajes postnucleares al estilo de Mad Max las bandas juveniles combaten en una guerra de todos contra todos donde se desdibujan los papeles de gnero. La adolescente negra
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que amenaza al chico blanco nos recuerda que en las viejas batallas de amazonas, la reina
Hiplita apareca a veces sosteniendo, como Judit, la cabeza cortada de un hombre.
Las amazonas contemporneas cultivan un talante jovial: como las soldados israeles de
Rineke Dijkstra [cat. 56], que no llevan armas. Ms inquietante es la sonrisa de la soldado
armada de Nancy Floyd [cat. 55], perteneciente a su serie documental Shes Got a Gun, que
incluye entrevistas con las mujeres fotograadas: una veterana de la guerra de Irak y una
tiradora de slo once aos, una jefe de polica y una discapacitada dispuesta a matar para defenderse. Son imgenes que ponen en cuestin la nocin de la mujer como un ser instintivamente pacco; una mujer armada, como observa Nancy Floyd, sugiere otras posibilidades.
El desafo de las amazonas reaparece en una serie de artistas contemporneas de diversas generaciones que comparten su anidad con el mundo de la performance y el ejercicio de
una irona corrosiva contra los estereotipos patriarcales. Eleanor Antin, inuyente pionera
de los aos sesenta, se ha reinventado a s misma en la ltima dcada con una serie de tableaux fotogrcos, pastiches de cuadros mitolgicos de un humor agudo y delicioso. En su
versin de El juicio de Paris (segn Rubens) [cat. 57] las tres diosas encarnan tres estereotipos: Hera es una tpica ama de casa de los aos cincuenta, Afrodita, una vamp, y Atenea,
una aguerrida Lara Croft. Helena (que no estaba en el original de Rubens) se sienta en los
mrgenes de la escena, mirando al espectador.
Mona Hatoum, britnica de origen palestino-libans, ha utilizado con frecuencia su
propio cuerpo para explorar situaciones de violencia, connamiento y vigilancia a veces
vinculadas a la guerra en Oriente prximo. En Over My Dead Body (Por encima de mi cadver) (1988) [cat. 58], la cabeza de la artista es un campo de batalla invadido por las tropas
(liliputienses) del orden patriarcal. El agigantamiento del cuerpo femenino invierte las relaciones de poder. En piezas recientes, Hatoum ha vuelto a recurrir a los soldados de juguete para aludir a la guerra interminable. Cristina Lucas nos revela tambin el reverso del
herosmo masculino cuando la libertad misma desciende a la tierra y se convierte en vctima
de sus propios secuaces [cat. 59].
La jamaicana Renee Cox se sirve de su cuerpo como material bsico para poner patas
arriba los estereotipos raciales y de gnero. Su famosa Yo Mamas Last Supper era un remake
de la Cena de Leonardo donde la propia Cox desnuda ocupaba el lugar de Jess, rodeada por
apstoles negros (excepto Judas, que era blanco). Para su primera exposicin individual en
Nueva York en 1998, Cox se invent una superherona llamada Raje, encarnada por la propia artista vestida con un ceido y colorista uniforme de orgullo africano [cat. 59]. En la serie
de fotografas, Raje aparece dispuesta a salvar al mundo del machismo y el racismo.
Una retrica ms clsica se pone en escena en El hroe de Marina Abramovic [cat. 60].
En un homenaje ambiguo, no exento de irona, la artista ocupa el lugar de su propio padre,
general del ejrcito de Tito, que cabalgaba en un caballo blanco durante la guerra. En el
video original, artista y caballo permanecen inmviles mientras suena una cancin popular
en honor del hroe vencido. La bandera blanca puede evocar el estandarte de Juana de Arco,
pero tambin podra anunciar una antiheroica rendicin, una peticin de paz.
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Heronas
Guillermo Solana
Magas
fig. 8
Anthony Frederick
Augustus Sandys
Medea, 1869
leo sobre tabla
Birmingham Museums
and Art Gallery,
Birmingham
Si en la primera mitad de la exposicin predominaba la atribucin de poder fsico a las heronas, en la segunda parte se trata de sus poderes espirituales. Juana de Arco, que en un captulo anterior fue identicada como virgen guerrera, contiene otras posibilidades bien
conocidas: visionaria y exttica, condenada como bruja y martirizada en la hoguera. Magas, mrtires y msticas son las guras que nos ocuparn ahora.
No hay monumentos en nuestras ciudades, observa Kiki Smith, en memoria de las brujas que ardieron en innumerables hogueras. Por eso su Mujer de rodillas en una pira [cat. 70]
fue concebida como una escultura pblica al aire libre. Los brazos abiertos son un gesto de
splica in extremis que recuerda la Oracin en el Huerto y la Crucixin y la Lamentacin
sobre el Cristo muerto. La bruja de Kiki Smith es la suprema vctima propiciatoria, el gran
pharmaks de una tradicin patriarcal en la cual los poderes espirituales de las mujeres han
sido objeto de condena o de sospecha sistemtica.
Pero viajemos hacia atrs. En la misma poca en que arreciaba la persecucin de las
brujas, las hechiceras mitolgicas se refugiaban en el mundo renado y esotrico del pintor
Dosso Dossi. Sus dos pinturas incluidas en nuestra exposicin [cats. 62 y 63] han recibido el
ttulo de Circe, aunque el tema sigue debatindose. En la primera, una obra muy temprana,
la maga tiene a sus pies un libro abierto, en cuyas pginas se dibuja un pentculo, y sostiene
una lpida sobre la que hay escritas otras frmulas mgicas. Los animales que la rodean
hacen pensar en Circe, pero la maga no esgrime la vara de la Circe homrica. Algunos estudiosos han sugerido como fuente el canto sexto del Orlando furioso de Ariosto donde el
caballero Astolfo relata lo que les sucedi a los amantes de la encantadora Alcina. A veces
se ha atribuido a esta obra el propsito moral de prevenir al espectador (masculino) de los
peligros de la seduccin femenina; pero me parece posible entrever un sentido diferente. La
bella maga est enseando a los animales los signos de la lpida, como si quisiera humanizarlos o devolverles su humanidad perdida. Su actitud evoca el mito de Orfeo, que educaba y
civilizaba a todas las criaturas con el poder mgico de su msica. Pero los animales (excepto
la sabia lechuza) no parecen atender a la leccin. Y esta podra ser la lectio moral del cuadro: como esos animales, nosotros, los espectadores, nos sentimos perplejos ante los signos
arcanos que nos muestra la sibila y que podran ilustrarnos.
Los enigmas continan en el Dosso de la Borghese. Su protagonista podra ser Circe o
bien Melisa, otra maga del Orlando furioso, pero esta vez benigna, porque libera a los caballeros hechizados por Alcina (quiz representados por esas gurillas colgadas del rbol y
el perro de cara humana). En todo caso, esta maga de fabuloso atavo oriental sostiene de
nuevo una tabla con signos, que la acreditan como maestra de la sabidura hermtica, transmisora del conocimiento oculto. Para protegerse de las asechanzas del mal, la maga se sita
dentro un crculo mgico, con ilegibles inscripciones cabalsticas.
El mismo tema (la maga que enciende un fuego en el interior de un crculo mgico) reaparece, cuatro siglos ms tarde, en la obra de John William Waterhouse [cat. 64], un epgono
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del prerrafaelismo que hizo de la magia y el ocultismo una lnea central en su obra, casi siempre protagonizada por la mujer. En un siniestro paisaje, a la luz de la luna, una maga traza un
crculo en el suelo con su vara, mientras del caldero hirviendo sale un vapor poblado de ectoplasmas. Fuera del crculo acechan siete cuervos, simbolizando el poder de las tinieblas de
los que la maga se protege. En torno al cuello lleva un segundo anillo protector, el ouroboros,
la serpiente que se muerde la cola y que simboliza el eterno ciclo de la vida y la muerte.
El crculo mgico retornar en otras pinturas de hechiceras de Waterhouse. En Circe
ofreciendo la copa a Ulises [cat. 66] es circular el espacio ante el trono de la maga y circular
el espejo que reeja la presencia de Ulises (cuya posicin ocupa el propio espectador). La
dama de Shalott [cat. 65], inspirada en el famoso poema artrico de Tennyson que Waterhouse ilustr en varias ocasiones, cuenta la leyenda de una mujer que vive hechizada en una
torre y slo puede ver el mundo a travs de un espejo, visiones mgicas que luego va tejiendo
en un tapiz. El circulo del fondo es ese espejo que reeja una ventana. Waterhouse amaba
los espejos ambiguos donde el reejo y la realidad no coinciden del todo. En La bola de cristal [cat. 67], todo se basa de nuevo en el crculo: la mesa redonda, la ventana, la silla, la calavera y, desde luego, la esfera de cristal. El ubicuo crculo simboliza el hechizo del cual la mujer es a la vez vctima y seora. El crculo encarna la reclusin, el enclaustramiento en que
la mujer vive, a la vez protegida y constreida por una barrera invisible pero infranqueable.
Contempornea de Waterhouse, la pintora Evelyn de Morgan luch por rehabilitar la
maltrecha reputacin de las magas. Medea fue un personaje familiar de la pintura victoriana, abordado por Sandys (1869) [g. 8] y Valentine Prinsep (1888), quienes presentaban a
la maga griega como un personaje de mente enferma y de maldad legendaria. La Medea de
De Morgan [cat. 68], en cambio, no es la asesina de sus hijos que invent Eurpides, ni una
loca de cabellos revueltos, sino una noble y sabia maga traicionada que contempla serenamente su venganza con un vial de veneno en la mano (para la nueva prometida de Jasn).
Una distancia abismal separa a las magas anteriores de las sacerdotisas de Emil Nolde.
Emparentadas con las danzantes que proliferan en su pintura en esta poca, desde su Danza en
torno al becerro de oro (1910), estas guras con el pecho desnudo que aparecen sobre un escenario [cat. 69] no son sibilas, ni maestras hermticas, ni frgiles videntes, sino algo mucho ms
salvaje, a medio camino entre las sectarias de un culto primordial y unas coristas de cabaret.
Mrtires
Las mrtires no son slo vctimas, sino heronas triunfantes sobre sus perseguidores y verdugos. La primera de nuestras mrtires legendarias es Catalina de Alejandra. Cuando Caravaggio pint su Santa Catalina [cat. 71] por encargo del cardenal Del Monte, prescindi
de tres de los atributos habituales en la iconografa de la santa: la corona, el libro y el anillo.
Y concentr sus esfuerzos en otros tres atributos, asociados directamente al martirio: la
rueda con que fue torturada, la espada de la decapitacin (aunque esta espada ropera nunca
servira para una ejecucin) y la palma de la victoria. Para su gura, Caravaggio se inspir
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Caravaggio
Santa Catalina de
Alejandra, c. 1597
fig. 9
Rafael
Santa Catalina de
Alejandra, c. 1507
leo sobre tabla,
72,2 x 55,7 cm
The National Gallery,
Londres, inv. NG 168
probablemente en la Santa Catalina de Rafael [g. 9], pero introdujo dos modicaciones.
Por una parte, alter la postura de las manos, que desde la actitud pdica, casta, del cuadro
de Rafael, pasaron a sujetar la espada. Y si la santa de Rafael elevaba su mirada suplicante
al cielo, Caravaggio hizo que la suya mirase directamente al espectador. En conjunto, Caravaggio reinterpret el tema religioso en clave profana, presentndolo ms bien como el
retrato de una joven (la cortesana Fillide Melandroni) disfrazada de mrtir. La originalidad de Caravaggio destaca ms cuando se la compara con la representacin convencional
de El martirio de santa Catalina de Caspar de Crayer [cat. 72]. Hay un rasgo que me interesa resaltar de esta obra: cuatro verdugos participan en la ejecucin, cuatro hombres en
una posicin elevada, dominante, y frente a ellos, dos mujeres se levantan desde abajo para
expresar su compasin, su compasin por la vctima.
Santa Eulalia forma parte de una larga y compleja tradicin de santas martirizadas en
la cruz, estudiada por Pedro Ortega en un reciente trabajo acadmico. Esta iconografa
en principio marginal recibi una inusitada atencin a nales del siglo XIX, en algunos casos,
como el de Flicien Rops, con propsitos pornogrcos y blasfemos de inspiracin satnica. Segn la tradicin, Eulalia tena doce aos cuando fue condenada y sometida a horribles
suplicios: mutilada, desollada, crucicada. Waterhouse [cat. 73] evita toda desguracin y
utiliza slo medios metafricos: la nieve (que segn la leyenda cay para cubrir su cuerpo
39
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Heronas
Guillermo Solana
fig. 10
Andrea Mantegna
Cristo muerto, c. 1480-1490
Pinacoteca di Brera, Miln
John William Waterhouse

Santa Eulalia, 1885
[cat. 73]
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fig. 11
Gustave Moreau
Safo, c. 1871-1872
Acuarela sobre papel,
18,4 x 12,4 cm
Victoria and Albert
Museum, Londres,
inv. P11-1934
Antoine-Jean Gros
Safo, 1801
[cat. 74]
desnudo) es una imagen de la pureza virginal, las ropas y sobre todo la cabellera extendida
representan la sangre derramada. Para evitar la visin escandalosa del cuerpo femenino
crucicado, Waterhouse la desglos en sus componentes; por un lado, la cruz vertical y, por
otro, el cuerpo tumbado de la santa con los brazos abiertos. La perspectiva del cuerpo, en
n, evoca el violento escorzo del Cristo muerto de Mantegna [g. 10].
La tercera gura de nuestra nmina de mrtires no es cristiana, sino pagana, y fue canonizada tardamente por el movimiento romntico: Safo de Lesbos. Angelica Kauffmann
pint dos cuadros sobre ella (Safo inspirada por el amor y Safo conversando con Homero)
que carecen completamente de carcter trgico. La Safo en Lucade de Gros [cat. 74], presentada en el Saln de 1800 y adquirida por el general Desolle, inaugura un nuevo espritu,
al centrarse en el legendario salto desde el promontorio de Lucade con el que Safo pretenda curarse de un amor desgraciado. Despus de Gros, el tema se volver relativamente
frecuente en la pintura, desde Chassriau hasta Gustave Moreau [g. 11]: la Safo (1872)
[cat. 75] del pintor turins Andrea Gastaldi se sita hacia el nal de esa tradicin.
Safo recibi los homenajes poticos de Leopardi y Baudelaire y dos prosistas inuyentes, el crtico Sainte-Beuve y el helenista mile Deschanel, vieron en ella la encarnacin misma de un cierto ideal literario: el de la poesa como confesin, como la voz de la
pasin, siempre verdadera y natural. Estos elogios de la espontaneidad femenina revelan
su lado envenenado cuando Deschanel de ne el sasmo como histerismo; como un deseo
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Heronas
Guillermo Solana
insatisfecho que se desborda en la escritura. Y concluye preguntndose: Quin sabe lo

que hubiera sido una Safo cristiana? Hubiera sido quizs santa Teresa. El histerismo y el
misticismo mantienen relaciones ocultas, pero reales; los dos hablan la misma lengua y
producen fenmenos casi semejantes.
Msticas
En las copiosas actas del proceso de Juana de Arco se citan dos testimonios sorprendentes. El primero es una carta de Perceval de Boulainvilliers, consejero chambeln del rey
Carlos VII. Segn su testimonio, un da en que Juana apacentaba sus ovejas, unas chicas la
invitaron a unirse a sus carreras; ella acept el desafo y corri con tal velocidad que una de
las chicas le grit: Juana, te veo volar sobre la tierra (Johanna, video te volantem juxta
terram). El otro testimonio es una declaracin de la propia Juana sobre un hecho acaecido aos despus. Cuando la Doncella entraba en Troyes, sali a su encuentro un fraile, el
hermano Richard, armado con la cruz y el agua bendita por si ella era una emisaria del diablo: Vamos, acrquese con valenta, buen padre, le dijo alegremente Juana, que no voy a
echar a volar! (Allons, approchez ardiment, beau pre, je ne menvoulleray pas!). Lo que
los dos testimonios insinan es esa facultad sobrenatural propia tanto de algunas santas
msticas como de ciertas posesas: la levitacin.
La ms ilustre de estas levitantes, santa Teresa de vila, es el objeto del homenaje de
Marina Abramovic en su serie La cocina, un proyecto realizado en las cocinas de La Laboral de Gijn. Con la eleccin del escenario, Abramovic quiere evocar la cocina de su abuela, una persona muy religiosa que la llevaba a la iglesia cada da. La cocina era un lugar
de condencias, donde la nia Marina le revelaba sus sueos a su abuela, y sta, por su
parte, le contaba historias. Esta interaccin entre el mundo espiritual y el mundo domstico conduce a Abramovic a las experiencias msticas de santa Teresa y en particular a la
levitacin, objeto de la primera fotografa de la serie [cat. 79] (la artista fue colgada con
cuerdas que luego se borraron con Photoshop). Santa Teresa describe su temor y su gozo,
su resistencia y su abandono a las fuerzas que toman posesin de ella y la hacen levitar, la
incomparable ingravidez del xtasis. Y describe tambin cmo la levitacin interrumpe su
trabajo en la cocina, el conicto entre las exigencias de la fuerza divina y la vida cotidiana. Abramovic subraya la analoga entre su trabajo como performer (traspasar los lmites
fsicos y de la mente utilizando mi propio cuerpo) y la experiencia mstica (durante una
performance me encuentro en un trance similar al del xtasis de los msticos). Pero aade
tambin: Aunque uno pueda levitar sigue teniendo hambre y ese es el punto de arranque
para entender mi obra.
La levitacin adquiere un matiz distinto en la serie de fotografas de Julia FullertonBatten titulada In Between cuyas protagonistas adolescentes parecen otar en el aire [cats.
80-83]. En ella, como en la serie anterior Teenage Stories, se explora la adolescencia femenina en cuanto perodo de transicin en el que cuerpo se vuelve extrao y las emociones
42
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fig. 12
Ferdinand Hodler
El elegido, 1894
leo y temple sobre lienzo,
219 x 296 cm
Kunstmuseum, Berna
Ferdinand Hodler
Cancin desde la lejana,
c. 1917
[cat. 76]
inestables, sin anclaje. Cada una de las fotos contiene un pequeo suceso dramtico, aunque
slo sea el viento que agita una cortina. Tambin las jvenes parecen sorprendidas por una
fuerza irresistible. A veces su vuelo es sereno como la ascensin de un yogui; otras veces es
explosivo y errtico.
Ferdinand Hodler represent la levitacin en una de sus composiciones ms conocidas, El elegido [g. 12]. El nio mstico (el pintor hizo posar como modelo a su propio hijo,
Hector) aparece all orando en el centro de la escena ante un raqutico rbol de la vida y
en torno a l, seis ngelas cuyos pies se elevan sobre el suelo unos centmetros. El elegido
es una muestra de la evolucin tarda de Hodler, que combina la inspiracin simbolista
y la estilizacin Art Nouveau. Los temas loscos de sus obras (juventud y vejez, Eros y
Tnatos, la soledad, la contemplacin) se expresan mediante lo que el pintor llamaba el
paralelismo, un sistema de simetras y repeticiones rtmicas de guras y posturas. El
Hodler tardo es un pintor de gestos, gestos como inspirados en la danza, pero investidos
de un carcter solemne, ritual. As son los estudios de guras femeninas destinadas a sus
composiciones: Cancin desde la lejana, Mujer jubilosa, Mirada al innito [cats. 76-78]. Las
guras femeninas de Hodler se mueven como sonmbulas. Entonan un himno a la vida con
la gravedad de una liturgia. Parecen alcanzar el xtasis, pero sin goce carnal. Levantan los
brazos para abrazar la naturaleza entera o para volar hacia el cosmos.
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Henri Fantin-Latour
Victoria Dubourg, 1873
Lectoras
Por qu han sido tan frecuentes las guras de lectoras en la pintura occidental? Una razn podra encontrarse en la asociacin de la lectura en la intimidad familiar y el mbito
domstico. Pero ms all de esta interpretacin sociolgica, hay una nocin ms profunda
de la intimidad como interioridad. La lectura encierra ecos de esos poderes espirituales,
mgicos o msticos atribuidos a la mujer en la iconografa tradicional. La lectura genera
una burbuja, donde la mujer puede vivir su vida a travs de otras vidas. La lectora se construye eso que Virginia Woolf denomin una habitacin propia.
La lectura es una actividad interior, que escapa a la representacin pictrica. En pintura
alguna vez se nos permite leer un ttulo; el texto ms all siempre ser ilegible, inaccesible.
Por eso la representacin de la lectura implica una exteriorizacin, una teatralizacin. Ya
que no podemos leer el texto, leemos el cuerpo de la lectora, que escenica o somatiza su
lectura. Un ejemplo de ello son ciertas Magdalenas, que acompaan su lectura con lgrimas
de arrepentimiento; la Magdalena de Benson [cat. 84], sin embargo, es una dama singularmente contenida.
La joven de Gustav Henning [cat. 87] est leyendo con uncin, la mirada baja, los labios
apretados, las manos cruzadas sosteniendo el libro muy cerca de su cuerpo. Y todo esto, unido al peinado y el vestido sencillo y geomtrico, nos sugiere que lee un libro piadoso. El fondo monocromo aisla a la lectora del mundo circundante. La lectora de Charles-Guillaume
Steuben [cat. 88], otro artista alemn pero instalado en Francia (y amigo de Delacroix),
nos ofrece una actitud contrapuesta. Si la muchacha de Henning apareca absorta en la lectura, la joven de Steuben levanta la mirada como perdida en una ensoacin. La joven de
Henning nos ignoraba; la de Steuben nge ignorarnos, pero quiz coquetea. No es natural
suponer que est leyendo una novela?
La mala reputacin de las novelas y sus lectoras se vuelve explcita en el cuadro del romntico belga Antoine Wiertz [cat. 89]. Aqu llega a su extremo la escenicacin somtica
de la lectura, en el borde de la histeria. Acionado a los temas provocadores, ya fueran erticos o macabros (o ambas cosas), Wiertz ha querido romper con el tratamiento rutinario
de la muchacha leyendo y provocar el shock del espectador. Su cuadro nos permite espiar a
la joven que lee desnuda en su cama de noche. Su actitud voluptuosa nos transmite fsicamente el placer de su lectura. Est atrapada en ella y no podr escapar, porque el diablo es su
proveedor especial y mientras ella lee, le va sirviendo en el borde de la cama los libros que ha
escogido l mismo (entre ellos, una novela de Alexandre Dumas). El espejo, donde se reeja
el cuerpo de la mujer, incita adicionalmente al voyeur y acenta la dimensin masturbatoria
del placer de la lectora.
De la Biblia y los libros piadosos a las novelas, de las novelas a los peridicos. La lectora
de prensa, tan frecuente en la pintura impresionista (en Manet, Degas, Caillebotte, etc.) es
uno de los avatares ms obvios de la mujer moderna, sobre todo cuando esa lectura no se
verica ya en el mbito domstico, sino en un espacio pblico, como por ejemplo un caf.
45
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Heronas
Guillermo Solana
fig. 13

Anciana leyendo, 1655
Drumlanrig Castle,
Dumfriesshire, Escocia,
coleccin del duque de
Buccleuch y Queensberry
Mary Cassatt vivi con su hermana Lydia en Pars durante tres aos en la dcada de 1870 y
la utiliz como modelo muchas veces [cat. 92]. El hecho de que Lydia padeca una incurable
nefritis crnica, de la que morira poco despus, presta a estas escenas un involuntaria melancola (hay incluso una novela reciente inspirada en esta historia).
En el otro extremo, el de lo privado, las lectoras vestidas de negro de Fantin-Latour y de
Winslow Homer [cat. 91], son dos pintoras: Victoria Dubourg, esposa de Fantin, y Helena
de Kay, que pudo ser esposa de Winslow Homer. El cuadro juvenil de Matisse [cat. 95] es un
pequeo cofre de secretos. Fue pintado en el estudio del Quai Saint Michel y la mujer que
posa de espaldas es Caroline Joblaud, compaera del artista durante cuatro aos (antes de
su matrimonio) y madre de su hija Marguerite. La enigmtica lectora de espaldas es un recurso tomado de Corot y de los interiores holandeses [g. 13] que nos invita a una imposible
lectura por encima del hombro.
En las fotografas de Anni Leppl siempre hay algo inquietante y misterioso [cat. 97].
Hay otra foto suya casi idntica a sta, con la nica diferencia de que en ella el libro aparece solo sobre la mesa. El cabello rojo de la muchacha cubre su rostro, oscureciendo para
nosotros su estado, porque ni el libro ni el rostro pueden ser descifrados, pero a la vez esos
cabellos nos acreditan los lazos sutiles pero slidos como tentculos que se tienden entre la
lectora y su lectura.
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Ante el espejo
Despus de tantas guras femeninas producidas por hombres, el ltimo captulo est dedicado a las imgenes que las mujeres han creado ante el espejo. El autorretrato es uno de los
gneros ms frecuentados por las artistas. En una carta de 1558 recogida por Baldinucci, el
poeta Annibale Caro le escriba a Amilcare Anguissola sobre un autorretrato pintado por
su hija Sofonisba: [] y ninguna cosa deseo ms que la egie de ella misma, para poder al
mismo tiempo mostrar dos maravillas juntas, una la obra y otra la Maestra. El autorretrato
permita a la mujer ser autora o creadora (un rol presuntamente masculino) sin dejar de ser
modelo (el rol femenino convencional). Esta astuta combinacin de actividad y pasividad,
este convertirse en sujeto sin abandonar el papel de bello objeto fue la clave del xito del
autorretrato femenino en una sociedad patriarcal. Una sociedad que por otra parte personicaba a la Vanidad como una mujer que se mira al espejo.
En la historia del autorretrato, a veces la mujer artista subraya su identidad de gnero
representndose junto a sus hermanas, o con nios, o con mascotas, o con ciertos objetos
que actan como accesorios convencionales de lo femenino. Como concluy Joan Riviere
en su clsico Womanliness as Masquerade (1929), algunas mujeres despliegan una mascarada de femineidad como un mecanismo defensivo, para hacerse perdonar su ecacia
profesional. Pero con mucha frecuencia, la mujer se autorretrata como lo hara un colega masculino, con ropas de trabajo, paleta y pinceles en la mano y mirando al espectador.
Este tipo de autorretrato, que alguien podra identicar como masculino, parece haber
sido cultivado ms asiduamente por las pintoras, acaso porque ellas necesitaban ms vindicarse como profesionales. As lo hace Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532-1625), autora de numerosos autorretratos. Su padre, un noble de Cremona, dio a sus seis hijas una formacin
artstica y humanstica (segn los consejos de Castiglione) que llev a Sofonisba a la corte
de Felipe II como dama de honor, profesora de dibujo y pintora de la reina Isabel de Valois.
El retrato del artista pintando a la Virgen es un tema clsico en el que el pintor varn se
identica con san Lucas [cat. 99]. Sofonisba utiliza un subterfugio distinto para vincularse
a su modelo: el retrato llevaba la inscripcin Sophonisba Anguiscola Virgo Cremonensis
se ipsam pinxit. Sofonisba se presenta as como una virgen que retrata a la Virgen (algunos
pretenden que la Virgen est posando para la pintora en el lugar del propio espectador).
En el autorretrato, la mirada del artista se dirige habitualmente hacia el espectador. Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1652/1653), evita esa convencin y se retrata mirando hacia el
lienzo que est pintando [cat. 101], porque su propsito es representarse a s misma como la
Pintura. Como observa Mary Garrard, los pintores han intentado muchas veces combinar
su autorretrato con una alegora de la pintura, pero slo una mujer poda alcanzar esta coincidencia perfecta de artista, modelo e idea, puesto que por tradicin las personicaciones de
la pintura son femeninas. El colgante con una mscara, que simboliza la imitacin, y los rizos sueltos del cabello de Artemisia (que denotan las inspiracin) son dos atributos de pintura en la Iconologa de Ripa. Garrard sostiene, en n, que el brazo levantado de Artemisia
47
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Heronas
Guillermo Solana
Angelica Kauffmann
Autorretrato, 1787
[cat. 106]
puede aludir a la Idea o terica, mientras que la otra mano que sostiene pinceles y paleta
aludira a la prctica o ejecucin, uno y otro reunidos en la cabeza de la artista.
Angelica Kauffmann (1741-1807) no slo fue una gran pintora dentro del movimiento
neoclsico (relacionada con Winckelmann y Goethe, Mengs y Reynolds), sino una de las
grandes intelectuales de su tiempo. Es raro el autorretrato donde Kauffmann no introduce
alusiones alegricas. En el de los Ufzi [cat. 106], Angelica ostenta en la hebilla un camafeo
con el duelo entre Atenea y Poseidn por el patronazgo de Atenas; Atenea gana el concurso
plantando un olivo, smbolo de paz y prosperidad; el gnero femenino se impone al masculino. La actitud de la artista en esta obra ser reutilizada en un autorretrato alegrico titulado
La artista dudando entre las artes de la msica y la pintura [g. 14], una versin del tpico
de Hrcules en la encrucijada. El dibujo [cat. 105] pertenece a una serie de cuatro imgenes
alegricas representando los elementos del arte y es a la vez un autorretrato de la artista
ante el torso del Belvedere, modelo esttico (venerado por Winckelmann, por ejemplo) y
arquetipo de virilidad al que ella no vacila en enfrentarse.
Cuando la invitaron a aportar un autorretrato a los Ufzi Elisabeth-Louise Vige-Lebrun (1755-1842) quiso conocer el que Kauffmann haba pintado para la misma galera. Durante su estancia en Roma en 1790, fue a visitar a Kauffmann y pas en su casa dos tardes de
largas conversaciones donde qued impresionada por la cultura de su colega. All en Roma
pint poco despus su autorretrato de los Ufzi [cat. 107], muy distinto del de Kauffmann:
mucho ms pequeo, ms sensual y menos intelectual, ms femenino en trminos convencionales. Lebrun aparece pintando un retrato de Mara Antonieta, como tantas veces en el
pasado; as acredita su lealtad a su antigua protectora. Pese a su supuesta ausencia de pretensiones intelectuales, la sombra proyectada sobre la tela parece aludir a la leyenda que cuenta
Plinio sobre la invencin de la pintura por una doncella de Corinto. El bello rostro oval y
la seductora gura de la artista en el cuadro encierran una leccin moral: el orgullo de una
mujer que ha superado el fracaso de su matrimonio, los apuros econmicos y el duro exilio.
Nacida en una familia de la pequea nobleza rusa, Marie Bashkirtseff (1858-1884) vivi en Francia y estudi pintura en la parisiense Acadmie Julian. En el estudio [cat. 108]
representa precisamente una escena cotidiana en esta escuela, donde las mujeres trabajaban separadas de los hombres; las muchachas dibujan, no a un hombre desnudo, sino a un
nio. La orgullosa Marie aparece a la derecha, aislada del grupo al cual, segn sabemos por
sus diarios, se senta superior tanto desde el punto de vista social como artstico.
Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) admiraba los diarios de Bashkirtseff, pero no su pintura,
que consideraba mediocre. Morisot es un nombre imprescindible dentro del grupo impresionista, pero que demasiadas veces se ha subordinado a Manet (como su modelo, como
su cuada, como su seguidora, etc.). En 1885, Morisot pint tres autorretratos: el primero,
un apunte al pastel que es slo un rostro borroso, los ojos muy abiertos con una expresin
de ansiedad. En el segundo autorretrato, la pintora aparece erguida junto a su hija, que se
vuelve hacia ella. El tercer autorretrato, incluido en nuestra exposicin [cat. 110], nos muestra a la artista sola, con la paleta en la mano, mirndonos directamente, sin timidez. En la
48
0901thyssen_014_115#.indd 48
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fig. 14
Angelica Kauffmann
Autorretrato. La artista
dudando entre las artes
de la msica y la pintura,
1791 o 1794
leo sobre lienzo
Nostell Priory, Yorkshire
sucesin de estas tres obras, Anne Higonnet ha detectado la metamorfosis de Morisot: una
mujer insegura a quien las experiencias paralelas de la maternidad y la creacin artstica
convirtieron en otra persona.
La joven Lee (Lenore) Krasner (1908-1984) pas el verano de 1930 en Long Island,
donde viva su familia, pintando ante un espejo clavado en un rbol. Ejecutado al aire libre
[cat. 115], su lienzo quiere romper con la imagen de la mujer recluida en un interior. Lee se
retrata como una trabajadora, vestida con mono y usando un trapo manchado en vez de
una paleta. La composicin y la factura evocan a Czanne y Van Gogh (el bosque del fondo
recuerda el bosquecillo de Auvers pintado por Vincent). Muchos aos despus, Lee vea anticipado en este autorretrato el gran tema de toda su obra posterior: la relacin entre el yo
y la naturaleza.
Esa relacin es tambin, en cierto sentido, el tema de Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) [cat. 116],
con su jungla al fondo que recuerda al aduanero Rousseau. Los animales negros (el mono, el
gato, el pjaro muerto) pueden simbolizar el destino aciago, mientras que las dos mariposas
sobre su cabeza y las dos ores aladas sugieren el vuelo del alma. O acaso tanto los animales
como los insectos-ores podran representar la condicin chamnica de la artista. El collar de
espinas que la hiere y el estoicismo con que ella soporta el dolor coneren al cuadro una fuerte
impronta cristolgica. Toda la obra de Kahlo es un autorretrato multiplicado y cada autorretrato, una catarsis y una autofabulacin, un inventar para s misma una identidad mtica.
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17/02/11 9:13
17/02/11 9:14
Julia Fullerton-Batten
Mirror, 2008
17/02/11 9:14
Roco de la Villa
Artistas heronas
A comienzos del siglo XXI, los museos de arte, clsicos y contemporneos, se ven impelidos
a abordar la denominada revolucin de las mujeres acaecida durante la segunda mitad
del siglo XX: la nica revolucin pacca que ha prosperado de entre tantas utopas. La incorporacin de las mujeres a la entera vida social ha supuesto la feminizacin de mbitos
laborales considerados tradicionalmente anes como la educacin y la sanidad, labores administrativas, comerciales y de gestin. Otros, como la cultura, han mostrado mayor resistencia debido a su papel privilegiado en la conguracin simblica y en el mantenimiento
de los valores hegemnicos.
Medio siglo despus de que irrumpiera el movimiento de liberacin de las mujeres, cuando ellas son ms de la mitad de quienes se forman, trabajan y hacen posible con su asistencia las programaciones culturales, los grandes y singulares museos destacados de Europa y
Amrica se plantean la necesidad de presentar ofertas especcas, desde sus colecciones a
sus exposiciones y en el resto de sus actividades, que reconguren los valores de esta nueva
sociedad, respaldando la exigencia legtima de empoderamiento (empowerment) de las
mujeres que, sin las imgenes del legado histrico y del presente, queda carente del imaginario imprescindible para que cualquier transformacin profunda permanezca.
La exposicin Heronas se inscribe en esta tendencia de armacin de la perspectiva
de gnero en el arte, gracias a la que se estn reconsiderando las colecciones y las exposiciones histricas y contemporneas. Por poner algunos ejemplos: en 2005, Lars Nittve,
director del Moderna Museet de Estocolmo, abre una suscripcin popular para completar
la otra mitad de la coleccin de arte moderno. En 2007, en la Tate comienzan a estudiarse las colecciones y se detectan las carencias. En 2009, el Centro Georges Pompidou
inaugura elles@pompidou, una puesta en femenino de su coleccin para la que hizo falta
llevar a cabo un importante paquete de adquisiciones de obra de artistas mujeres. En estos
museos, no slo ha habido un giro consciente en la poltica de adquisiciones, sino que tambin se ha producido un cambio fundamental en su programa de exposiciones: en el Moderna Museet, con dos sedes en Estocolmo y Malm, la programacin es paritaria; en el
conjunto del organigrama Tate Britain y Modern en Londres, ms Liverpool y St. Ives,
la equidad tiende a respetarse en proporcin histrica a la existencia de artistas mujeres.
Y mientras tanto, el sistema del arte contemporneo tambin acusa esta transformacin.
En 2007, cuando en la Documenta XII de Kassel por primera vez la mitad de artistas fueron mujeres, en Estados Unidos cruzaban de este a oeste dos megaexposiciones: WACK!
Art and Feminist Revolution y Global Feminisms, coincidencias que venan a corroborar la
alianza trasatlntica de lo que se podra denominar la tercera ola del arte, la historiografa y la teora feministas tras su irrupcin a nales de los sesenta y el retorno a nales de
53
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Artistas heronas
Roco de la Villa
la dcada de los ochenta del siglo XX. Despus, las exposiciones individuales y colectivas
de artistas y comisarias no han dejado de sucederse hasta hoy, a ambos lados del Atlntico;
sin menospreciar las interesantes iniciativas que van despuntando procedentes de culturas
no occidentales que engrosan esta tendencia en el actual escenario globalizado.
Cuando los grandes museos, histricos y contemporneos, se han visto ante la necesidad de incorporar obras y miradas, se han encontrado ante un fornido corpus historiogrco y terico, proporcionado por dcadas de contribuciones de los gender studies en el
rea geogrca anglosajona, donde llegaron a prosperar en el seno de la universidad, y una
suma de investigaciones, quizs menos compactada, pero no menor en aquellos pases en
donde trabajar en este mbito ha supuesto durante dcadas un coste adicional a las complejas trayectorias de artistas e investigadoras, crticas y comisarias, galeristas y gestoras.
En el plano histrico, hoy conocemos las obras de cientos de artistas mujeres desde antes
del siglo XV hasta la primera mitad del siglo XX. Y lo que es, al menos, tan importante: sabemos cules fueron las condiciones en las que trabajaron, por qu fueron relegadas en la historiografa artstica hasta que sus nombres prcticamente se perdieron a causa de atribuciones errneas y prejuicios acerca de su calidad artstica, que a estas alturas no podemos
calicar sino fruto de la misoginia en la tradicin patriarcal. Las historiadoras feministas
Frances Borzello, Norma Broude, Whitney Chadwick, Mary D. Garrard, Lynda Nead y
Linda Nochlin, Roszika Parker y Griselda Pollock por destacar un puado de maestras
entre legiones no slo han descubierto artistas y lneas de interpretacin que ponen en
valor sus obras, sino que han evidenciado signicaciones y sentidos de la mirada masculina
de artistas, crticos e historiadores, comitentes y espectadores que contribuyeron a la naturalizacin de la concepcin de la mujer como objeto y no sujeto de representacin; pero
tambin han abierto lecturas de imgenes divergentes que, como las que presenta esta exposicin, no representan los roles tradicionales de la feminidad, reejando un patrimonio
testimonial de los vaivenes del sistema patriarcal a travs de un transcurrir histrico ms
rico y complejo de lo esperado. Construyendo, en conjunto, la ms importante ampliacin
de la historia del arte como disciplina desde su fundacin, tanto en su objeto como en sus
metodologas: generando nuevas narrativas.
Semejante esfuerzo colectivo, adems, ha precisado una reconceptualizacin bsica de
categoras centrales en la teora del arte. Hace tiempo que sabemos por qu hasta hace
poco se crea que no haba habido grandes mujeres artistas. La teora feminista nos ha
hecho comprender cmo la concepcin misticada de artista como genio (masculino) ha condicionado nuestra manera de percibir el arte. Y tambin la respuesta a uno de los enigmas
en donde an resbalan aquellos que todava no se han familiarizado con esta metodologa
hoy imprescindible: s existe una imaginera femenina. Incluso en el momento en que la
crtica Lucy Lippard plante esta cuestin, en plena irrupcin del feminismo militante y a
pesar de las numerosas obras en las que era fcil reconocer una composicin oval o circular
que las jvenes en grupos de trabajo denominaron cunt art (arte del coo) con evidente afn rearmativo, invirtiendo los estereotipos negativos colgados a la Mujer, hubo de
54
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fig. 15
Niki de Saint-Phalle
Hon (Ella), 1966
Moderna Museet,
Estocolmo
responderse con una negativa. Es absurdo armar un determinismo en ltimo trmino psicobiolgico para la creatividad de las artistas. A lo sumo podran considerarse condicionantes culturales y opciones estticas, sean cuales fueren su procedencia y su repercusin.
Pero si el arte no tiene sexo, sin embargo, el sistema del arte s ha estado y sigue estando marcado estructuralmente por un sexismo que ha discriminado en general, sigue
discriminando el talento de las mujeres que trabajan en arte, entorpeciendo su contribucin a la excelencia artstica y excluyendo del criterio de calidad parmetros considerados
tradicionalmente femeninos.
Un icono: Hon (Ella), realizado por Niki de Saint-Phalle [g. 15] la nica mujer perteneciente al grupo Nouveaux Ralistes con la colaboracin de Jean Tinguely y Per Olof
Ultved, como monumento temporal para el Moderna Museet de Estocolmo en 1966, poco
ms de quince aos despus de que Simone de Beauvoir publicara El segundo sexo, nos habla
55
17/02/11 9:14
Artistas heronas
Roco de la Villa
fig. 16
Judy Chicago
The Dinner Party, 1974-1979
Cermica, porcelana y tela,
14,63 x 14,63 m
Brooklyn Museum, Nueva York,
donacin de la Elizabeth
A. Sackler Foundation,
inv. 2002.10
fig. 17
Barbara Kruger
We have received orders
not to move, 1982
de la oposicin social que obtenan quienes entonces expresaban su punto de vista. Inscrita
en la serie de las monstruosas y divertidas Nanas, que posteriormente iran poblando los
parques de las principales ciudades occidentales, a lo largo de sus veintisiete metros de
supercie de polister, Hon haca un guio al colorido pop. La imagen de la mujer tumbada,
con las piernas abiertas y las rodillas en alto en una postura de absoluta disponibilidad,
semejante a la actitud corporal inerme en reconocimientos ginecolgicos, a la postura para
los partos recomendados por los mdicos que sustituyeron a las parteras en el XIX y explcitamente obscena para los temerosos de la vagina dentata dispona en su sexo de una entrada para el pblico a la cueva de las maravillas: lo que era ya una burla a la misgina concepcin de la mujer como la eterna desconocida. Tras penetrar, se encontraba un lugar de
recreo, incluido un milk-bar en su pecho. En suma, un exceso pues, a pesar de que hoy en da
incluso pudiera considerarse una instalacin precursora del modelo del museo-parque de
entretenimiento, la sala fue clausurada das despus de su inauguracin. El poder subversivo y ldico de su risa no enga a nadie, y menos an cuando la prensa se hizo eco de las
series precedentes a las Nanas, por las que Saint-Phalle haba comenzado a hacerse conocida en el medio artstico: sus Shooting Paintings sobre las que se disparaba con un rie del
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calibre 22, inspiradas en sus Target Portraits, en donde la artista haca blanco contra la egie
de su amante como san Sebastin, o del encuentro Kennedy-Kruschev, ridiculizando hasta
el paroxismo la virilidad de la action painting, sintomtica con sus chorreos-eyaculaciones
del machismo imperante tras la Segunda Guerra Mundial.
La provocacin fue el manual de uso de esta irrupcin feminista a cargo de individualidades en la Europa de los sesenta. Mientras la jovencsima Orlan protagonizaba una serie
fotogrca de tableaux vivants saliendo desnuda del marco, Valie Export, en una accin de
la serie Expanded Cinema, se paseaba por Viena con un teatrillo colgado en el pecho y animaba a los transentes a tocar, si eran valientes como para atravesar las cortinillas (Tappund Tastkino, 1968), o bien, amenazaba con un arma mientras exhiba su pubis desnudo,
tras recortar un tringulo en sus pantalones (Action Pants: Genital Panic, 1969). Las chicas
malas estaban realmente enfadadas.
Pero tambin en California, donde se estableci a nales de los sesenta el primer programa universitario de arte feminista, se ridiculizaba en performances y ensayos socarrones la
historia cannica del arte moderno: esa que haba excluido a las mujeres vanguardistas de
la produccin artstica hasta hacer que se avergonzaran de su propio nombre e intentaran
doblegar su creacin a los criterios de sus compaeros, sin que las instituciones ni el mercado llegaran a apreciar sus esfuerzos. Todava en 1975, Carolee Schneemann, tras dejar la
lectura de su libro Czanne, She Was a Great Painter, recitaba desnuda la letana escrita en
un rollo que iba extrayendo del interior de su vagina en la performance Interior Scroll.
Algunas artistas pasaran al activismo social, de variada ndole: Sanja Ivekovic llama la
atencin de los cuerpos de seguridad que peinan en helicptero la zona cuando en una terraza se muestra relajada, leyendo, fumando, bebiendo whisky y masturbndose mientras
en la calle pasa el desle del presidente yugoslavo Tito (Triangle, 1979). Mientras, en Nueva
York, la antes publicista Barbara Kruger est cuajando el estilo directo y contundente para
los carteles que luego irn poblando las calles, en muros, vallas y medios de transporte, llamando a la desobediencia: We have received orders not to move [g. 17].
Una historia propia

Otra estrategia importante para entender el proyecto Heronas fue recuperar una historia
propia, revisando y honrando a las mujeres que las precedieron. En este caso aunque muchas
artistas feministas han revisado en su obra guras femeninas recurrentes en la historia del
arte occidental, la referencia inevitable es The Dinner Party (1974-1979) [g. 16], un complejo trabajo colaborativo dirigido por Judy Chicago en donde se conmemora a treinta y
nueve mujeres destacadas en la mitologa y en la historia de la humanidad, cada una representada por un servicio de mesa (mantel bordado, platos adornados con vulvas, copas, etc.)
pero que homenajea a un total de 999 contando los nombres que se inscriben en los baldosines en el interior del tringulo de este ornamentado banquete, el Suelo de la Herencia.
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Artistas heronas
Roco de la Villa
figs. 18 y 19
Christine de Pizan enseando

y ofreciendo su libro a Isabel
de Baviera, en Christine
de Pizan, La ciudad de
las damas, 1405
Manuscrito iluminado
The British Library, Londres,
inv. Harley MS 4431
Desde 2007 protagoniza como instalacin permanente el Elizabeth A. Sakler Center for
Feminist Art, en el Brooklyn Museum en Nueva York. Por lo que esta obra, a pesar de las
crticas que recibiera a principios de los ochenta por parte de las historiadoras britnicas
Griselda Pollock y Roszika Parker al resultar fcilmente rescatada y absorbida por una
cultura masculina, ya que no rompe de manera radical con los signicados y connotaciones
de la mujer en el arte como cuerpo, como elemento sexual, como naturaleza, como objeto de
posesin masculina, se ha convertido en el icono del tributo ofrecido a la historia de las
mujeres por el autodenominado por primera vez en la historia arte feminista del ltimo
tercio del siglo XX.
Sin embargo, esta obra, entre hagiografa y alegato, no es novedosa sino eptome de una
larga singladura, modulada por momentos de mayor integracin o segregacin de las mujeres a lo largo de la historia occidental. Tal como muestran las historiadoras Bonnie S. Anderson y Judith P. Zinsser en su monumental Historia de las mujeres. Una historia propia, la
historia de la modernidad describira un movimiento de sstole y distole, correspondientes
a los perodos de inicio de paradigmas, cuando las mujeres consiguen parcelas de autonoma, recortadas sin embargo en los momentos de consolidacin del nuevo orden. A travs
de los nuevos cdigos legislativos nacionales, el Renacimiento termin concretndose para
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Louise Otto-Peters en
Die Frauen-Zeitung, 1849.
2
Catherine Morland en Northanger

Abbey, de Jane Austen, 1817.
la mayora de las mujeres como el perodo histrico en que perdieron el control sobre sus
propiedades y ganancias, se instaur la prohibicin de decidir sobre su fertilidad y se clausura el acceso a una educacin superior y a una instruccin profesional. Despus de la Ilustracin, que se gest en los crculos de las salonires, tras la Revolucin Francesa, hubo tal
privacin de derechos para las mujeres que forz el surgimiento de los grupos de feministas
activistas del XIX, que enarbolaran la lucha sufragista: el derecho a ser ciudadanas que no se
obtendra sino paulatinamente, pas por pas, hasta despus de la Primera Guerra Mundial.
En la irrupcin de aquel movimiento social, la activista alemana Louise Otto-Peters arm:
La historia de todos los tiempos, y la de hoy especialmente, nos ensea que [] las mujeres
sern olvidadas si ellas se olvidan de pensar sobre s mismas1.
Heronas
Pero la historia, la historia real y solemne, no puede interesarme La leo un poco como
obligacin, pero no me dice nada que no me fastidie. Las luchas de papas y reyes, con guerras o pestilencias, en cada pgina; los hombres, la mayora buenos para nada, y casi ninguna mujer visible, es muy aburrido2.
La historia de la reivindicacin de heronas y guras de mujeres clebres tiene su origen en

los inicios de la modernidad, que en su transcurso queda pespunteada por escritos e imgenes de mujeres, conscientes de la necesidad de mantener un legado y continuar apuntalando una tradicin propia.
Desde el siglo XV encontramos mujeres que escriben desde posiciones que hoy denominamos feministas estableciendo el gnero de enaltecimiento de la historia de las mujeres.
En 1405, Christine de Pizan considerada la primera escritora profesional europea publica La ciudad de las damas: una apologa de la mujer apoyndose en las guras heroicas femeninas de la mitologa y de la Biblia y en mujeres de la historia y del presente. Su principal
fuente fue el De claris mulieribus (1362) con que Giovanni Boccaccio inaugur el gnero literario de mujeres ilustres que alcanzara una gran popularidad, a la vista de las numerosas
ediciones en Europa. Pero mientras Boccaccio presentaba a estas mujeres ejemplares como
casos aislados y excepcionales que corroboraban los prejuicios misginos de la mentalidad
patriarcal, en la ciudad de Pizan conforman una versin armativa de la identidad de la mujer. La importancia que para la escritora tena este tratado se prueba en que no escatim
en gastos para su edicin ilustrada, trabajando con varios talleres parisinos para elaborar
un programa iconogrco en el que se autorrepresenta como intelectual: escribiendo, ofreciendo sus libros o enseando [gs. 18 y 19]. Con lo que tambin en Pizan encontramos la
primera referencia al gnero del autorretrato demostrativo caracterstico de las pintoras,
como veremos despus, y supone una inflexin respecto a las obras de las ilustradoras
medievales annimas.
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17/02/11 9:14
Artistas heronas
Roco de la Villa
fig. 20
Patricia Cronin
La reina Isabel de Castilla,
de la serie Harriet Hosmer
Catalogue Raisonn, 2007
Acuarela sobre papel,
38 x 30 cm
Cortesa de la artista
Adems, Christine de Pizan, que public tres decenas de obras, con sus Cartas de la
Querella del Roman de la Rose (1398-1402), en contra de la segunda parte de esta obra escrita por Jean de Meun donde el autor ataca a las mujeres, ser la iniciadora de la Querelle
des Femmes, movimiento de defensa de la vala de las mujeres llevado a cabo por diversas
intelectuales desde el siglo XV. A principios del XVII, cuando Marie de Gournay escribe La
igualdad de hombres y mujeres (1622) y Agravio de las damas (1626), sigue acudiendo a la
lista de personajes femeninos que siempre aparecan en las obras escritas en defensa de las
mujeres. Era frecuente que estos escritos estuvieran dedicados a las monarcas del momento, fuera Mara de Mdicis, Ana de Austria, Ana de Inglaterra y despus, en el siglo XVIII,
Catalina la Grande de Rusia, Mara Teresa de Austria y su hija Mara Antonieta de Francia,
quienes gozaran de ser incluidas en las sucesivas versiones de La Galerie de femmes fortes.
Se trata de una importante tradicin literaria entrelazada de enaltecimiento y de vindicacin de las mujeres que con el tiempo fue ensanchando su inuencia desde las clases
privilegiadas hasta las mujeres burguesas de las ciudades modernas: en 1710, la escritora
inglesa Mary de la Rivire Manley public un cuadro de heronas en su revista The Female
Tatler, armando que la agradable visin de heronas tan brillantes me produce extremado
placer y me hace consciente de la ventaja que poseo siendo mujer. Y todava, en 1924, la
fotgrafa Claude Cahun, conocida por su larga serie de autorretratos travestidos que hoy
son referencia imprescindible para abordar la cuestin de la identidad contempornea, y
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perteneciente a ese grupo de artistas y literatas, intelectuales y coleccionistas amazonas

bien documentado por Greta Schiller en el lme Paris was a Woman, comienza su serie de
artculos Herones en el Mercure de France.
La alianza entre las mujeres soberanas, primero, y despus independientes, junto a literatas y artistas, discurre como un ro subterrneo a lo largo de la modernidad. Mara de
Hungra y su pintora de cmara Catherina van Hemessen, Isabel la Catlica y Beatriz Galindo, a quien encarga educar a sus hijas, Mara Antonieta y Vige-Lebrun, que retratar
a otras nobles como mnades o minervas. Dedicatorias y encargos que ms tarde se convertirn en apoyos explcitos y creacin de instituciones femeninas dedicadas a ampliar la
formacin y los derechos de las mujeres irn tejiendo la red del rechazo a la dominacin
masculina tambin en el mbito de la cultura.
A mediados del siglo XIX, un perodo intenso en la reforma de la enseanza femenina, en
el Reino Unido surgi la primera asociacin de artistas mujeres, Society of Female Artists
(1856). Entonces, tambin las artistas norteamericanas trabajaban formando un frente comn: en Roma, tras Harriet Hosmer, desembarcaba un numeroso grupo de escultoras entre
quienes destacaron Anne Whitney y Edmonia Lewis, especialmente interesadas en realizar
monumentos de mujeres clebres y desconocidas. En 1876, la Exposicin del Centenario
en Filadela dispuso un Pabelln de la Mujer, con casi cuatro mil metros para exponer obra
de mujeres de trece pases, y que fue tan polmico por segregacionista como el Pabelln de la Mujer en la Exposicin Colombina Mundial de Chicago, en 1893. Diez aos antes
Harriet Hosmer haba armado: Honor a cada mujer que tiene el coraje de apartarse del
trajinado camino cuando siente que su andar recorre otra senda. Honor al coraje para levantarse aunque se ran de ella. [] Dentro de pocos aos no ser raro que las mujeres sean
escultoras o pintoras o predicadoras y cada una de las que vengan despus de nosotras, recibir menos y menos golpes. Consciente de que el cordn para tejer esa red era la creacin
del imaginario femenino, la construccin cultural de las heronas era un espejo propio en
el que las mujeres se reconocieran.
Hoy jvenes artistas feministas rinden homenaje a sus precursoras, a las artistas de las
vanguardias que todava fueron arrinconadas por sus compaeros y menospreciadas por
crticos e historiadores, y tambin a aquellas que, como Harriet Hosmer, dieron cuerpo al
panten imaginario de heronas [g. 20].
Acerca de un imaginario
Mientras la tradicin cultural occidental ha considerado que los hombres eran creadores y
artistas desde siempre, se ha rechazado la creatividad de las mujeres. Como cuenta Carolee
Schneemann en Women in the Year 2000 (1977), recordando una ancdota de estudiante,
su profesor de Historia del Arte se escandaliz cuando la joven le espet por qu al hablar del arte rupestre utilizaba el gnero masculino, cuando podran haber sido las mujeres,
que esperaban a los cazadores en el refugio de las cuevas, las que hubieran realizado las
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Artistas heronas
Roco de la Villa
pinturas mgicas. El prejuicio del rol pasivo de la mujer arraiga en su biologa: hasta 1827
no fue descubierto el vulo, y hubo que esperar hasta 1883 para que se comprendiera el proceso complementario de fertilizacin. Hasta entonces, el poder de engendrar se atribua al
principio masculino que germinaba en un seno pasivo, en el peor de los casos, yermo, vaco.
Por extensin, las mujeres quedaron adscritas a tareas consideradas no creativas y repetitivas como las artesanas, ligadas a la utilidad de sus apropiadas tareas domsticas, un marco
tan estable y atemporal como hasta hace poco se consideraba a la propia Naturaleza, con
leyes inmutables. De manera que la reconstruccin de la genealoga de las artistas ha sido
un peculiar reto inscrito en la reconstruccin de la identidad de las mujeres a travs de la
historia. Estas lneas pretenden ser una pequea aportacin mediante unos cuantos ejemplos a la comprensin de la intrahistoria de las artistas, a partir del imaginario mtico de la
Antigedad y del imaginario sobre su propia identidad que tuvieron que construir a lo largo
de la modernidad, para superar la profunda contrariedad que supone para el patriarcado
aceptar la existencia de mujeres capaces de crear.
Entre las heronas de la Antigedad, la pintora ms conocida para la modernidad posiblemente sea Tamar, destacada en una ilustracin en De claris mulieribus de Boccaccio,
que la representa observndose frente a un espejo y, al tiempo, autorretratndose en una
miniatura oval. Segn Plinio el Viejo, era hija del pintor Micon y se hizo famosa por una pintura de la diosa Diana guardada en feso. Tamar, junto a Irene y Marcia, son las tres pintoras
que nombra Boccaccio en un conjunto de 104 biografas de mujeres, aunque en su Historia natural, Plinio se reere tambin a Calipso, Aristarete, Laia y Olimpia: juego arbitrario
de nombres que aparecen y desaparecen, caracterstico en el tratamiento de las artistas
mujeres por parte de la literatura artstica durante la modernidad, como subraya Whitney
Chadwick en su Mujer, arte y sociedad, y que ha dicultado enormemente la reconstruccin
de una historia del arte no excluyente. Del Medievo, conocemos las maravillosas ilustraciones de la espaola Ende (siglo X) junto a los clrigos Senior y Emeterio, autora del Beato
del Apocalipsis de Gerona, elaborado en los montes de Len y de la alemana Guda, de la
bvara Claricia (siglo XII), y de otras autoras: Diemud, Sintram o Herrada de Landsberg,
aunque sus manuscritos hayan desaparecido; pero sobre todo, sabemos que prcticamente
desde el comienzo de la cristiandad hubo conventos regidos por abadesas de nobles familias que dirigan el scriptorium donde se copiaban e iluminaban manuscritos. Christine de
Pizan incluy en su ideal Ciudad de las damas a Anastasia, considerada una de las mejores
iluministas en Pars. Y todava en el siglo XV conocemos a artistas asociadas a conventos
como Caterina de Vigri Santa Catalina de Bolonia, patrona de artistas, Antonia Uccello y Suor Barbara Ragnoni, que experimentaron las nuevas tcnicas de la pintura al fresco
y al leo.
Siguiendo a Plinio el Viejo, Vasari se vio obligado a incluir a las artistas citadas en la
Historia natural en su primera edicin de las Vidas, que funda la historia del arte como
historia de los artistas. Entre las ocho artistas de la Antigedad mencionadas por Plinio, la
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mayora hijas de padres pintores, el relato ms completo es el de Iaia de Czico, que trabaj
en Roma hacia el ao 100 a. C.: Empleaba tanto el pincel de pintor como el cincel sobre
el marl. Sola pintar mujeres, incluidos un cuadro sobre tabla de una anciana en Npoles
y un autorretrato, para el cual emple un espejo. No haba mano ms rpida que la suya en
pintar un cuadro. Tan grande era su talento que sus precios superaban a los de los ms celebrados pintores de su tiempo. En la segunda edicin, Vasari incluye hasta un total de 160
artistas, contando con una quincena de artistas mujeres, entre ellas la escultora bolognese
Properzia de Rossi, cuya sola presencia alude al peculiar medio artstico de Bolonia, la
nica ciudad italiana con una universidad a la que asistan mujeres desde la Edad Media y
que cont con un rgimen tambin diverso para gremios y ocios entre los que abundaron
artistas mujeres. Pero sabemos que en otras zonas de Europa, como en el norte de Francia
y los Pases Bajos, las artistas no fueron tan excepcionales como sugiere Vasari; por ejemplo, los anales de la Cofrada de San Lucas en Brujas muestran que hacia 1480 el 25 por
cien de sus miembros eran mujeres, ya que era habitual que los hijos siguieran los ocios
de sus padres.
Pero si Vasari mencion a aquellas artistas que haban superado en el arte a sus padres,
como De Rossi o Lavinia Fontana, con el n de equiparar el esplendor de su propia poca
con la Antigedad, tambin condicion la lectura de la obra de las artistas para la posteridad, legitimando sus cualidades con virtudes consideradas femeninas, es decir, subrayando
diferencias en gneros pictricos y en ejecucin femenina e, implcitamente, armando
la superioridad de los hombres en las artes plsticas. Dicho de otro modo, las ms sobresalientes no eran en realidad mujeres, sino autnticos y castos viragos. Como de hecho, se autorretrata en 1554 la joven Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1532-1625), sosteniendo un libro con
una anotacin latina con la que se presenta como virgen, modelo ensalzado en la cultura
cristiana que conforma un modelo irreal y que, como arman Andersen y Zinser implica la condena de la sexualidad de las mujeres y limita sus vidas con prohibiciones tcitas en
nombre de la pureza.
Por su pertenencia a la nobleza, Anguissola no pudo vender sus cuadros, que circularon
como preciosos regalos por las cortes europeas. Hermana de cuatro pintoras y una escritora
y latinista, durante su larga estancia en la corte de Madrid, a la que llega como pintora y
dama de compaa de Isabel de Valois, retrata a sus hijas, Isabel Clara Eugenia y Catalina Micaela, a Felipe II y a su cuarta mujer, Ana de Austria. A lo largo de su vida estuvo en
contacto con artistas relevantes de su poca: despus de sus maestros Bernardino Campi y
Bernardino Gatti con el divino Miguel ngel, los Tiziano, Van Dyck, Alonso Snchez Coello
y Antonio Moro; incluso sus retratos fueron emulados por Caravaggio y copiados por Rubens. En total, se conservan medio centenar de cuadros suyos, entre los que destacan sus
codiciados autorretratos. En 1558, antes de viajar a Espaa, un comitente le solicitaba a su
padre: No hay nada que desee ms que la imagen de la propia artista, de modo que en una
sola obra puedo exhibir dos maravillas, una el cuadro, otra la artista.
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Artistas heronas
Roco de la Villa
Autorretratos: un gnero propio

Conocemos una quincena de autorretratos de Anguissola [vase, por ejemplo, cat. 99]. Al
igual que Alberto Durero, comprendi la peculiar importancia del autorretrato como el gnero pictrico ms adecuado para expresar la propia potica en el noble arte de la pintura,
entendida como Arte, vocacional y cuyo valor no poda retribuirse con recompensa material:
una alabanza retrica heredada de la Antigedad pero en la que no se dejara de profundizar
a lo largo de la modernidad y que en su caso fue literal. Pero, adems, Sofonisba convirti
el autorretrato en un gnero propio para las pintoras. Como pronto descubri la especialista
Frances Borzello, llama la atencin la cantidad de autorretratos de las principales pintoras y su
existencia inevitable incluso de aquellas que, con el tiempo, lo abordaron desde el ngulo ms
banal. Mientras que, siempre, lo que impresiona de los autorretratos de Sofonisba Anguissola
es su mirada directa y sin pudor a quien la contempla: se arma como sujeto y como igual.
La maestra de Anguissola como fundadora de las posibilidades enunciativas del autorretrato para las pintoras que la sucedieron se comprueba en la repeticin de sus frmulas.
Por ejemplo, Sofonisba se autorretrata como noble, tocando la espineta [g. 21], declarando
su procedencia social pero tambin la hermandad con otras artes, la literatura y la msica,
patrn repetido poco despus por Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614).
Sin embargo, el modelo ms pregnante llegara a ser el autorretrato demostrativo
de la autora en la ejecucin tcnica de la pintura. La artista se muestra con el pincel y el
resto de aparejos del ocio, evidenciando la conciencia sobre su condicin y la necesidad
de la autoarmacin profesional en un medio eminentemente masculino: es el tipo de representacin ms reiterada, que prcticamente alcanza hasta nales del siglo XIX ante los
ataques misginos que dudaban de la autora y que no cesaron, sino que ms bien fueron de
recurrencia intermitente conforme las artistas se salan de los medios y gneros que, a duras penas, se les haba consentido: retratos y bodegones, miniaturas y pequeos formatos.
Por lo que slo a la vuelta del siglo XX el autorretrato demostrativo se ver reemplazado
por una simbologa ms personal que, en series y ciclos, denota la tendencia a una mayor
introspeccin. Todo esto antes de que las acciones performativas vuelvan a tomar una importancia especial en el arte feminista, evidenciando su raigambre en la anterior defensa de
la maestra artstica con la representacin de la propia gura en el acto de ejecucin.
Casi dos siglos antes de que el eslogan lo personal es poltico se convirtiera en estrategia principal para las artistas feministas de los pasados aos setenta que ponen en juego
su propio cuerpo, asistimos al surgimiento de un subgnero del autorretrato demostrativo
elocuente, el de la pintora como madre. El ingenuo autorretrato de Marie-Nicole Dumont
(1767-1846), hija y esposa de pintores, explicita en tono costumbrista y casi humorstico
la dicultad aadida de la maternidad. Dumont llama la atencin sobre la dependencia de la
mayora de artistas, todava generalmente hijas y esposas de artistas, un estatus que entonces contaba ya con cierta aceptacin en el medio artstico, con la contrapartida de que la
mujer consintiera con la consecuente subordinacin de sus tareas al orden familiar.
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fig. 21
Sofonisba Anguissola
Autorretrato con espineta,
1555-1556
leo sobre lienzo, 56,5 x 48 cm
Museo di Capodimonte,
Npoles
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Artistas heronas
Roco de la Villa
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fig. 22
Elisabeth-Louise
Vige-Lebrun
Autorretrato con sombrero
de paja, despus de 1782
leo sobre lienzo, 97,8 x 70,5 cm
The National Gallery, Londres,
inv. NG1653
Un impedimento que no afect a Elisabeth-Louise Vige-Lebrun (1755-1842), quien

revirti su condicin femenina en provecho al desposarse con un artista que, sobre todo,
era un hbil marchante y, de mutuo acuerdo, hara gala del encanto y de la belleza de la pintora, utilizando la excepcionalidad de la que se haca norma en la poca. En sus Memorias, la artista se enorgullece de no permitir que la maternidad interrumpiera su actividad
profesional y en varios autorretratos, con y sin pincel, se muestra con su hija. Prolca se
cree que pint un millar de obras, incluyendo pinturas de historia y paisajes y excelente retratista (ms de seiscientos, entre ellos veinte de Mara Antonieta, algunos tambin
con sus hijos), de ella nos han llegado cuatro decenas de autorretratos [vase, por ejemplo,
cat. 107] que reejan bien el optimismo de las salonires ilustradas y su ductilidad para
adaptarse al gusto cambiante de una poca que pas de la gracia del rococ en un perodo
especialmente feminizado en el gusto de la lite a la austeridad del estilo neoclsico. Entre ellos, destaca el Autorretrato con sombrero de paja [g. 22], cuadro con el que rivaliza
y con xito con el retrato de Susanna Fourment, de Rubens, cuyas sensuales alegoras
enaltecan los raptos, las vejaciones y la violencia masculina sobre diosas de la mitologa y
guras bblicas, como ha subrayado Erika Bornay.
Decapitados y cadas
Un tema caracterstico de las primeras generaciones de pintoras que se incorporan con
pleno derecho al medio artstico es el de Judit y Holofernes o, dicho en otras palabras, el
castigo vengador por el ultraje a la mujer, lo que supone una apropiacin y modicacin
signicativas de un motivo tradicional fruto de una nueva conciencia. Ya durante el Renacimiento este tema bblico haba ganado protagonismo en una lnea de interpretacin
poltica: como en Donatello, las iconografas de decapitados fuera Holofernes o Goliat
mostraban en las plazas pblicas el triunfo de los antes dbiles (los nuevos burgueses republicanos) frente a las viejas tiranas del feudalismo medieval. Este sentido desapareci
en el perodo del extremado barroco, de absolutismo poltico y fanatismo religioso, para
ser sustituido por representaciones en las que el contexto violento pareca acentuar la
sensualidad de una escena de alcoba como, por ejemplo, puede apreciarse en la versin de
Tintoretto; y en general, se desplegaba en representaciones en donde la desnudez o no
de los protagonistas y la proximidad en la composicin de manos, cabezas, zonas sexuales
y cabelleras decide su tipologa de invertido erotismo y misoginia. Slo Caravaggio retiene el sentido poltico y profundamente moral de la representacin, que elige el momento
justo de la decapitacin sangrienta, hacindose eco del que fue un escndalo pblico en la
Roma de su poca: la desdichada historia de Beatrice Cenci, cuya venganza familiar por
el ultraje de su padre le vali morir decapitada en 1599 y despus, cada ao, protagonizar
como herona una simblica manifestacin popular contra la aristocracia.
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Artistas heronas
Roco de la Villa
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fig. 23
Fede Galizia
Judit con la cabeza
de Holofernes, 1596
leo sobre lienzo
Galleria Borghese,
Roma, inv. 165
fig. 24
Luisa Ignacia Roldn,

llamada La Roldana
El arcngel san Miguel
aplastando al diablo, 1692
Madera policromada y
dorada
Real Monasterio de San
Lorenzo de El Escorial,
Patrimonio Nacional
De las numerosas versiones de las artistas del barroco se inere que la escena vengadora
no tuvo nicamente el sentido del rechazo de la violencia de los hombres contra las mujeres, sobre la que la veneciana Arcangela Tarabotti (1604-1652) escribi Tirana paterna,
un paneto acusando a los hombres de ser proxenetas y alcahuetes que abusaban de sus
hijas, sino que seguramente lleg a convertirse en una declaracin de su alineacin contra
la dominacin masculina en el marco de la Querelle des Femmes, recrudecida durante el
siglo XVII por las galeras iconogrcas y literarias de femmes fortes promovidas por regentes
como Mara de Mdicis.
Aunque las ms conocidas de estas versiones son las de Artemisia Gentileschi (15931651/1653), directamente inuida por el estilo sangriento de Caravaggio y justicadas en
las leyendas de artistas por el oprobio que habra sufrido en carne propia, lo cierto es que
pintoras anteriores y posteriores cuyas biografas parecen ser ajenas a tales sucesos abordaron este tpico. As, Lavinia Fontana, cuya versin ha sido datada hacia 1595 y donde
se ha reconocido, en la elegante y fascinante huida de Judit, un autorretrato de la pintora
boloesa. En algunos casos, la representacin de Judit y Holofernes es casi la nica o la ms
signicativa incursin en el gnero de pintura de historia, como la suntuosa versin de Fede
Galizia (1578-c. 1630) [g. 23] conocida como miniaturista, retratista y principalmente
como brillante iniciadora del gnero del bodegn en Italia, en donde la tpica actitud de
pensadora de la vieja sirvienta sobre la cabeza del decapitado nos advierte de la funcin
de la imagen como motivo de reexin.
De la pintora tambin boloesa Elisabetta Sirani (1638-1665), hija del principal ayudante de Guido Reni y conocida por sus escenas religiosas, nos han llegado otras dos versiones y, como en la de Gentileschi, hallamos la gura de Judit rodeada por otras heronas en
el conjunto de su produccin: desde un retrato de Beatrice Cenci a la valiente Porcia, que
forman, junto a la fbula de Susana y los viejos, un inventario de heronas agraviadas a lo
largo de la historia en la sucesin de culturas y religiones.
Un curioso sincretismo entre la iconografa de raz hebrea de los decapitados y los vencedores sobre el mal en la religin catlica de la Inmaculada a los arcngeles la encontramos en la sorprendente versin del Arcngel san Miguel aplastando al diablo a cargo
de la sevillana Luisa Ignacia Roldn (1650-1704) [fig. 24], conocida como La Roldana,
escultora de cmara en la corte de Carlos II y Felipe V. Ya en la poca se identicaron los
retratos naturalistas de la artista como san Miguel y de su marido en el diablo, convirtindose en smbolo de las desavenencias entre los matrimonios de artistas. Y del combate entre
los sexos que comenzaba a emerger en la literatura del Siglo de Oro, con protagonistas vengadoras como la moza del cntaro y otros personajes femeninos travestidos de hombres
en las obras de Lope de Vega y Caldern, versiones populares de la virilidad de las reinas de
la poca Isabel I de Inglaterra y Cristina de Suecia, que eligieron abdicar antes que casarse.
Y a las que se sumaran Mara de Zayas, Ana Caro y Juana Ins de la Cruz, defensoras de las
mujeres en el marco de la Querelle en Espaa, en donde se reforz la moral represiva con la
Contrarreforma, como ha mostrado Teresa Langle de Paz.
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Artistas heronas
Roco de la Villa
Como pendant de la iconografa de las vengadoras, estas artistas del XVII no slo fueron
proclives a representar a heronas de la Antigedad, como Cleopatra o Melpmene, sino, en
especial, destacan por el tratamiento formal discreto y respetuoso de las cadas: mientras
el arrobo exttico de vrgenes penitentes como Mara Magdalena haba llegado a desencadenar una iconografa explcitamente ertica, destinada a la cmara reservada de los comitentes, las representaciones de agraviadas como Susana y Betsab a cargo de las artistas
desprenden el halo del respeto a su dignidad y pudorosa castidad, incluso cuando estas heronas aparecen desnudas. Por tanto, se desmiente as su incapacidad para el estudio de la
anatoma as como la supuesta severidad normativa en el medio artstico y social, y al
tiempo se arma una mirada distintiva, propia, sobre el repertorio iconogrco tradicional.
Cmplices y rivales
Durante siglos, las artistas han tenido que confrontarse con los cnones masculinos, detentados por los maestros, de quienes slo podan ser consideradas seguidoras. Pero
recientes lecturas de una tela de Sofonisba Anguissola vuelven a hacernos considerar el
rechazo a tal subordinacin, desde el perodo en que contamos con obras para establecer
una tradicin propia, y la armacin, por parte de esta iniciadora, de su maestra, fundamentada adems en una reexin conceptual sobre la pintura que ms tarde sera emulada
con xito en la corte espaola por Velzquez. En 1559, Sofonisba realiza un autorretrato que se inscribir en el nuevo gnero: el cuadro dentro del cuadro [g. 25]. La pintora se autorretrata y retrata al pintor que supuestamente lo ejecuta. Aunque antes se crea
que el pintor era su maestro Bernardino Campi, hoy prevalece la interpretacin que ve en
l a Orazio Vecellio, hijo de Tiziano, a quien Anguissola pudo conocer en Miln de viaje
a Madrid: la pintura de Anguissola sera el pendant de un intercambio entre pintores, el
cuadro Anguissola pintando a Vecellio, desaparecido en el incendio del Alczar de Madrid.
Pero realmente fue slo un juego entre amantes?, como quiere la siempre novelesca antigua literatura artstica, o ms bien un reto entre rivales?, al que le habra comprometido
Anguissola con el n de indicar algo ms, esto es, la salida de la mujer como objeto de la
representacin para convertirse en sujeto en una tradicin masculina que no la admita
entonces sino como acionada.
Desde el XVI y durante siglos, las artistas se beneciaron de la proteccin de mujeres
de lite, a las que ensearon el noble arte de pintar, incluido junto a msica y literatura y
otras artes menores como el bordado y la jardinera en la formacin de las jvenes distinguidas. Y tambin inuyeron en su gusto esttico. Sofonisba ense a la reina de Espaa,
como despus Angelica Kauffmann a las hijas de la reina de Npoles. Adems, algunas
como Sirani en Bolonia abrieron escuela para ensear a otras jvenes que no eran hijas de
pintores, lo que evidencia su conanza en la importancia de extender la formacin entre
las mujeres, una reivindicacin constante y que no dejar de crecer en todos los mbitos
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fig. 25
Vecellio pintando
a Sofonisba, 1559
leo sobre lienzo,
108 x 109 cm
Pinacoteca Nazionale,
Siena
fig. 26
Adlade Labille-Guiard
Autorretrato con dos
pupilas, 1785
leo sobre lienzo,
210,8 x 151 cm
The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, Nueva York, donacin
de Julia A. Berwind, 1953,
inv. 53.225.5
del conocimiento hasta bien entrado el siglo XX y modlicamente patente en el sarcstico

(y dramtico) comienzo de Una habitacin propia (1929) de Virginia Woolf.
Mientras tanto, el descrdito a causa del supuesto amateurismo debi hacer evidente a las artistas plsticas uno de los resortes para su insercin en la Historia del Arte,
tal como haba sido puesto de maniesto por Vasari: la importancia de ser reconocidas
como maestras de nuevos linajes. El Autorretrato con dos pupilas de Adlade LabilleGuiard (1749-1803) [g. 26], que fue admirado en el Saln de 1785, con la estatua de la Virgen Vestal al fondo, era un alegato contra la Acadmie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture
que, a pesar de haberla admitido junto a Vige-Lebrun dos aos antes, segua restringiendo a cuatro el nmero de artistas mujeres. Una reivindicacin que Labille-Guiard volvera
a plantear en 1790, despus de la Revolucin y para la que debi emplearse a fondo, pues un
ao ms tarde present en el Saln ocho retratos de miembros de la Asamblea Nacional,
como Robespierre y Armand, duque de Aiguillon. Pero al igual que la quiebra del derecho
a la emancipacin que supuso para las mujeres la Revolucin, a las jvenes artistas se les
negara el ingreso en la cole des Beaux-Arts hasta casi nales del siglo XIX.
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Artistas heronas
Roco de la Villa
fig. 27
Constance Mayer
Autorretrato con el padre de
la artista sealando el busto
de Rafael invitndola a que
tome al clebre artista como
modelo, 1801
leo sobre lienzo
Wadsworth Atheneum
Museum of Art, Hartford
Entre las que vivieron las consecuencias del nuevo orden tras la Revolucin, que apartara a las mujeres de cualquier actividad poltica, hallamos la decepcin de las artistas
ante un sistema que las dejaba en la situacin de franca dependencia del aprendizaje privado y subordinacin a sus maestros y colegas. Aunque es posible rastrear una iconografa
sobre este asunto, la imagen sintomtica pertenece a Constance Mayer (1775-1821), discpula de Greuze y David. Su Autorretrato con el padre de la artista sealando el busto de
Rafael invitndola a que tome al clebre artista como modelo [g. 27] ha conseguido encontrar un lugar en la Historia del Arte, ms que por su evidente calidad, debido a que se ha asociado a la biografa de la pintora que se suicid ante la imposibilidad de seguir trabajando
para su amante Proudhon, quien rmaba los cuadros realizados a medias, propia de los
folletines de heronas del XIX.
En 1789, la Peticin de las mujeres del Tercer Estado al rey haba solicitado ser instruidas, poseer empleos, no para usurpar la autoridad de los hombres, sino para ser ms estimadas; para que tengamos medios de vivir al amparo del infortunio, que la indigencia no
fuerce a las ms dbiles de entre nosotras [] a unirse a la multitud de desgraciados que
sobrecargan las calles. La imagen de las otras se convertir en un motivo simblico para
algunas pintoras durante el XIX. Contemporneo al autorretrato de Mayer, encontramos
el Retrato de una negra de Marie-Guillemine Benoist (1768-1826) [g. 28], discpula tambin de David y ya conocida por su posicionamiento feminista antes de que en el Saln de
1800 seis aos despus de la abolicin de la esclavitud, ese cuadro se convirtiera en un
maniesto a favor de las personas de raza negra y, por extensin, de la emancipacin de la
mujer. Benoist ms tarde abrira un taller para la enseanza slo de mujeres.
Lo que caracteriza el retrato de Benoist es el tratamiento de respeto hacia la modelo y
el reconocimiento de la individualidad como sujeto de la retratada. As como la ausencia de
lo pintoresco y la pretensin de convertir a la representada en gura simblica diferencia el
Retrato de una bretona (1886) de la nlandesa Amelie Lundahl de los de sus contemporneos Bouguereau, e incluso Jules Breton [vanse, por ejemplo, cats. 10-12 y 14]. Los retratos de las otras funcionan como espejos de las artistas, que prolongan la sincera honestidad
de su propia tradicin de autorretratos en los retratos de sujetos mujeres marginales, como
la Gitana de la pintora polaca Olga Boznanska. Aunque quizs la galera de retratos ms
destacada sea la de las pintoras orientalistas, en la que el exotismo y su sexualizacin y
en consecuencia, como not Nochlin, la deshumanizacin tan ostensible en el canon masculino de los pintores coetneos, fueron sustituidos por el respeto hacia cada modelo. Una
constante en las pintoras estudiadas por Reina Lewis, que parecen identicarse con el
rgimen de exclusin de aquellas otras, desde Henriette Browne a la britnica Barbara
Bodichon, a la sazn activista feminista que en 1854 escribe Brief Summary of the Laws
of England concerning Women y funda el English Womens Journal. Adems, Bodichon,
ligada al crculo londinense de Langham Place, cinco aos despus secunda la iniciativa
(rechazada) de presentarse al ingreso en la Royal Academy School of Art junto a otras
cuatro pintoras.
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fig. 28
Marie-Guillemine Benoist
Retrato de una negra, 1800
inv. 2508
Durante casi dos siglos, la exclusin de las artistas de las academias ociales sera la
tnica general en Europa. En Inglaterra, las nicas acadmicas en el XVIII seran Angelica
Kauffmann y Mary Moser, y bien relegadas, como muestra el conocido cuadro de Johann
Zoffany; adems, ninguna mujer volvi a ingresar en la Royal Academy hasta bien entrado
el siglo XX. En Espaa, el fenmeno de las numerosas artistas que ingresaron de mrito en
la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando desde mediados del siglo XVIII se cort
de raz con el cambio de estatutos en 1844, cuando, a imitacin de la francesa, se convirti
en la institucin que aunaba conocimiento y poder.
Como consecuencia, en los pases anglosajones a mediados del XIX se crean centros
de estudio segregados: en Alemania, la Knstlerinnen-Verein; en Inglaterra, la fundacin de
la Female School of Art and Design en 1843 sirvi como excusa para no admitir mujeres
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Berthe Morisot
Autorretrato, 1885
en la Royal Academy. En Estados Unidos tambin se fundaron la Womans Art School of

Design y otras semejantes, en donde la enseanza era adecuadamente acomodada a las
labores femeninas.
Sin embargo, el hecho de que en Francia las mujeres disfrutaran de mayor presencia
en las exposiciones del Saln explica que a nales del siglo XIX las artistas procedentes de
otras partes de Europa y de Estados Unidos expresaran su satisfaccin ante la diferencia
del ambiente artstico parisino. Si en 1801 casi alcanzaban el 15 por cien del total de artistas, en 1855 ya superaban el 22 por cien. En la segunda mitad del XIX, las artistas se formaron en academias privadas como la Acadmie Julian, Trlat o Colarossi. Algunas llegarn a
exponer en los Salones ociales con cierto xito, lo que les servira de respaldo a su vuelta
a sus pases. A lo largo del siglo XIX, las artistas extranjeras, que pasan un tiempo de formacin en las academias privadas de Pars, retratan a otras mujeres, y gracias a esa mirada nos
han llegado imgenes cotidianas que dan cuenta del rgimen de segregacin que rega en
la sociedad. Solas y acompaadas de otras mujeres, vemos a las burguesas en sus hogares
como en una espera tensa y compartiendo el trabajo en los mbitos laborales que se van
feminizando en las ciudades. Algunas artistas intentan sumar fuerzas junto a incipientes
coleccionistas burguesas, como muestra la pintora sueca Eva Bonnier.
A partir de la segunda mitad del XIX, la relacin directa con los artistas protagonistas del perodo se delatar decisiva para su ingreso en el sistema artstico en transformacin. Los casos de las pintoras asociadas al impresionismo son bastante elocuentes: Marie
Bracquemond, discpula de Ingres y esposa de un grabador, participar en algunas exposiciones del grupo; Berthe Morisot, que estudi con Corot y fue cuada de Manet, a quien
intent animar sin xito a que ingresara en las exposiciones de los impresionistas, de las
que ella s formara parte, de la primera a la ltima; y su amiga, la estadounidense Mary
Cassatt, discpula de Pissarro y parte del grupo desde 1879 a 1886.
Otro perl distinto muestran Eva Gonzals, discpula y modelo de Manet, y Suzanne
Valadon, discpula y modelo de Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Puvis de Chavannes y Renoir, lo
que sin duda le vali para que en 1894 fuera la primera pintora admitida en la Socit Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Muy perspicaz, haba desarrollado una carrera pictrica que fue
cambiando gracias a la familiaridad con distintos pintores y tambin fue capaz de hacer
valer los paisajes copiados de postales de su desestructurado hijo Utrillo, lo que demuestra
que fue profunda conocedora hasta los ltimos resquicios de la profesin de quien ejerce
la pintura. Valadon, que proceda de muy abajo, peridicamente seguira recordando con
sus autorretratos la importancia que haba tenido para ella su ingreso en el medio artstico
como modelo, precisamente subrayando su doble condicin, como pintora y como modelo,
pero despreciando el estetizado erotismo del que haba sido objeto en los cuadros de sus
maestros, que fomentaban la escopolia al simular que esas mujeres haban sido pilladas
por el pintor como si se tratara de un objetivo indiscreto. En cambio, los desnudos descarados de Valadon son testimonios de primera mano de las mujeres de condicin humilde
y dudosa reputacin que solan desempear este trabajo. Y adems, con desfachatez, se
75
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Artistas heronas
Roco de la Villa
76
17/02/11 9:15
fig. 29
Paula Modersohn-Becker
Autorretrato en el sexto
aniversario de boda, 1906
Tempera sobre cartn
Kunstsammlungen
Bttcherstrae, Paula
Modersohn-Becker Museum,
Bremen
atreven a desautorizar toda la tradicin de los maestros sobre su tema ms recurrente: la

representacin de la mujer.
Otra pintora que se autorretrat desnuda fue Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907)
[g. 29], insospechadamente, durante su perodo de gestacin. Casada con el paisajista Otto
Modersohn, gracias a su fundacin-museo en Bremen, el primero que fue consagrado a una
artista, hoy sabemos que durante los catorce aos que ejerci como pintora realiz ms de
setecientos leos y un millar de dibujos. En la poca en que pint este autorretrato, estaba
implicada en la bsqueda del primitivismo que entonces interesaba a los ms destacados,
como Gauguin. Pero a diferencia de las exticas tahitianas de mirada perdida del maestro,
Paula nos mira directamente, mientras rodea con sus manos su vientre en el sexto mes de
embarazo. Puesto que entonces resida en Pars, alejada de su marido y en compaa de su
amiga la escultora Clara Westhoff, quizs puede entenderse como una declaracin de cierta
autosuciencia como mujer. Desde luego, s lo es de independencia como pintora.
En todo caso, la historia no fue tan diferente entre las que fueron admitidas a los Salones ociales que triunfaron y al menos cosecharon un prestigio local a la vuelta a sus
pases, y las pintoras impresionistas, al igual que, despus, para la mayora de las artistas
que compartieron poticas con sus colegas, maridos, amantes y amigos en los grupos de
las vanguardias histricas: unas y otras fueron excluidas del relato de la historia del arte
de la modernidad y el valor de su trabajo slo se ha ido restableciendo en las ltimas dcadas. Hoy vemos ese relato como algo fantasmal, ya que inevitablemente nuestros intereses
desde el presente iluminan la galera de las deformes anacronas del pasado. Y nos damos
cuenta de la sensacin de profunda irrealidad que tuvieron que experimentar tantas artistas que vivieron bajo el desdn de la crtica, del mercado artstico y de sus propios colegas.
Son muy numerosos los documentos en donde expresan su inseguridad. Pero ms poderosas son las obras con que fueron resolviendo problemas cruciales sobre la construccin
de la representacin: sobre su objeto, la perspectiva de la mirada y sus destinatarios.
El Autorretrato con desnudo de Laura Knight (1877-1970) [g. 30] nos habla de un momento de inexin como artista y como mujer. Casada con el pintor Harold Knight, al que
conoce en la Nottingham School of Art, despus de una dcada como pintora se autorretrata aparentemente como un pintor. La escena fechada en 1913 representa una restitucin
de la carencia de clases de dibujo de desnudos durante su formacin, todava negadas a
las jvenes, y una apropiacin visual de la modelo Ella Naper, ceramista y diseadora, que
fascin al matrimonio Knight durante el perodo que vivieron en la bohemia comunidad
de artistas en Lamorna Valley, segn narra en su autobiografa Oil Paint and Grease Paint
(1936), y con la que despus mantendra una larga amistad. De manera que la tela expresa
un doble deseo. Como pintora se trata de un autorretrato demostrativo, pero da la espalda a quienes la han de juzgar; y como amante, al desdoblar la imagen como expresin de
la sublimacin obtiene tres planos de representacin femenina: pintora, modelo y guracin completan en crculo la composicin, armando la autonoma en el proceso creativo y
una versin de la identidad femenina que desafa el esencialismo de la Mujer bajo la norma
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Artistas heronas
Roco de la Villa
del excluyente rgimen heterosexista. Inmediatamente despus, estallara la Primera Guerra

Mundial, que desencadenara cambios decisivos en el estatus de las mujeres como ciudadanas con derecho a voto y en la apertura de tantas puertas antes cerradas para su formacin
profesional. Y posteriormente, Laura Knight sera la primera artista nombrada Dama de la
orden del Imperio Britnico en 1929 y, desde los tiempos de Kauffmann, la primera mujer
elegida miembro de la Royal Academy en 1936.
El caso excepcional de Knight subraya la ecacia que durante la modernidad tuvo la clausura de las instituciones de conocimiento, primero, y de las instituciones pblicas y privadas
encargadas del reconocimiento profesional para las mujeres despus, con consecuencias
duraderas en el mantenimiento de los valores hegemnicos en la cultura patriarcal.
A diferencia de otros mbitos laborales, la formacin, la tenacidad y la superacin en el
desarrollo profesional no ofrece garanta alguna en el arte. El sistema artstico es un mbito
laboral que funciona por cooptacin y el talento y la excelencia de la obra no son los nicos
elementos que entran en juego: variables en el sistema de valores y no slo los referentes
al criterio esttico condicionan implcitamente las selecciones que se van haciendo simultneamente a la produccin artstica y despus, peridicamente, en la historia ulterior.
La vida de las obras depende de las interpretaciones y valoraciones en cada poca y, como
hemos visto, en nuestra tradicin, estos ciclos estn sometidos a la consideracin sobre su
autora. Pero sin tradicin, no hay invencin. De ah que la modicacin de las instituciones
artsticas, estando vinculadas a la estructura social de su tiempo, sin embargo, requieran la
transformacin de los criterios en la tradicin de la propia teora artstica para hacer efectivos los cambios que se producen casi linealmente en otros mbitos. En conclusin, desde
esta perspectiva, el sistema de arte tiende a conservar inercialmente valores retardatarios
mientras las nuevas teoras no terminan de ser aplicadas a las instituciones artsticas.
Por ejemplo, los datos que arroj la exposicin Making Their Mark. Women Artists Move
into the Mainstream, en donde se intentaba concretar el efecto de las polticas artsticas feministas desde 1970 a 1985 y que oscilaron entre un 15 y un 25 por cien hasta alcanzar en
el mejor de los ndices el 40 por cien de penetracin de las artistas en el sistema del arte
estadounidense, no se habran producido sin el intenso despliegue simultneo de activismo, gestin, teora, crtica e historiografa artstica, independientemente de la integracin
profesional, en general, de las mujeres en Estados Unidos.
En nuestro pas, el hecho de que tal conjuncin se diera a mediados de la dcada de los
noventa del siglo XX y de manera restringida sin activismo y sin el respaldo del reconocimiento de estudios de gnero especializados en las universidades, elementos entre otros
que mitigaron las posibilidades de su asimilacin en el sistema artstico en su conjunto
explica las dicultades todava existentes para las artistas en nuestro sistema del arte: por
ejemplo, actualmente, Carmen Laffn es la nica artista plstica en la Academia de Bellas
Artes de San Fernando, al igual que son nmos los reconocimientos a artistas mujeres en
los premios ms prestigiosos a pesar de que desde la dcada de los sesenta las licenciadas
comenzaron a superar la media en los estudios ociales de Bellas Artes. Y esta falta de
78
17/02/11 9:15
fig. 30
Dame Laura Knight

Autorretrato con desnudo, 1913
National Portrait Gallery,
Londres, adquirido en 1971,
inv. NGP 4839
Ms informacin en
www.mav.org.es
igualdad de oportunidades se prolonga en porcentajes variables pero siempre inferiores a

los estndares en los sistemas del arte de pases de nuestro entorno, y, en nuestro pas, en
otros mbitos profesionales, en cualesquiera de los baremos que utilicemos para radiograar nuestro sistema artstico. De manera que las artistas espaolas conviven con un sistema
del arte anacrnico, estructuralmente decimonnico, en el que las jvenes disfrutan slo de
un tercio de premios y becas y, en conjunto, apenas alcanzan el 18 por cien en las galeras,
poco ms del 7 por cien en la feria internacional ARCO y apenas protagonizan el 10 por cien
de exposiciones individuales en los museos y centros de arte contemporneo3.
La celebracin de esta exposicin Heronas debera ser una ocasin que proporcionara
el soporte historiogrco necesario para el respaldo que se merecen las autnticas heronas artistas hoy en nuestro pas. El deber del arte es responder a las cuestiones decisivas
en cada poca, comenzando por la reexin sobre su propia estructura y funcin.
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Guido Reni
Atalanta e Hipmenes, 1618-1619
17/02/11 9:15
Carmen Gallardo
De la mirada a la palabra
Cuatro heronas mticas
A los textos griegos volvemos siempre, tambin para descubrir mujeres a las que llamamos
heronas. Heronas, esposas y mujeres de hroes. Heronas, sujetos de acciones extraordinarias. Heronas solas, heronas magas. Mujeres dbiles y, al tiempo, fuertes, inteligentes y activas. Penlope, Circe, Medea o Igenia, mticas guras femeninas que construyen nuestro
imaginario. Transitar por las imgenes y las palabras de aquellos textos es reencontrarlas y
revivir sus historias.
Penlope, la tejedora de una activa soledad
Apolodoro: Biblioteca mitolgica, III,

10, 9. Madrid, Alianza, Biblioteca
Temtica, 2004. Traduccin,
introduccin y notas de Julia
Garca Moreno.
Una mujer sola en actitud pensativa, que apoya la cabeza en la mano, mientras su cuerpo
erguido ofrece una excepcional seguridad y rmeza, la Penlope de Bourdelle [cat. 4] nos
traslada a la legendaria taca. Al mirar la mirada de esta mujer, sus ojos nos arrastran a sus
pensamientos, nos impulsan no tanto a mirarla a ella como a mirar con ella, nos sumergen
en una nostlgica reexin y evocacin de su vida. Sus recuerdos van ms all de la Odisea,
cuando todava era una joven espartana, hija de la ninfa Peribea y del rey Icario, prima de
Helena de Troya y de Clitemnestra. Su padre la prometi a aquel de sus pretendientes que
venciera en una carrera, y el ganador no fue otro que Ulises. Apolodoro1, sin embargo, narra
que Tindreo le ofreci a Ulises la mano de su sobrina Penlope a cambio de un sagaz consejo, aunque este en realidad deseaba a la hermosa Helena. De manera que la prudente joven espartana vino a ser el premio de consolacin para un hroe que se senta incapaz, ante
candidatos superiores, de conseguir a la ms bella. Una vez casados, Ulises decide establecerse en taca, su pas, pero su suegro les pide que se queden en Esparta y, al no ponerse de
acuerdo, ceden a Penlope la decisin. No contesta, pero ruborizada cubre su rostro con el
velo. El rey Icario comprende el gesto y los deja marchar. La determinacin tomada preludia la conguracin de la leyenda de esta mujer: la perfecta casada, pudorosa, que sigue
sumisamente a su marido. Tales rasgos perlan el modelo de mujer ejemplar, el paradigma
literario de la delidad, el estereotipo iconogrco clsico de la mujer pasiva que espera,
con el que la tradicin ha velado y ocultado a la verdadera Penlope.
Ya en taca, nace Telmaco y, siendo an muy nio, su padre, Ulises, parte a la guerra de
Troya. Diez aos dura esa guerra y otros diez ms tardar el padre en volver. Mientras el hroe soporta aventuras y desventuras, arrostra peligros y se deja seducir y querer por ninfas
y diosas, la joven reina, Penlope, queda a cargo de la casa, sola, con un anciano, su suegro
Laertes, y con un nio, su hijo Telmaco. El tiempo pasa e taca necesita un rey. Laertes
es demasiado mayor y Telmaco apenas un adolescente. No llegan noticias del hroe y los
83
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17/02/11 10:54
Lord Frederick Leighton

Soledad, 1890
[detalle de cat. 3]
Homero: Odisea, I, 340-344.

Madrid, Alianza, 2005.
Traduccin y prlogo de
Carlos Garca Gual.
prncipes de los lugares vecinos se acercan a la isla para solicitar en matrimonio a Penlope.
Pero ella an confa en el regreso de su esposo. Es una mujer enamorada seguramente eso
tambin lo dicen sus ojos y por ello ha decidido esperar al hombre al que ama. La mano
apoyada en su cara ensimismada [cat. 3] nos trae las palabras con las que rogaba silencio al
aedo que relataba el regreso de los griegos de la guerra troyana:
[] deja ese canto cruel, que me desgarra el corazn, porque me ha hincado muy a fondo
una pena insondable, pues siento aoranza de su rostro recordndole siempre2.
Odisea, I, 346 y 356-359.

4
Odisea, IV, 716-719.

5
La espera parece inactiva. No la dejan hablar fuera de sus habitaciones. Son los hombres
quienes dialogan, quienes discuten, quienes deciden. A ella le niegan el espacio de la voz, es
su propio hijo quien le replica:
Odisea, IV, 819-821.
Madre ma, por qu ahora le impides al muy el aedo que nos deleite. [] Vete adentro de la
casa y ocpate de tus labores, del telar y de la rueca, y ordena a las criadas que se apliquen al
trabajo. El relato est al cuidado de los hombres y sobre todo al mo. Mo es, pues, el gobierno
de la casa3.
Y, asombrada por esas palabras, aunque las entiende, se retira. Sufre una marginacin asumida, por eso acata sin reproches la orden de Telmaco. La mujer enamorada es ahora, sobre
todo, madre, una madre profundamente preocupada por su hijo, al que considera todava un
nio, pese a que ha crecido lo suciente como para tomar decisiones sin que ella las conozca. Una noche decide salir en busca de su padre, protegido por la oscuridad y el silencio de
la nodriza, y el dolor de la reina al enterarse, consciente de los peligros de un viaje por mar,
mina sus fuerzas:
La invadi una pena que la aniquilaba y ni siquiera tuvo nimos para sentarse en una silla
de las muchas del palacio, sino que se agazap sobre el umbral de su bien construido dormitorio sollozando lastimosamente4.
[] mi querido hijo se march en una cncava nave, el nio que no sabe bien de empresas y parlamentos. Por l ahora yo me acongojo an ms que por su padre, por l estoy
temblando y siento temor de que algo le ocurra5.
El corazn y las rodillas le desfallecen. Telmaco tambin puede morir; un inmenso dolor y
desolacin se apoderan de ella. Si l muere y Ulises tal vez ha muerto, se pregunta qu me
queda?, de qu me sirve sentarme en un trono, en una de las sillas del palacio? Y as, en el
fro suelo, como una de sus sirvientas, en el umbral de su dormitorio, llora. El desmoronamiento reeja la debilidad de la herona. Igualmente le aquean las fuerzas al sentirse impotente para administrar y salvaguardar los bienes de su casa, que los pretendientes consumen
vorazmente.
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De la mirada a la palabra. Cuatro heronas mticas
Ricardo Olmos: Una lectura

femenina de la Odisea.
En Paloma Cabrera y Ricardo
Olmos (coords.): Sobre la
Odisea. Visiones desde el
mito y la arqueologa. Madrid,
Ediciones Polifemo, 2003.
Carmen Gallardo
El rostro de Penlope, que descansa en su mano, nos hace compartir tales sentimientos y recuerdos [g. 31]. Son los de la mujer enamorada y sola, los de la amorosa y tierna
madre sola, los de la esposa dbil e inane que espera al seor del palacio. Pero, si declinamos nuestra mirada hacia su cuerpo, rme y rotundo, entonces resulta irresistible no
imaginar a la reina de taca, no tanto responsable de la casa cuanto depositaria del reino,
capaz de conservarlo para Ulises gracias a su inteligencia astuta. Sin duda, el episodio ms
conocido y recreado de su vida es el ardid que trama para engaar a los prncipes que la
pretenden o, quiz mejor, que aspiran al trono. Les haba prometido que elegira marido
entre ellos cuando acabara la tela que estaba tejiendo, un sudario para Laertes. La labor
propia de las mujeres de la antigua Grecia, el arte del telar, se convierte en manos de Penlope en una activa arma de poder. Concibe un plan: destejer de noche lo que teja de da y
as dilatar la promesa hecha, esto es, un nuevo matrimonio. La metis, que es al tiempo ingenio, prudencia y astucia, la inteligencia prctica de Penlope, nos la revela muy distante
de esa encarnacin o prototipo de mujer paciente y dbil consagrado por la tradicin. La
herona griega teje con sus manos su destino y, con l, el destino del hroe. Teje tambin
el recuerdo. En su tarea de hacer y deshacer el lienzo, este se va haciendo memoria. Y ese
recordar hace posible el regreso. El tejido acompaa y envuelve la salvacin del hroe, incluso llegar a taca dormido en la nave sobre una tela de lino, que los marinos han extendido para que descanse.
Es posible que el engao de Penlope se remonte a los Vedas, en los que la noche teja
un vestido que el sol desteja con sus primeros rayos, pero Penlope altera los tiempos y
desteje por la noche lo que teje durante el da, porque para ella el espacio de la vida y de la
luz es la noche. El avance de la tela va aproximando su muerte, con el sudario de Laertes
va confeccionando su propio sudario, pues la conclusin del trabajo supone traicionar sus
sentimientos y su voluntad, renunciar a Ulises, ceder el reino de ste y el de su hijo Telmaco a unos extraos y, en esa medida, causar la prdida de la identidad del hroe, que ya
no sera rey de taca. En cambio, la noche es su cmplice, le permite deshacer la mortaja y,
al deshacerla, entreabrir una ventana a la luz y a la vida, a su vida, la que ella ha elegido. Su
solitario destejer no es mera destruccin, sino, al contrario, maquinacin que salvar su
lecho conyugal y su palacio6.
Pero, al tercer ao, una desleal sirvienta descubre el ingenioso pretexto y Penlope se
ve obligada a terminar la gran tela y casarse con uno de los soberbios prncipes. Entonces,
la aparente dbil reina da cuenta de su poder, estableciendo las reglas del juego. Solicita
regalos y seduce con su belleza a los pretendientes, en los que crea expectativas, mientras
su mente idea otros planes. Su metis le dicta una nueva artimaa. Propone un certamen de
arco para elegir marido: se casar con aquel que sea capaz de tensar el arco y atravesar con
la echa doce teas, colocadas una detrs de otra. Se niega a comenzar otra vida y el concurso
puede retrasar una vez ms el temido desenlace. Es consciente de la enorme dicultad de la
prueba porque slo Ulises ha sido capaz de hacerlo, y cabe incluso que en su interior piense
que el que lo consiga ser un segundo Ulises.
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fig. 31
Penlope sedente en las rocas

Mrmol. Copia romana de
escultura griega de c. 460 a. C.
Musei Vaticani, Galleria delle
Statue, Roma, inv. 754
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Odisea, XXIII, 168-171.
Carmen Gallardo
La prudente y astuta Penlope, calicada as por Homero ms que como el esposa,

actuar con sagaz e inteligente prudencia hasta el nal. Cuando Ulises llega a taca no se
da a conocer inmediatamente, l es tambin el hroe astuto que recurre a la estratagema
y al engao. Entra en su palacio vestido de mendigo y, desconcertando a todos, consigue
vencer en el certamen del arco; despus, descubre su identidad y mata a los pretendientes.
La anciana nodriza Euriclea despierta a Penlope y le relata lo sucedido; sta, sin embargo,
se resiste a creer que Ulises est en taca. No es ya una joven apasionada y romntica que
se precipita a arrojarse a los brazos de un desconocido. Se muestra como cabe esperar de
una mujer sensata que hace veinte aos que no ve al hombre que es su marido; los aos
de la ausencia la han hecho dura y desconada; parece que el amor se ha transformado en
un afecto sosegado o, quiz, lo fue siempre. Adems, ha dedicado mucho tiempo a preservar la hacienda y el reino de Ulises y no est dispuesta de ningn modo a dejarse embaucar.
El hroe le reprocha su actitud:
Testaruda, a ti, muy por encima de las dbiles mujeres un corazn inexible te infundieron los dioses de olmpicas moradas! Ninguna otra mujer de nimo obstinado se mantendra tan distante de su esposo, que por ella ha regresado, tras soportar muchos males,
a los veinte aos a su tierra patria 7.
Le resulta extraa la dureza de su esposa. No es fcil el reconocimiento por parte de ambos. Penlope necesita evidencias para aceptar que Ulises es el mendigo que se halla en el
palacio, y su perspicacia la incita a proponerle una prueba concluyente: manda a Euriclea
que le prepare la cama, que l mismo construy, fuera del dormitorio. El hroe enfurecido
pregunta quin ha podido cambiar el lecho de su sitio. Esta seal es decisiva, pues slo los
dos saban que era inamovible, ya que lo haba construido en un tronco de olivo que creca
en el suelo del recinto. A ella, entonces, le tiemblan las rodillas y el corazn y, al momento,
corre llorando hacia l, le echa las manos al cuello y le besa la cara. Se produce el encuentro
del hombre astuto con la mujer astuta, del rey con la reina, de lo semejante con lo semejante, de la inteligencia con la inteligencia.
La gura de Penlope ha sido reescrita y reinterpretada, desde siempre, en el arte gurativo, en la poesa, en la novela o en el teatro, incluso subvertida desde lecturas feministas y postmodernas. Los propios griegos la hicieron amante de todos los pretendientes
y de estos amores naci el dios Pan, y de ah su nombre. Pero quedmonos con la Penlope
de la Odisea, preservada tambin en otros autores, la que de alguna manera queda escrita
en la Penlope de Bourdelle. La de la mujer que ha decidido invertir su vida en esperar al
hombre que ama, en conservar para l el palacio y el reino, y que, sin embargo, no lo hace
pasivamente, sino tejiendo la espera, construyendo el tiempo, el recuerdo y el destino,
an a riesgo de que esa inversin resulte intil. Desde el da en que, todava en Esparta, le preguntaron dnde quera vivir comenz a forjar su identidad: ser tejedora de una
soledad activa y fructfera. Lejos, sin duda, de ese modelo que estableci la iconografa
88
0901thyssen_014_115#.indd 88
18/02/11 12:17
Odisea, X, 136-150.
9
Odisea, X, 190-192.
clsica, la Penlope sentada con la cabeza apoyada en la mano, en actitud de paciente inaccin. Modelo que parece reproducir el rostro de la Penlope con la que hemos retornado
a taca, pero cuyo cuerpo nos ha hecho recuperar una herona ms exacta, ms prxima a
la que dibuj Homero, la que es posible descubrir en una lectura atenta y cuidadosa de la
Odisea.
Circe, la inquietante maga ertica

Llegamos a la isla de Eea, donde habitaba Circe de trenzados cabellos, la terrible diosa
de voz humana, la famosa hermana del despiadado Eetes. Ambos haban nacido de Helios, que alumbra a los mortales, y tuvieron por madre a Perse, hija del dios Ocano. []
Avist un humo que se elevaba de la anchurosa tierra, entre espesos encinares de frondas
boscosas8.
As, con resonancias de un cuento popular, relata Ulises su desembarco en la tierra de la

maga Circe, Eea (Aiaie), nombre que suena a grito de dolor. Esta tierra constituye un peligro ms en el nostos emprendido por Ulises, en su camino de regreso a taca. Cuando el
hroe llega a este misterioso lugar experimenta una absoluta desorientacin:
Amigos, no sabemos por dnde queda el alba y dnde el ocaso, ni por dnde el sol que a
todos alumbra se ir bajo tierra, ni por dnde aparecer. [] Meditemos a toda prisa si nos
queda algn recurso9.
Precisa recurrir de nuevo a su acreditada astucia para superar los riesgos que presiente
en ese rincn que se le antoja el n del mundo. Divide a sus amigos en dos grupos y enva
a uno de ellos, guiado por Eurloco, a investigar el origen del humo divisado. Igual que
en los cuentos, el humo los conduce a la morada de la maga. Al entrar en el bosque que
rodea la casa, les espanta la visin de las terribles eras que lo habitan, pero leones y lobos, encantados por los brebajes de la hechicera, los reciben moviendo sus colas como si
fueran mansos perrillos. Si Ulises es un hroe poderosamente astuto, poderosamente astutas son las mujeres de su odisea, la sagaz Penlope y la soberana maga de Eea. Las eras
han inquietado a los valientes guerreros, sin embargo, enseguida, distinguen una hermosa
mansin en cuyo interior, alguien, no saben si mujer o diosa, teje una gran tela y canta. Al
instante, la inquietud causada por los salvajes animales se trastoca en la seguridad de sentir la presencia de un hogar humano, un espacio habitado por una mujer que teje. Enorme
engao. La bella que teje una tela divina es sobre todo una temible diosa de la naturaleza y
de las eras y es, adems, una maga, y por eso canta. El canto preludia sus encantamientos.
Circe sale al encuentro de los incautos y los hace pasar, les prepara una mezcla de queso, cebada, miel y vino, en la que desliza malcos ltros para hacerles olvidar su patria, les golpea
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Dosso Dossi
Circe y sus amantes
en un paisaje, c. 1525
10
Odisea, X, 289-302.
Carmen Gallardo
con una vara y, al punto, se transforman en cerdos, aunque conservan su inteligencia y sus
pensamientos.
Los extraordinarios poderes de las hechiceras de la Antigedad se hallaban ineludiblemente asociados a su capacidad para alterar la naturaleza: hacen bajar la luna, ocultan
el sol, mueven montaas, detienen el curso de los ros o metamorfosean a los hombres en
animales, piedras o plantas. Circe es una de ellas, y sus facultades mgicas buscan el dominio y la destruccin de los ingenuos varones que se acercan a su isla. El olvido de la patria
es el comienzo de la prdida de identidad de stos, seguido de la anulacin de su condicin
de hombre, condicin que va unida a la quiebra y ruina de su sexualidad. Es discutible pero,
resulta curioso y no deja de ser signicativo que la palabra griega chiros (cerdo) se utilice
tambin como trmino del argot para denominar el sexo femenino. Los cerdos de Circe,
domesticados y carentes de ereza y salvajismo, son de alguna manera los hombres que han
perdido su vigor sexual, es decir, su identidad masculina.
La maga somete con delicada seduccin a los compaeros de Ulises, excepto a uno, el
gua Eurloco que, temeroso de que la invitacin de la encantadora joven fuera una trampa, se haba ocultado y haba visto todo. Su prudencia permite que los dems conozcan lo
sucedido. Ulises decide, entonces, ir en busca de sus compaeros. En el camino le sale al
paso el dios Hermes, convertido en un joven que, con el n de ayudarle, le da una planta de
raz negra y or blanca como la leche, que los dioses llaman mly, para que la utilice como
amuleto, y le advierte:
Voy a contarte todos los manejos malcos de Circe. Te va a preparar un bebedizo, aadiendo sus drogas a la comida, pero ni an as conseguir hechizarte. Porque lo va impedir el remedio mgico que te voy a dar, y te explicar el resto. Cuando Circe te apunte con
su varita largusima, entonces t desenvaina tu aguda espada y atcala como si desearas
matarla, y ella, amedrentada, te invitar a acostarse a su lado. Entonces no rechaces ya el
lecho de la diosa, a n de que libere a tus compaeros y te deje regresar. Pero pdele que te
jure, con el gran juramento de los dioses, que no tramar contra tu persona ningn otro
malecio, no vaya a ser que, una vez desarmado, te deje tarado e impotente10.
Circe abre las puertas de su casa a Ulises y, hospitalaria, le ofrece un bebedizo en una copa
de oro [g. 32]. Se sabe dominadora, conoce su poder y espera que pronto el hroe quede
hechizado y sometido. Pero la hierba de Hermes hace su efecto y Ulises no sufre el encantamiento. Segn le haba indicado el dios, saca su espada y se abalanza sobre ella como
si quisiera matarla, la divina hechicera se asusta y grita, se sorprende de que su pcima
no haya resultado ecaz, y reconoce al hroe, pues Hermes le haba anunciado que, al
volver de Troya, se detendra en esa isla. La gran maga Circe ha sido vencida; sin embargo,
no cede en su intento; abandona sus poderes mgicos, pero, consciente de su seduccin,
tentadora, propone a Ulises que guarde la espada y vaya a su cama para que unindose en
el amor puedan conar el uno en el otro. Diosa y hechicera, es demasiado poderosa para
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17/02/11 10:55
Carmen Gallardo
fig. 32
Taller de Mystae
Escifo beocio de figuras negras
adornado con una escena en
la que Circe le suministra un
veneno a Ulises, siglo V a. C.
Cermica
Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford University, Oxford,
inv. G 249 (V 262)
rendirse; si no ha sido capaz mediante sus ltros de dominar al hombre que, desenvainando la espada, ha hecho ostentacin de su masculinidad y condicin de hroe, intentar en
el lecho, como anunci Hermes, transformar al hroe en cobarde y al hombre en impotente. Le arrebatar el honor y la hombra. De nuevo, el lxico viene a ser revelador, la palabra
eyn, el lecho al que Circe invita a Ulises, se contiene en el nombre dado a los compaeros
de ste, cuando, convertidos en cerdos, la maga los lleva a la pocilga. Son los chamaieyndes, los que se acuestan en el suelo. Difcil es resistirse a imaginar el riesgo que todava
corra el hroe.
Slo un dios poda salvar a un hombre de las maquinaciones de la divina bruja; el rey
de taca escapa de los malecios de la prda Circe gracias al mly y a la advertencia de
Hermes de que, antes de subirse a su cama, temeroso de que le prive de su virilidad, la
obligue a jurar que no va a inferirle ningn dao. As, lo que pretenda ser un arma poderosa para ella viene a ser un arma de triunfo para l, que consigue que deshaga el hechizo
y devuelva la forma humana a sus compaeros. Con todo, la victoria no es total, pues Circe
no deja de manifestar su fuerza y su atraccin. Renuncia a los venenos con los que someta
a los hombres, pero no a envenenar, porque deviene mujer enamorada, diosa del amor,
Venus, nombre en cuya raz tambin se encierra la palabra venenum. All queda Ulises
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durante un gozoso ao. La mala maga se hace bienhechora, la enemiga pasa a ser amiga,
la diestra en destruir se convierte en auxilio. Con su ayuda, Ulises sale de aquel lugar que
intua, con razn, que se hallaba en los con nes del mundo, pues, antes de su partida, Circe le anuncia que debe bajar al Hades, donde el adivino Tiresias le predecir los avatares
que an le depara el viaje. As, desde la isla de Eea desciende al mundo de los muertos,
realizando un ritual mgico, como si el contacto con la embrujadora habitante de la isla
le hubiera contagiado su saber. De este modo, la que pretendi hacerle olvidar quin era le
proporciona el medio de recuperar, a travs de la muerte, el conocimiento y la memoria
de s mismo.
Las imgenes pictricas de Circe, ya sea seductoramente desnuda o duea de un irresistible podero, rodeada de animales, o bien ofrecindose esplndida con la copa de sus
brebajes en la mano, reescriben la historia de esta inquietante diosa de voz humana, maga
poseedora de un peligroso poder ambiguo, capaz de daar o hacer felices a quienes se atrevieron a acercarse a ella [cats. 62, 63 y 66].
Medea, la tragedia de una maga

En ocasiones, produce cierta desazn y desconcierto establecer un dilogo entre imgenes
y textos de Medea, una mtica maga como su ta Circe. Era hija de Eetes y nieta del Sol.
Las numerosas obras gurativas y literarias que sobre ella nos han llegado hacen inevitablemente compleja la conversacin sobre un personaje que es pico, lrico y trgico, paradigma
de mujer pasional y colrica, de perversa madre y madrastra, de poderosa hechicera, de prda brbara. Modelo de transgresin y encarnacin de los celos.
Ya Pndaro, en su Ptica IV, describe el sortilegio recproco que practicaron Medea y Jasn y que les conduce a prometerse en matrimonio. Jasn, amaestrado por Afrodita, se convierte en mago ertico y, a travs de un pjaro, el tuercecuellos, atado a una rueda mgica,
rito que acompaa con conjuros, busca conseguir que Medea abandone su hogar y sienta
nostalgia de Grecia y un irresistible amor hacia l. Medea, por su parte, acude a su conocimiento de las plantas y prepara un emplasto de aceite y hierbas para que Jasn, ungido con
l, resista las pruebas que Eetes, el padre de la joven princesa, le ha impuesto. La magia amorosa, tan ejercitada por los antiguos griegos, obtiene su fruto y, gracias a uno y otro hechizo,
deciden unir sus vidas.
Se ha dicho que Pndaro debi de haber visto ms de una vez el magnco cofre de Cypselos, de cedro, oro y marl, descrito por Pausanias. En l se representaba a Medea sentada en un trono junto a Jasn y al lado de ella, de pie, se hallaba Afrodita; les acompaaba
una inscripcin en la que se lea: Jasn se casa con Medea. Le invita a hacerlo Afrodita.
La Medea pindrica que irrumpe en nuestros ojos y odos es una admirable y majestuosa
maga, conocedora de las virtudes de las plantas y adivina, nieta del dios Helios y princesa
de la Clquide, cuyo aspecto es el de una diosa a la que el hroe por el favor divino ha tenido
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Evelyn de Morgan
Medea, 1889
11
Jacqueline Duchemin (ed.):

Pindare, Pythiques III, IX, IV, V.
Pars, Presses Universitaires de
France, Coleccin rasme, 1967.
el honor de hacer su esposa11. Esta Medea menos conocida, que no ha suscitado demasiado
inters a lo largo del tiempo, desplaza nuestra atencin a la Medea de Evelyn de Morgan
[cat. 68], y en ella, en efecto, cabe escuchar la oda de Pndaro: una joven princesa del pas
de los colcos, poderosa maga y mujer enamorada a la que se rinde el hroe tras recibir su
ayuda.
Sin embargo, la turbadora serenidad del rostro de esta Medea prerrafaelita, su inquietante mirada perdida, orientada ms hacia adentro que hacia fuera, esos inmensos ojos
ensimismados, parecen contener la tragedia de su vida. Dotada de facultades profticas,
semeja presagiar su terrible historia, la que comienza a relatarnos Apolonio de Rodas, revivida por el poeta Ovidio, y que culmina en las tragedias de Eurpides y Sneca.
Fuera o no de linaje divino, Medea era una joven princesa, nacida en la Clquide, tierra
brbara, a donde lleg Jasn en la nave Argo al frente de una expedicin en busca de un
objeto maravilloso, el vellocino de oro, exigido por su to Pelias para devolverle el trono.
Cuando Jasn se acerca al palacio del rey Eetes con intencin de pedirle el vellocino, Medea, alcanzada por una echa de Eros, se enamora perdidamente de l. El rey exige a Jasn
unas pruebas imposibles a cambio del codiciado objeto: debe uncir dos toros de bronce que
arrojan fuego por sus fauces y arar con ellos los campos de Ares y, luego, sembrar los dientes de un dragn y aniquilar a los guerreros que nazcan de esa simiente. Medea sabe que
slo ella puede ayudarle, pero tambin sabe que tal decisin supone traicionar a su padre.
Entonces, vacila, se atormenta, duda entre ser leal a su familia o dejarse llevar por la pasin
que siente por el hermoso extranjero. Finalmente, toma la decisin ms arriesgada, y proporciona a Jasn un ungento mgico que le permitir salir con xito de la empresa. Pero
Eetes falta a su palabra y, adems, intenta matar a los argonautas. Y aqu comienza la transformacin de la princesa Medea: la adolescente asustada que decide escapar con Jasn,
y tiene el tierno detalle de aliviar la nostalgia de su madre dejndole sus trenzas bajo la
almohada, va a dar paso a la hechicera que con su fuerza y sus poderes ir oscureciendo
paulatinamente al hroe.
Por amor, la joven colquidia se har transgresora y terrible. La sacerdotisa de Hcate,
diosa de la magia, de quien ha aprendido estas artes, pondr todo su saber al servicio de su
amado. Ella que, como una verdadera bruja, busca cadveres y plantas malcas para preparar sus pcimas y ungentos, que fascina con su mirada y hechiza con sus conjuros, no
olvidar llevar consigo en el viaje de regreso a Yolco, la patria de Jasn, todos sus frmacos.
Antes de partir, dormir al dragn, guardin del vellocino, para que el argonauta pueda
conseguirlo. Luego, en el camino, hechizar al gigante Talo, que impide desembarcar a los
extranjeros en la isla de Creta y rejuvenecer a Esn, el padre del hroe, mediante un ecaz brebaje, en el que mezcla arenas del mar y escarcha de la noche con alas de vampiro e
hgado de ciervo. Pero, por amor, la maga bienhechora que nos revelan estos hechizos va
a cometer tambin los ms horrendos crmenes. El primero, el cruel asesinato de su hermano Apsirto, al que engaa atrayndolo para matarlo y arrojarlo en pedazos al mar con
el n de retrasar la persecucin por parte de su padre Eetes que, antes de seguirlos, deber
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recuperar el cadver de su hijo para enterrarlo. Esta tremenda accin, aunque ella no lo
presienta, ser, sin duda, el comienzo de su soledad y desamparo. Todava estrechamente
unida a Jasn, pero desvinculada ya para siempre de su familia. Su profundo amor por
el argonauta la llevar asimismo a ejecutar la venganza de Pelias, que se neg a entregar
el trono, a pesar de haberse apoderado del vellocino. Engaadora, con una espeluznante
astucia, persuade a las hijas del anciano, deseosas de rejuvenecer a su padre, como lo haba
hecho Esn, para que lo despedacen y lo hiervan en un caldero, igual que hizo ella con un
carnero, que sali transformado en un corderito. Cumplida la venganza del traidor de su
querido Jasn, huyen y se refugian en Corinto, acogidos por el rey Creonte.
All pasan diez aos tranquilos. Nada sabemos de ese tiempo. Tal vez vivieron felices
con sus dos hijos, hasta que Creonte decide ofrecer la mano de su hija a Jasn, y este, ambicionando un reino, acepta y accede al destierro de su familia. Aqu nace la Medea trgica
de Eurpides, aqu culmina la terrorca maga que se ha ido perlando a la vez que se descompona y desguraba la joven princesa de la Clquide. Apasionadamente enamorada,
veng la traicin que su padre Eetes cometi con su amado, escapando con l y matando
a su hermano. Apasionadamente enamorada, castig tambin la traicin de Pelias. Ahora, apasionadamente despechada, maquina vengarse del traidor, ese por quien ella dej su
casa e ide salvajes crmenes. Abandonada, sola y extranjera exclama:
T tienes aqu tu ciudad, la casa de tu padre, la ilusin de la vida, la compaa de tus
amigos; pero yo estando sola y sin ciudad, sufro las injurias de mi marido, cogida como
botn desde un pas brbaro, sin tener madre, ni hermano, ni pariente adonde ir a anclar
alejndome de mi desdicha12.
fig. 33
Atribuido a un pintor
annimo de Ixin
nfora campaniense de
figuras rojas con escena de
Medea matando a sus hijos
[detalle], c. 340-330 a. C.
inv. K300
12
Eurpides, Medea, 254-258.

En Esquilo, Sfocles y Eurpides.
Obras completas. Madrid,
Ctedra, Biblioteca urea,
2004.
La Medea transgresora aade a estas palabras una amarga queja de la injusta condicin
de la mujer, y la toma de conciencia de su situacin agudiza su desmesura. A partir de este
momento, la poderosa maga justiciera, que ha utilizado todas sus artes para ayudar y proteger a su querido Jasn, va a volcar toda su sabidura en procurarle dao, un dao mayor
que la muerte. Lo dejar vivo, solo, sin hijos y sin esperanza de engendrarlos, sin su futura
esposa. Desesperanzado y desolado.
Ya no es nicamente la sabidura mgica la que otorga una singular superioridad a esta
mujer, sino las cualidades y el carcter que exhibe: es valiente, orgullosa, audaz, rebelde, astuta, sabia, colrica y brutal, fuerte y soberbia, atributos que adornan a los hroes masculinos. Sin embargo es mujer y, como tal, aplicar tales virtuosos o infernales rasgos al mbito
que le es ms propio, al de los sentimientos. No admite ser marginada en su condicin de
mujer y extranjera, su sentido del honor se lo impide. No desea castigar tanto la impiedad
cuanto el abandono y el menosprecio. No es ahora el amor, ni siquiera los celos, los que encienden su ira, sino el ultraje, la burla y la injusticia.
En los ojos de la Medea de Evelyn de Morgan hemos credo leer esta trgica historia.
Pero todava declaran ms: es como si quisieran compartir con quienes los miran esa
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honda lucha que mantuvo cuando decidi no slo envenenar a la nueva mujer de Jasn y
al padre de ella, Creonte, sino a sus propios hijos. Titubea, le falla el corazn, se siente incapaz de hacerlo, pero, al tiempo, se anima, se llama cobarde, se dice que no va a permitir
que le tiemble la mano. Finalmente, determina que si quiere aniquilar a su marido tiene
que dar muerte a los hijos que este le ha dado. Ellos son, entre los antiguos griegos, una
prolongacin exclusiva del padre. Jasn los necesita, ya que, muerta su nueva mujer, ya no
podr procrear, y muertos sus hijos, su vida heroica quedar en el olvido. Esa ser la cruel
venganza de Medea. Hay, a la par, en el gesto del asesinato de esos hijos una reivindicacin,
aunque terrible, de que tambin le pertenecen a ella [g. 33]. Un grito violento de maternidad y un grito de rebelin de su exclusin como mujer amante y amada.
La maga, la princesa brbara abandonada por el hroe, la mujer fuerte que ha ensombrecido a Jasn, le brinda una ltima manifestacin de poder. Antes de marchar para
rehacer su vida, le profetiza el destino nal que le espera: morir aplastado por el mstil
de su propia nave cuando se encuentre descansando. No cabra esperar una muerte ms
antiheroica.
fig. 34
Fragmento de un casco con

Ulises sentado, c. 425 a. C.
Bronce y plomo, 12,4 cm
de altura
Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin,
Antikensammlung, Berln,
inv. 7863
13
Eurpides, Igenia entre

los tauros, 219-221.
Igenia, la nostalgia de Grecia

Y ahora, husped del mar inhspito, habito en casa de salvaje alimento, sin esposo, sin
hijos, sin ciudad, sin amigos13.
Este lamento de Igenia mora en la silenciosa mujer que ja su melanclica mirada en el

mar. El cuadro de Anselm Feuerbach [cat. 2] nos desorienta momentneamente, nos descoloca y nos traslada a la Odisea, a la imagen de Ulises recogida por el antiguo arte griego,
como la que brinda ese casco conservado en el Antikensammlung de Berln, donde se le
ve sentado sobre una roca [g. 34], mirando el inmenso mar que le separa de su querida
taca, de su palacio, de su mujer y de su hijo, preso de una extraordinaria aoranza, pues
lleva aos en la isla Ogigia, que se levanta solitaria en medio del mar, retenido por la ninfa
Calipso. Ella le ofrece la inmortalidad a cambio de amor, pero l siente una insoportable
soledad, necesita volver a vivir. Su vida all es inactiva como la muerte. Se encuentra en
los lmites del olvido, en los lmites de lo humano. Es una suerte de muerto inmortal. La
nostlgica Igenia de Feuerbach se nos ofrece, as, como una imagen especular del hroe
troyano y nos convoca a hacerlos dialogar. Si Ulises percibe su inexistencia en esa isla,
ombligo del mundo, porque la inaccin ha eclipsado su identidad, y deja vagar su mirada en el inagotable mar recordando sus hazaas y anhelando la vida en su taca natal,
Igenia, en la brbara tierra de los tauros, prisionera de los dioses, debe experimentar
emociones similares. Cuntas veces en ese largo y obligado exilio habr rememorado el
tiempo en el que era una nia que viva con su padre, el rey Agamenn, su madre Clitemnestra y sus hermanos Orestes y Electra; cuntas veces habr reconstruido cmo lleg a
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Anselm Feuerbach
Ifigenia (segunda versin), 1871
[detalle de cat. 2]
14
Eurpides, Igenia en ulide,

1375 y ss.
esas costas del mar Negro y habr soportado el doloroso sentimiento del sinsentido de
su existencia. Sola, lejos de su casa y de su pas, sin padres ni hermanos y con la absoluta
certeza de que nadie la cree an viva. Ella muri el da en que el adivino Calcante le comunica a Agamenn que debe sacricar a su hija Igenia a n de que la ota pueda zarpar
hacia Troya. La falta de viento retena el campamento aqueo en Alide y la diosa rtemis
exiga el sacricio de la hija del rey para enviar vientos favorables. Agamenn hace ir all
a Igenia junto con su madre con el pretexto de casarla con Aquiles, pero con la intencin
de matarla. La joven Igenia llega feliz al campamento, acompaada de Clitemnestra y de
Orestes, pero pronto descubre el engao y que, en realidad, se dispone a morir; entonces
se rebela y suplica desgarradamente a su padre que se compadezca. Sin embargo, el ejrcito aqueo reclama el sacricio y, pese al ofrecimiento de Aquiles para evitarlo, Igenia
determina aceptar la muerte en benecio del pueblo griego:
Como ya est decretado que yo muera, quiero hacerlo con nobleza, apartando a un lado
del camino cualquier seal de bajeza [] en mis manos est la oportunidad de que las naves se hagan a la mar y la completa aniquilacin de los frigios. [] Tampoco tengo tanto
apego a la vida, porque me pariste para el inters comn de todos los helenos. [] Y si ha
sido voluntad de rtemis hacerse con mi persona. [] Entrego mi cuerpo para bien de la
Hlade. Sacricadme14.
Es casi una nia y, con todo, no acta sumisa y pasivamente, no deja que decidan por ella.
Tras la consternacin y el comprensible rechazo, asume con extraordinario coraje y valor
someterse heroicamente a su destino, ofrecer su cuello en silencio y con resuelta voluntad.
Sin embargo, cuando la espada se cerna sobre su cabeza, rtemis la arrebat y una cierva
apareci degollada. Nadie vio qu lugar de la tierra se trag a la muchacha [g. 35].
Y ese lugar fue la tierra de los tauros. Ah se encuentra esa melanclica Igenia que
mira ms all del mar. A ese pas la condujo la diosa y la convirti en su sacerdotisa. Esa es
la Igenia de Feuerbach. En esta Igenia merece la pena jar la vista, quiz, guiados por
Goethe, que la observ con lente de aumento y le proporcion una gigantesca dimensin.
La joven arrancada de la muerte por rtemis pasaba sus das en inhspitas tierras brbaras, su vida transcurra en una inmensa soledad y en una infecunda espera que acrecentaba su triste ocupacin: ella preparaba para la diosa un salvaje alimento, era la encargada de puricar a los extranjeros que alcanzaban esas orillas, antes de ser sacricados.
Slo le caba aliviar tan ingrata y penosa misin desplazndose en sueos a su anhelada
Grecia, junto a sus seres queridos. Pero ese nostos imaginario que la princesa exiliada soaba, ese regreso al oikos, se iba a hacer realidad. Un da unos pastores le entregaron dos
hombres griegos que haban sido sorprendidos en lo alto de los acantilados y, desconocedora de que estaba dando los primeros pasos de su retorno a la Hlade, les interroga por
si le pueden proporcionar noticias de su familia. Por ellos se entera de que su padre ha
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fig. 35
El sacrificio de Ifigenia
Fresco hallado en Pompeya
Museo Archeologico
Nazionale, Npoles
muerto y, dotada de esa inteligencia prctica que singulariza a tantas heronas, discurre
el modo de hacer saber a los suyos que an est viva. Ignora que estos dos helenos son su
hermano Orestes y su primo Plades, que han alcanzado la isla empujados por un orculo;
tampoco ellos conocen la identidad de la sacerdotisa. Como le haba sucedido a Ulises
a su llegada a taca, el momento de la anagnrisis se retrasa tambin en esta ocasin: el
reconocimiento de los dos hermanos es una labor nada fcil. Finalmente, acuerdan entre
los tres que Plades no sea inmolado y lleve a Argos noticias de Igenia escritas en una
tablilla, pero, temerosa la sacerdotisa de que sta pueda perderse en el mar, lee sus palabras en alto para que el mensajero las recuerde. Al instante, los hermanos, que se separaron siendo nios, se reencuentran. Igenia deja a un lado su nostlgica soledad y prepara
activamente la vuelta a su patria. La hija de Agamenn trama la huida de los tres con la
estatua de rtemis, pues el orculo haba comunicado a Orestes que deba trasladar a
Grecia la imagen de la diosa venerada en ese pas a n de liberarse del remordimiento por
el matricidio cometido. Una vez ms, es la mujer la que toma la iniciativa. Engaa al rey
de los tauros, hacindole creer que los prisioneros son impuros por un asesinato que cometieron y que debe puricarlos junto con la estatua en el mar. As comienza el anhelado
regreso que le conduce, que les conduce, a la recuperacin del oikos, de la casa, de la familia, y con ello a la consecucin de todos los derechos. Igenia, representacin y smbolo de
la aoranza de la patria, de los derechos y de los afectos perdidos, teje su salvacin y la de
su hermano. De nuevo en la vida de la herona se reeja la odisea del ingenioso Ulises. Las
aventuras del hroe de la guerra de Troya empiezan con el viaje de retorno, pero precisa
del reconocimiento de los suyos para alcanzar su meta: la vuelta al hogar, el restablecimiento de su yo. Para la ingeniosa Igenia ha sido imprescindible, antes de emprender el
viaje, el reconocimiento. Sin la anagnrisis de los dos hermanos no habra tenido lugar
el camino de regreso, y, por tanto, tampoco la llegada al oikos, donde slo es posible recobrar la identidad.
La pintura de Feuerbach propicia la unin de un hroe pico y de una herona trgica:
ambos sufrieron la melancola del ansia irrefrenable de la patria, ambos sintieron tambin la
soledad del imposible regreso, pero la poderosa astucia de los dos oper el triunfo deseado.
Las imgenes visuales nos han hecho volver a los antiguos textos griegos y ellos nos
han trado las historias de estas cuatro heronas mticas, poderosas y fuertes en su inagotable soledad.
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Maruja Mallo
La red, 1938
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Amelia Valcrcel
Mujeres de poder
En ninguna sociedad humana conocida ha ocurrido que las mujeres y los varones tuvieran
el mismo rango o parecida importancia. En todas ellas, con modalidades diferentes y a veces
interesantes, el sexo masculino ha tenido poder y autoridad, ejercido ambos, y mujeres y varones lo han aceptado. Cierto que no es lo mismo una sociedad de encierro de las mujeres
que una sociedad en la que ellas pueden permanecer en los espacios comunes; una que reserva el saber slo a los varones que otra que acepta cierta competencia en las mujeres, por
ejemplo. El patriarcado es universal, pero sus modalidades son histricas y civilizatorias.
Aun as, nuestra igualdad entre los sexos es nueva y todava latente. Pues bien, si la representacin fuera solamente uno de los ms importantes registros del poder, como suele a
veces armarse, las mujeres jams habran comparecido en ella. O lo habran hecho nicamente de modo vicario.
Pero el arte occidental, aparte de ser el nico que inici y culmin el asombroso camino
del realismo, ha representado mujeres desde siempre. Lo que no deja de ser pasmoso. El
poder no gusta de distraerse de s mismo como objeto. Cuando desenterramos las grandes
ciudades imperiales romanas, de Asia al norte de frica, en Galia o en Hispania encontramos
falos descomunales en las esquinas, los llamadores, los santuarios campestres, las lmparas
o incluso debajo de las puertas. No parece que la masculinidad se tenga a s misma en poco.
Y cuando preere representarse mediante un nico atributo lo exagera a conciencia. Esa
misma masculinidad lo pasea, enaltecido, en algunos festivales japoneses. Le rinde culto en
India y tambin en China. Lo enormiza en las culturas precolombinas. Levanta desde hace
siglos obeliscos de signicado flico inequvoco. Y no otra que la masculinidad dio en decir
que las picudas torres de las iglesias cristianas en realidad lo guraban. El miembro por antonomasia, que representa y presenta el poder, estara detrs de cada sublimacin artstica.
Con todo, si tomamos el ecunime camino de la seriedad, lo que observamos es que bastantes de las ms antiguas representaciones de aquellas que Hegel habra llamado simblicas, incluyen evidentes signos femeninos. Los encontramos tallados en los abrigos,
pintados en las cuevas, esculpidos [g. 36]. La presencia femenina en el arte ms primitivo es
tan grande y pasma tanto que dio pbulo a la imaginacin de los primeros antroplogos culturales, quienes jugaron a imaginar el pasado a la vista de sus representaciones y sus objetos.
Dictaminaron que la relativa abundancia de mujeres o de animales hembras, de vulvas o
de Venus en el primer arte se debera al preponderante papel social de las mujeres en aquel
mundo primitivo, quienes, antes de que el Estado se inventara y con l la jerarqua y el rango, habran sido las poderosas inspiradoras y dulces directoras del inicial grupo humano. As
lo hizo Bachofen, no menos entusiasmados se mostraron Michelet o Bebel, y en n, todo un
conjunto de historicistas del XIX que inventaron una gloria conceptual con vivaz vocacin
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Mujeres de poder
Amelia Valcrcel
fig. 36
Venus de Laussel o Venus del

cuerno, c. 25.000-20.000 a. C.
Relieve en piedra caliza,
54 x 36 x 15,5 cm
Muse dAquitaine, Burdeos,
inv. 61.3.1
de pasar al pensamiento popular: el matriarcado. Es una construccin eidtica tpicamente

romntica que busca hacer la simetra con lo real, el bien conocido dominio viril, el patriarcado. As surgi una explicacin que se hizo corriente y ms a medida que la prehistoria se
iba conociendo. Con la nica excepcin de Sir Henry Maine, todos los autores antroplogos
del XIX dieron por hecho que el patriarcado era un progreso desde una forma de organizacin ms primitiva, de existencia inequvoca, a la que llamaron matriarcado.
El matriarcado sera el responsable de las pervivencias benevolentes para con las mujeres en el derecho de algunos pueblos antiguos, del aspecto de las religiones primitivas y
sus diosas, los matrimonios en la localidad de la esposa, la liacin materna y otra serie de
circunstancias que se escapaban del admitir un dominio viril estricto. Esta suposicin pas
de Bachofen a Morgan, de ste a Engels, de ah al marxismo, y se reprodujo tambin en la
literatura de sus contemporneos romnticos. En realidad el matriarcado pas a ocupar en
el relato histrico lo que el paraso perdido haba representado en el mito religioso. Ahora
ms bien suponemos que no hubo tal perodo y que tampoco esa es la mejor explicacin
para los indicios de presencia femenina que nuestra prehistoria nos aporta. Pero en el siglo XIX y parte del XX el matriarcado primitivo tuvo pleno predicamento. As, se explicaban
mitos como el de las amazonas, la existencia de grandes Diosas madres, los ritos cerrados y
secretos, como los de la Bona Dea, costumbres asociadas a la agricultura, y, por descontado,
lo que se iba conociendo del primer arte. Todo se interpretaba como pervivencias de una
antigua y extinta ginecocracia.
Pero qu suceda con la representacin de las mujeres ya en perodo histrico? De las
primeras civilizaciones tenemos monumenta, imgenes y tambin escritos que hemos podido descifrar. Sabemos que no eran ginecocracias. Con todo, la presencia de la imagen femenina en el creciente frtil o en Egipto no es tampoco menor. De ah que la hiptesis del
matriarcado se estirara algo ms y esas presencias se convirtieran en pervivencias de un
orden antiguo que no haba podido ser completamente abolido. Quin ms disfrut con esto
fue sin duda Robert Graves, que lo extendi por el Mediterrneo entero.
Y qu pasaba con Grecia? De la Grecia clsica su patriarcado se conoca bien. En ella
las mujeres tambin tenan su presencia icnica como muchachas o como guras mitolgicas, o como damas o como hetairas, o autistas, o caritides, o incluso como amazonas.
Juntndolo todo, y cerrando los ojos, se poda seguir tejiendo un ltimo trozo de tapiz matriarcal, aunque casi desvanecido. Pero el tejido ya casi no aguantaba. La la, el amor propiamente hablando, los griegos no lo sentan por las mujeres. Se suele citar este prrafo de
Demstenes: Tenemos a las hetairas para el placer, a las criadas para que se hagan cargo
de nuestras necesidades corporales diarias y a las esposas para que nos traigan hijos legtimos y para que sean eles guardianas de nuestros hogares.
Acostumbrados como estamos a imaginar una sociedad griega en la cual la la slo
tiene por objeto adecuado a los efebos, porque slo lo masculino entre s se ama, aunque con
las mujeres se reproduzca, dejamos de entender aquello que los mismos griegos nos legaron
como representaciones que gustaban de hacer. Las mujeres eran socialmente irrelevantes,
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pero no su presencia icnica. Y todo por no admitir una hiptesis ms simple, de las que
siempre se dice que son las mejores: Resulta que a los varones les gustaba representar mujeres, antes y entonces. Bueno, en el sobreentendido de que slo ellos trabajaran la imagen,
quizs porque no todo es poder en la representacin, sino que en ella concurre tambin un
punto ertico imprescriptible. No toda imagen es directamente poder.
El erotismo de representar
Hay culturas que se han negado obstinadamente a la representacin. Est en nuestra herencia, que es doble, griega y juda. Provenimos espiritualmente de ambas. Y una de ellas,
la juda, es iconfoba. Para desparejarse de los pueblos con los que convivan, o por alguna
otra razn, el judasmo inici la prohibicin, que el Islam sigui a pie juntillas, de que nada viviente poda representarse: animal, hombre o planta. El poder de crear slo lo tena Dios. Y la
imagen intentaba falsear ese poder, apropirselo. Con la imagen, haciendo imagen, los seres
humanos queran ser dioses. Y esta capacidad de poner fuera lo exterior, que slo el nico
Dios tena, la usaban infernalmente para fabricar objetos ante los cuales despus postrarse.
Nada ms repugnante a los ojos de Dios. Haba que evitar la idolatra a cualquier precio.
Ido-latra: adorar formas, adorar arte, articios, construcciones realizadas con las manos que luego se suponen fuentes de poder en s mismas. La cpula de Omar, que domina
Jerusaln, esa bellsima cpula de oro, posee una inscripcin interior que la rodea: Dice
cinco veces: Dios es nico y no tiene hijos. No hace falta recordar que sus obras, esto es,
toda la Creacin, no pueden representarse. En ello estn completamente de acuerdo tanto
los musulmanes ortodoxos como los judos, sobre cuyo antiguo Templo probablemente se
asienta la cpula. As que nada se representa, ni macho ni hembra. Por fortuna en eso, y
a pesar de los evidentes riesgos religiosos idoltricos, hemos seguido la pauta de nuestras
cuevas, de las grandes civilizaciones mediterrneas, de Grecia y de Roma.
Entre nosotros las herejas iconoclastas siempre fueron pasajeras, aunque Bizancio y
Europa sufrieran algunas. El ser humano es un animal simblico, se dice. Hay entonces
prohibicin ms amarga que el impedirle representar? Nadie lo dude. Existe la ertica de
hacerlo. Y han representado tanto l como ella. Y a todo lo que corre, vuela o camina, macho
o hembra. A todo lo que crece y se mueve, incluso a lo que no puede captar, como el viento,
el calor o el fro, el movimiento del agua o los cambios de la luz durante el da. La destreza
de esas representaciones ha cubierto un camino de gloria. Lo guardamos y atesoramos, en
especial su ltimo tramo, desde el romnico a nuestros das.
Pues bien, entre todo lo que existe, las mujeres son un objeto casi privilegiado de representacin. Excepto en perodos muy oscuros, las guras femeninas aparecen, en paridad, llenando
muros y libros. Con las salvedades oportunas: se atienen a sus cnones histricos. Presentan
modelos nitos. Y ellos y ellas las representan de forma muy similar. La belleza femenina
es, en efecto, tornadiza y se atiene a sus tiempos. Sus modelos cambian. Del mismo modo, el
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Mujeres de poder
Amelia Valcrcel
repertorio de guras femeninas es breve. En el muestrario religioso, por muchos siglos el

nico, en el inicio comparecen la teotokos y la prostituta de Babilonia. Pero a medida que la
piedad va desenvolviendo sus recursos, la Virgen Mara adquiere edades y las mujeres que
la acompaan multiplican las facetas de la feminidad. Las santas dan pbulo a la destreza y
elegancia de los pinceles. Cuando la pintura se abre a otras imaginaciones, en el Renacimiento, un tropel nuevo de diosas y ninfas avanza. Y sobre todas ellas se instala la veracidad del
retrato. El retrato lo es de una persona y debe mostrarla sin demasiado embeleco. Se rige por
el parecido. La pintura religiosa o mitolgica permite ngir a la mujer o mejor, crearla.
Las poderosas
Las mujeres, en todas las sociedades histricas que nos son conocidas, han estado sometidas a los varones. Con todo, y en casos muy especiales, alguna mujer ha ocupado el poder
soberano. La historia recuerda a varias que lo han hecho muy bien y a otras que no tanto. En
todo caso, ninguna de ellas cambi la regla y se lo hizo heredar a otra, sino que, transcurrido
su tiempo, las aguas volvieron a su legtimo cauce. Algunas mujeres fueron excepciones a la
regla que las apartaba del poder y, de entre ellas, unas pocas fueron adems excepcionales.
Contadas, algunas fueron fuertes, prudentes y temidas monarcas. Pero, por lo comn, las
mujeres no jugaron en el terreno del poder explcito, sino en el de la inuencia, ms opaco;
son las madres tras el trono o las esposas del harn, o las favoritas de las que se sabe que intervienen moviendo en la oscuridad los hilos. Esto slo es posible, naturalmente, en las autocracias. Pero no debemos olvidar que la mayor parte de los estados que han existido han
sido autocracias. La democracia es el sistema poltico ms joven sobre la faz de la tierra.
El que alguna mujer alcance excepcionalmente el poder explcito ha sido propiciado en
determinados sistemas jerrquicos, sobre todo en aquellos que sacralizan el poder de una
lnea dinstica. En ausencia de varn, una mujer puede subir al trono. Pero eso no signica
que las mujeres en su conjunto lo hagan. Las mujeres a las que esto ocurre son especiales.
Forman parte de lneas dinsticas en las que los varones que podan heredar se han extinguido. Son absolutas excepciones. Los antiguos griegos posean una forma de legitimar estas excepciones, las llamaban las epicleras. Epiclera era la mujer que resultaba hija nica
y por lo tanto tambin nica heredera. En tal condicin estaba casada con su herencia.
La mayor parte de las mujeres que han llegado a monarcas o jefas de estado han sido
epicleras. La lnea que llega a ellas no se puede cortar, porque su estirpe es fuerte y la deende, en consecuencia, ellas heredan el poder de la familia y su vinculacin esencial con
ella. Si es posible incluso se las desposa con un familiar cercano. Este es el caso de las grandes reinas de Europa, alguno de cuyos impresionantes retratos poseemos [g. 37]. Su representacin se atiene al canon del poder, marcado por distancia y cierto hieratismo. El poder
no vindica el agrado, no al menos en primer trmino, que s suele estar presente a veces en
las consortes y an ms en las favoritas.
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fig. 37
Antonio Moro
Mara Tudor, reina de
Inglaterra, segunda mujer
de Felipe II, 1554
leo sobre tabla, 109 x 84 cm
Museo Nacional del Prado,
Madrid, inv. P2108
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Mujeres de poder
Amelia Valcrcel
fig. 38
Rembrandt Harmensz.
van Rijn
Judit en el banquete
de Holofernes, 1634
leo sobre lienzo,
143 x 154,7 cm
Madrid, inv. P2132
fig. 39
Peter Paul Rubens

El nacimiento de
la Va Lctea, 1636-1637
leo sobre lienzo,
181 x 244 cm
Madrid, inv. P1668
Hechas para agradar

Porque, a la vez que reeja veristamente a las poderosas, la pintura introduce este objeto, la
mujer, en el terreno de la belleza y de la gracia. La viste y la desnuda. Ofrece ocasiones para
hacerlo. Mujeres pdicas, con los ojos bajos, o que no miran a quien las contempla. Mujeres
para ser vistas. Mujeres que de pronto observan desde un lecho a quien las mira, amparando
su descaro en que son Venus. Dianas sorprendidas, ninfas raptadas, transformadas, solitarias
o arracimados sus miembros bajo la gentil advocacin de Gracias. La Antigedad haba hecho otro tanto. Recordemos los deliciosos relatos de los festivales divinos celebrados en las
ciudades del Imperio, incluidas muchachitas que bajo ligeros cendales guran diosas, narrados por Apuleyo. El Renacimiento resucita ese espritu de la ertica y tambin lo trasmuta.
Porque, no nos engaemos, desde el Quattrocento para ac los dioses olmpicos son bromas. Con esas bromas la representacin se enriquece y simula mundos ingrvidos y gentiles/ como pompas de jabn. Los brillantes colores de los dioses ya muertos poco han podido cambiar lo que los dioses vivos tenan por bueno. La pintura mitolgica convive con
las guerras de religin y los procesos inquisitoriales. Esos brillantes dioses y diosas han
acompaado, y muy gloriosamente, al mundo que crea que solo lo ms alto mereca representarse [gs. 38 y 39]. Y sus historias permiten ampliar poderosamente un repertorio muy
necesitado de nuevos recursos. Telas, tablas, tapices y frescos encargados por los grandes
que, cuando preguntan, se olvidan del articio mitolgico. Como interpela a su marchante
un gran seor italiano: Ha terminado ya el maestro la mujer desnuda?
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La ertica se consolida. Lo difcil, llegado un punto, ha sido sacar a las mujeres del terreno de la belleza y de la gracia, o del deseo puro y simple, para introducirlas en el paisaje del
poder. Representarlas no como comparsas ni mascotas, como amantes o como delicias de los
sentidos, sino como poderosas, sin ser monarcas. Y eso ha sido siempre especialmente complicado por una buena razn: las mujeres genricamente nunca han tenido poder. Y las que
individualmente lo han tenido no por ello han dejado de ser mujeres, esto es, no por ello han
dejado de estar sujetas a la mirada que las quiere disponibles, difciles, modestas, peligrosas,
bellas, humildes, pcaras, abnegadas, graciosas, esquivas, dulces o todo ello a la vez. En una
sociedad patriarcal, el varn es la medida de todas las cosas. Se hacen pequeas excepciones con las muy poderosas, pero nada ms. Por lo general, las mujeres alegran la vista. Y, por
lo mismo, su belleza, cultivada e inventada, es frgil e irrisoria. La belleza caduca. El gnero
de pintura que se conoce como vanitas encuentra en la vejez femenina un motivo cruel de
presentacin [g. 40]. Nada somos; pero ellas un poco menos.
Buscad a las extraas
fig. 40
Hans Baldung Grien

Las Edades y la Muerte,
1541-1544
Madrid, inv. P2220
Un tiempo sin embargo lleg en que los seres humanos volvieron a s mismos su mirada sin
el espejo de los dioses y, quizs azuzados por la extraordinaria presencia del retrato, comenzaron a representar la vida diaria y domstica. Y lo hicieron sin espritu de comedia, sino
con toda la seriedad racionalista. La pintura cortesana con sus revoloteantes personajes
comenz a ceder el sitio a la pintura de interiores ordenados, confortables, y a la pintura
de exteriores amables. Se hizo domstica, bodegonil y floral. Aparecieron ahora en ella
otras mujeres. Reinas, ninfas y diosas, concedieron compartir escenario con mozas labradoras, msicas, encajeras y un inusitado acervo de lecheras y pastorcillas. Europa, que viva
gracias a los ecos de la Reforma, tiempos de iconoclastia, redirigi la ertica representacional hacia los paisajes de interior y exterior y las historias bblicas. Pero, en esta maravillosa
historia en que todo se conserva y nada se desecha, por acumulacin, lo femenino se volvi
multvoco y pululante. Por eso es tan complicado agruparlo.
Las clasicaciones que afectan a las mujeres suelen ser borgianas. Se dividen en: Altas,
propiedad del emperador, morenas, nocturnas, jvenes, libres, bajas, rubias, delicadas, campesinas y hasta doncellas guerreras si hace al caso. De modo que, aparte de una categora
caricaturesca pero no por ello no intentada, las viejas brujas, y, otra, sobrerrepresentada sin
que con ello la feminidad se entienda mejor, la dulce Madre de Dios, todo lo que queda por
el medio siempre es difcil de catalogar. Digamos que la matriz que debera hacerlo carece
de parmetros exactos porque tiene demasiados. La ertica representacional ha multiplicado a las mujeres sin que por ello lo femenino se aclare. Cuando adems los pobres comenzaron a tener inters pictrico excuso decir que como objeto, no como compradores de
pintura las guras de mujer adquirieron aun ms variedad. Fue una etapa extraordinaria:
bailarinas de toda laya, de oriente y occidente, monjas, maestras, prostitutas, y en n, todo
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Mujeres de poder
Amelia Valcrcel
Marie Bashkirtseff
Autorretrato con paleta, 1884
lo que la feraz naturaleza proporcionaba a los ojos expertos de quien busca lo todava no
visto, compareci y se hizo visible. El XIX llen a rebosar los soportes de mujeres nuevas a la
vez que reinventaba a las anteriores. Todas caban, de Palas Atenea a las fruteras de la plaza,
pasando por las odaliscas en sus harenes.
Otro caso singular lo proporcionaron aquellas que, fuera de norma, pudieron acceder
al poder en tiempos turbulentos, las guerreras. No es inslito encontrar grandes conductoras en momentos de crisis agnicas. Velleda condujo a los germanos y Boadicea a los anglos
contra el Imperio Romano. Juana de Arco a los franceses. Nunca se puede decidir si las crisis
llaman a esos liderazgos femeninos o son ellos los que la provocan. En cualquier caso, hay
siempre un sobreentendido: el duro y triste nal de la herona. Cuando las mujeres conducen
ejrcitos, los ejrcitos son de desesperados. Se les concede el herosmo de quien se enfrenta
a un nal absoluto. Se entiende que las mujeres luchan para perder, con honor, pero perder.
Aunque algunas veces puedan haber vencido.
En este punto, la inverosimilitud, que llevaba rondando un rato en los alrededores, se
cobr adems su gran partida, porque es un desafo representar a aquellas que ms fuera y
lejos permanezcan del orden. Los griegos ya las haban inventado; empezaron odindolas
y dibujaron furias, erinias, medusas, sirenas, arpas y gorgonas, pero con el tiempo llegaron
a encontrar atractivas a estas disidentes imaginarias, de tal modo que sus amazonas fueron
resultando cada vez ms bellas. Y su reina al nal, una beldad. El romanticismo abraz decididamente su causa. Dio crdito icnico a todas las leyendas. Investig en los territorios
exticos de la geografa y de la imaginacin. Y cuando acab con la tierra, trasmutado en
surrealismo, encontr los paisajes del sueo.
La querencia por el desnudo se mantuvo, aunque cada vez ms pretextual. Como ya no era
cosa de Venus, hubo de buscar esclavas, harenes y odaliscas. Un nuevo catlogo de beldades
imaginarias que fue roto, de pronto y sin aviso, por el verista desnudo de los refuss. Manet
pisote las reglas del juego al presentar a una cortesana efectiva, una Nan, con la parafernalia de la Venus de Urbino. Con el movimiento impresionista la guracin comenzaba a
tocar techo. Pero el motivo iconolgico tambin. Apuntaba lo que dio en llamarse deshumanizacin del arte. El asombroso camino del realismo comenzaba un bucle que todava
no ha terminado.
La mirada
Pero, aunque sean difciles de clasicar, las mujeres estn pintadas para ser comparadas.
Esto ocurre con la beldad; est para ser observada, medida y confrontada. Pero tambin
con todas las dems. Que vengan y se muestren que yo elegir. Porque ellos, los que practican la ertica de la representacin, se lanzan a su particular desafo sin desocupar nunca
el asiento de Paris. En eso consiste la esencia misma de la mirada masculina: en elegir. En
cuanto a mujeres se reere, humilde y naturalmente, aunque sea slo con la imaginacin,
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Mujeres de poder
Amelia Valcrcel
fig. 41
Pablo Picasso
Las seoritas de
Avin, 1907
leo sobre lienzo,
243,9 x 233,7 cm
MoMA, Nueva York,
adquirido con el Legado
Lillie P. Bliss, inv. 333.1939
eligen. Nadie pide permiso. Es de suponer que las mujeres se entregan conadamente a
esa mirada y que todas se aprestan a concursar en la esclava del seor, iconologa nada
desdeable que corre, como todas las grandes, en el mbito religioso. De modo que la mirada masculina se supone constituyente, bajo la verdad relativa de que ha sido preferentemente el sexo masculino quien ha ejercido la representacin.
Mas lo seguro es que carecemos de buenas fuentes en la Antigedad, no vamos sobrados
en la Edad Media y que conocemos pintoras desde el Renacimiento. El siglo XVIII derram su luz sobre las guras femeninas. Y bastantes pintoras lo hicieron suyo, desarrollando
adems nuevas tcnicas.
Tambin es verdad que son menos, porque las mujeres nunca han tenido genricamente poder, ni por lo tanto, capacidad de integrarse en los grandes ocios. Y aquellas que lo
han alcanzado, lo han hecho por excepcin. Hijas o familiares de grandes pintores a las
cuales se les permiti el aprendizaje sin que resultara, aunque no siempre, oneroso para su
virtud o su salud. Epicleras, en n, que no ponan en cuestin la pertinencia masculina del
talento artstico.
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Representan ellas con mirada distinta? Cierto que hay matices, interesantes, pero,
a grandes trazos, la mirada de unos y otras es similar. Comparten tcnicas y tradiciones
icnicas y eso aproxima las representaciones. Otro tema es si la mirada es la misma. El
construir una mirada diferente o alternativa es uno de los desafos inabarcables del que se
conoce en la actualidad como arte feminista. No es indudable que ellas se sienten tambin
en el sitial de Paris cuando representan. Y, a partir de una autoconciencia creciente que
podemos situar en el siglo ilustrado, el esfuerzo por la veracidad y la nobilit, encarnadas
en el autorretrato y el retrato respectivamente, les pone un plus de penetracin, pero casi
innitsimo y dicultoso de mostrar. La divergencia de las miradas, si llegara a producirse,
habra sido adems borrada por la misma quiebra de la gran tradicin gurativa.
Cuando el realismo colapsa, con la indudable ayuda del daguerrotipo y la fotografa, la
lnea y la sombra se recomponen de modo indito. Las mujeres persisten. A veces slo son
trazos. Volmenes reconocibles presentados sin pretexto, desnudas y de frente en gruesas
lneas, aunque para esto es mejor llamarse Modigliani o Picasso [g. 41]. De la vanguardia
casi desaparece la marca de lo femenino, exceptuando las conversiones al pasado remoto.
La mirada se pierde o se ensimisma.
Pero, al n, es acaso verdadero que la guracin agoniza? Pudiera tener algo de verdad ese decir, si no fuera que ocupa lo antes nunca conocido. El formidable competidor de
la pintura, formi-dable, tan capaz de dar forma, que nunca tendr competencia, existe y
se ha multiplicado al in nito. La imagen de los fotolitos movindose, eso que justamente
llamamos kin, cine, movimiento y sus derivaciones, lo llena todo. Nunca los seres humanos han transitado dentro de tal cantidad de imgenes como en el tiempo presente. Esto
es as hasta el punto de que los habitantes de ciudad conocen mejor las imgenes que las
cosas que ellas representan. Y ningn territorio es inmune a esta proliferacin. Parte de la
fascinacin por Oriente provino hace un siglo de la deprivacin de imgenes en la que ese
mundo habitaba. Lo que es, es lo que es; lo que hay, es lo que hay. Pero ni Oriente ha podido
sustraerse al cine, a la fotografa, a la televisin, a la publicidad. La imagen rodea el mundo.
Por mucho que los talibanes volaran con dinamita los budas de Bamiyn, ninguna cultura
es ya iconfoba estricta. El cine habita en todas, con sus retoos visuales rodendolo.
Y en este planeta de imgenes multiplicadas sucede que las mujeres siguen sin tener
poder y la mirada que las mira, aunque sea femenina, sigue siendo oblicua. Es como mirarse
en un espejo que reeja otro espejo. Porque este rotundo triunfo de la ertica de la representacin en poco ha variado, de momento, las aporas en que el antiguo discurso se mova.
Slo ha cambiado el soporte. Apenas ha modicado las formas ni el catlogo gurativo. Las
mujeres siguen bajo una mirada ajena, o al menos no del todo suya, que no las sabe clasicar,
que solo las ve porque sabe que tiene que verlas. Las manos siguen preparadas y las imgenes pugnan por salir. Todava deberan esperarse grandes cosas.
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Heronas
Solas
Caritides
Mnades
Atletas
Acorazadas
Amazonas
Magas
Mrtires
Msticas
Lectoras
Pintoras
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 117
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Gaston Lachaise
Herona, 1932
Bronce, 224,8 x 104,3 x 48,4 cm
The Lachaise Foundation, Boston, MA, inv. LF 92
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119
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 119
18/02/11 12:34
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 120
21/02/11 9:00
Solas
mile-Antoine Bourdelle
Anselm Feuerbach
Edward Hopper
Sarah Jones
Edvard Munch
Sarah Jones
Camilla (III), 1999
[detalle de cat. 7]
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 121
17/02/11 9:17
Solas
Anselm Feuerbach
Igenia (segunda versin), 1871
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart
122
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 122
17/02/11 9:17
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 123
17/02/11 9:17
Solas

Soledad, 1890
Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldenale
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 124
17/02/11 9:17
Penlope, 1909
Bronce, 120 x 43 x 37 cm
Petit Palais-Muse des Beaux-Arts
de la Ville de Paris
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 125
18/02/11 12:34
Solas
Edvard Munch
Atardecer, 1888
leo sobre lienzo, 75 x 100,5 cm
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid,
inv. 689 (1967.7)
126
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 126
17/02/11 9:17
127
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 127
17/02/11 9:17
Solas
Edward Hopper
Habitacin de hotel, 1931
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, inv. 509 (1977.110)
128
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 128
17/02/11 9:17
Sarah Jones
Camilla (III), 1999
C-print sobre aluminio, 149,86 x 149,86 cm
Coleccin de Laura Steinberg y B. Nadal-Ginard
129
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 129
17/02/11 9:18
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 130
17/02/11 12:14
Caritides
Janine Antoni
William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Jules Breton
Francisco de Goya
Kazimir Malvich
Maruja Mallo
Camille Pissarro
Kazimir Malvich
Muchacha con palo rojo, 1932-1933
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 131
17/02/11 9:18
Caritides
La segadora, 1872
Coleccin Prez Simn, Mxico
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 132
17/02/11 9:18
Francisco de Goya
La aguadora, 1810
Szpmuvszeti Mzeum, Budapest, inv. 760
133
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 133
17/02/11 9:18
Caritides
10
Jules Breton
La estrella del pastor, 1887
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo (Ohio). Donacin de Arthur J. Secor, inv. 1922.41
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 134
17/02/11 9:18
11
Jules Breton
Espigadoras al atardecer, 1863
135
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 135
17/02/11 9:18
Caritides
12
Jules Breton
A la fuente, 1892
Coleccin del Muse des Beaux-Arts de Quimper, inv. 55-78
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 136
17/02/11 9:18
13
Janine Antoni
Caritide (nfora de terracota), 2003
Fotografa y vasija rota. Fotografa: 231,1 x 74,9 cm; vasija: 48,3 x 40,6 x 35,6 cm
Cortesa de la artista y de Luhring Augustine, Nueva York
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 137
17/02/11 9:18
Caritides
14
Jules Breton
Amanecer, 1896
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; donacin de Sarah Mellon Scaife
y Richard King Mellon en memoria de su madre, Jennie King Mellon, inv. 40.5.3
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 138
17/02/11 9:18
15
Camille Pissarro
Campesina con dos haces de heno, 1883
Dallas Museum of Art, donacin de The Meadows Foundation, incorporated, inv. 1981.132
139
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 139
17/02/11 9:18
Caritides
16
Kazimir Malvich
Muchacha con palo rojo, 1932-1933
State Tretyakov Gallery, Mosc
140
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 140
17/02/11 9:18
141
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 141
17/02/11 9:18
Caritides
17
Maruja Mallo
La red, 1938
Coleccin privada, cortesa de la Galera
Guillermo de Osma, Madrid
142
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 142
17/02/11 9:18
143
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 143
17/02/11 9:18
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 144
17/02/11 9:19
Mnades
Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Mary Cassatt
Lovis Corinth
Charles Gleyre
mile Lvy
Pipilotti Rist
Auguste Rodin
Nancy Spero
Bacante cabalgando una pantera, 1855
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 145
17/02/11 9:19
Mnades
18
Bacante cabalgando una pantera, 1855
The Cleveland Museum of Art, legado de Noah L. Butkin,
inv. 1980.238.2
146
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 146
17/02/11 9:19
147
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 147
18/02/11 12:34
Mnades
19

Mnades exhaustas despus de la danza, 1874
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
148
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 148
17/02/11 9:19
149
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 149
17/02/11 9:19
Mnades
20
Charles Gleyre
Penteo perseguido por las mnades, c. 1865
Kunstmuseum Basel, Basilea
150
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 150
17/02/11 9:19
151
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 151
17/02/11 9:19
Mnades
21
mile Lvy
La muerte de Orfeo, 1866
Muse dOrsay, Pars
152
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 152
17/02/11 9:19
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 153
17/02/11 9:19
Mnades
22
Mary Cassatt
Bacante, 1872
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Filadelfia
154
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 154
17/02/11 9:19
155
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 155
17/02/11 9:19
Mnades
23
Auguste Rodin
Iris, mensajera de los Dioses (Figura en vuelo), 1890-1891
Bronce, 83,3 x 87 x 36 cm
Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basilea, inv. 89.9
156
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 156
17/02/11 9:19
24
Lovis Corint
Bacantes volviendo a casa, 1898
Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, inv. G 0212
157
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 157
17/02/11 9:19
Mnades
25
Nancy Spero
Sin ttulo, 1984
Acrlico sobre papel, 46 x 58 cm
Hall Collection, inv. SPERONA04.01
158
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 158
17/02/11 9:19
26
Nancy Spero
Mnade, 1999
Tcnica mixta sobre papel, 50,2 x 62,2 cm
Galera Pilar Serra, Madrid, y Galerie Lelong, Pars
159
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 159
17/02/11 9:19
Mnades
27
Nancy Spero
La diosa Nut II, 1990
5 paneles. Estampacin manual
y collage impreso sobre papel,
213,4 x 279,4 cm (todo el conjunto)
Cortesa del Estate of Nancy Spero
y de la Galerie Lelong, Nueva York,
inv. GL7092
160
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 160
17/02/11 9:19
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 161
17/02/11 9:20
Mnades
28
Pipilotti Rist
Ever is Over All, 1997
Audio y vdeo
Vista de la instalacin en la
National Gallery for Foreing Art, Sofa
Cortesa de la artista y de Hauser & Wirth
162
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 162
17/02/11 9:20
163
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 163
17/02/11 9:20
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 164
17/02/11 11:03
Atletas
Nicolas Colombel
William Powell Frith
Robert Mapplethorpe
Guido Reni
Peter Paul Rubens
James Tissot
Peter Paul Rubens

Diana cazadora, c. 1620
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 165
17/02/11 9:20
Atletas
29
Guido Reni
Atalanta e Hipmenes, 1618-1619
Museo di Capodimonte, Npoles, inv. Q-349
166
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 166
17/02/11 9:20
167
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 167
17/02/11 9:20
Atletas
30
Peter Paul Rubens

Diana cazadora, c. 1620
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, inv. P1727
168
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 168
17/02/11 9:20
169
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 169
17/02/11 9:20
Atletas
31
Nicolas Colombel
Atalanta e Hipmenes, 1680
Sammlungen des Frsten von und zu Liechtenstein, Vaduz-Viena
170
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 170
17/02/11 9:20
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 171
17/02/11 9:20
Atletas
32
Robert Mapplethorpe
Lisa Lyon, 1982
Impresin en gelatina de plata, 61 x 61 cm
The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Nueva York
172
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 172
17/02/11 9:20
33

Las bellas arqueras, 1872
Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter
173
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 173
17/02/11 9:20
Atletas
34

Muchachas griegas jugando a la pelota, c. 1889
East Ayrshire Council, Escocia
174
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 174
17/02/11 9:20
175
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 175
17/02/11 9:20
Atletas
35
James Tissot
Las damas de los carros (Circo), 1883-1885
Donacin de Mr. Walter Lowry. Museum of Art,
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence,
inv. 58.186
176
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 176
17/02/11 9:20
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 177
17/02/11 9:21
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 178
17/02/11 9:21
Acorazadas
Marina Abramovic
Peter Nicolai Arbo
Eugne Delacroix
Tanya Marcuse
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Peter Paul Rubens
Franz von Stuck
Domenico Tintoretto

Palas Atenea, c. 1655-1659
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 179
18/02/11 12:37
Acorazadas
36
Peter Paul Rubens

Juana de Arco, c. 1620 y despus de 1640
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, Carolina del Norte.
Adquirido con fondos del State of North Carolina
y donacin de la North Carolina State Art Society
(legado de Robert F. Phifer), inv. 52.9.111
180
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 180
17/02/11 9:21
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 181
17/02/11 9:21
Acorazadas
37

Juana de Arco, 1882
leo sobre tabla, 52,7 x 45,7 cm
Prstamo del Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, inv. 685
182
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 182
17/02/11 9:21
183
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 183
17/02/11 9:21
Acorazadas
38
Eugne Delacroix
Herminia y los pastores, 1859
Nationalmuseum, Estocolmo
184
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 184
17/02/11 9:21
185
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 185
17/02/11 9:21
Acorazadas
39
Domenico Tintoretto
Tancredo bautizando a Clorinda, c. 1585-1600
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Samuel H. Kress Collection, inv. 61.77
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 186
17/02/11 9:21
40
Marina Abramovic
Virgin Warrior Piet (with Jan Fabre), 2005
Cibachrome, 200 x 125 cm
Cortesa y coleccin Arsfutura-Serge Le Borgne, Pars
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 187
18/02/11 12:37
Acorazadas
41
Peter Nicolai Arbo

Valquiria, 1865
Nationalmuseum, Estocolmo
188
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 188
17/02/11 9:21
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 189
17/02/11 9:21
Acorazadas
42
Franz von Stuck

Palas Atenea, 1898
leo sobre tabla, 77 x 69,5 cm
Museum Georg Schfer, Schweinfurt
190
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 190
17/02/11 9:21
43

Palas Atenea, c. 1655-1659
Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisboa, inv. 1488
191
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 191
17/02/11 9:21
Acorazadas
44
Tanya Marcuse
Serie Undergarments and Armor, 2002-2004
6 fotografas. Copias al platino y paladio, 9,53 x 12,07 cm (cada una)
Julie Saul Gallery, Nueva York
192
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 192
17/02/11 9:22
193
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 193
17/02/11 9:22
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 194
17/02/11 11:06
Amazonas
Marina Abramovic
AES+F
Eleanor Antin
Renee Cox
Edgar Degas
Rineke Dijkstra
Nancy Floyd
Francisco de Goya
Hilary Harkness
Mona Hatoum
Cristina Lucas
William Roberts
Franz von Stuck
Marina Abramovic
El hroe II, 2008
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 195
17/02/11 9:22
Amazonas
45
Edgar Degas
Jvenes espartanas desaando a sus compaeros, c. 1860
The National Gallery, Londres. Adquirido en 1924, inv. NG3860
196
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 196
17/02/11 9:22
197
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 197
17/02/11 9:22
Amazonas
46
William Roberts
Combate, 1966
Royal Academy of Arts, Londres
198
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 198
17/02/11 9:22
47
Hilary Harkness
Bellezas de la Galia de antao, 2001
Cortesa de la Mary Boone Gallery, Nueva York
199
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 199
17/02/11 9:22
Amazonas
48
Franz von Stuck

Amazona, c. 1903
Bronce, 65 x 50 x 17,5 cm
Coleccin privada, Mnich
200
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 200
17/02/11 9:22
49
Franz von Stuck

Amazona y centauro, 1912
Coleccin privada
201
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 201
17/02/11 9:22
Amazonas
50
Franz von Stuck

Amazona herida, 1904
Galerie Katharina Bttiker-Art Nouveau-Art Dco
202
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 202
17/02/11 9:22
51
AES+F
El ltimo motn, 2. Tondo 23, 2007
Copia digital y collage digital sobre lienzo, 150 cm de dimetro
Triumph Gallery, Mosc
203
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 203
17/02/11 9:22
Amazonas
52
Francisco de Goya
Y son eras. Serie Los desastres de la guerra, 5, 1863
Aguafuerte, aguatinta, punta seca, buril y bruidor sobre papel, 24 x 31,5 cm
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Calcografa Nacional, Madrid, inv. 3855
204
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 204
17/02/11 9:22
53
Francisco de Goya
Qu valor! Serie Los desastres de la guerra, 7, 1863
Aguafuerte, aguatinta, punta seca, buril y bruidor sobre papel, 24 x 31,5 cm
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Calcografa Nacional, Madrid, inv. 3857
205
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 205
17/02/11 9:22
Amazonas
54
Cristina Lucas
Fotograma de La Libert Raisonne, 2009
Vdeo HD, 4 18
Cortesa de Cristina Lucas y de la Galera Juana de Aizpuru
206
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 206
17/02/11 9:22
207
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 207
17/02/11 9:22
Amazonas
55
Nancy Floyd
A1C Ashley-Ann Cady con un rie de cerrojo M24 Remington 700, Moody Air Force Base, Valdosta, Georgia, 2006
C-print, 88,9 x 88,9 cm
Nancy Floyd
208
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 208
17/02/11 9:22
56
Rineke Dijkstra
Retratos de Israel. Induction Center B Tel Hashomer, April 12, 1999
C-print, 126 x 107 cm
Cortesa de la Galerie Max Hetzler, Berln
209
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 209
17/02/11 9:23
Amazonas
57
Eleanor Antin
El juicio de Paris (segn Rubens) Light Helen de Helens Odiyssey, 2007
Copia cromognica, 93,98 x 182,88 cm
Cortesa de Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Nueva York www.feldmangallery.com
210
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 210
17/02/11 9:23
211
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 211
17/02/11 9:23
Amazonas
58
Mona Hatoum
Por encima de mi cadver, 1988-2002
Inkjet sobre PVC, 204,5 x 305 cm
Cortesa de White Cube Mona Hatoum
212
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 212
17/02/11 9:23
213
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 213
17/02/11 9:23
Amazonas
59
Renee Cox
Erupcin, 1998
Cibachrome sobre aluminio, 101,6 x 152,4 cm
Renee Cox
214
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 214
17/02/11 9:23
60
Marina Abramovic
El hroe II, 2008
Copia a la gelatina de plata sobre papel Warmtone, 100 x 100 cm
Cortesa y coleccin Arsfutura-Serge Le Borgne, Pars
215
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 215
17/02/11 9:23
61
Jean-Jacques Scherrer
La entrada de Juana de Arco en Orleans, c. 1887
Muse des Beaux-Arts, Orleans, inv. 791
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 216
17/02/11 9:23
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 217
17/02/11 9:23
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 218
17/02/11 11:07
Magas
Dosso Dossi
Evelyn de Morgan
Emil Nolde
Kiki Smith

La bola de cristal, 1902
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 219
18/02/11 12:38
Magas
62
Dosso Dossi
Circe y sus amantes en un paisaje, c. 1525
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Samuel H. Kress Collection, inv. 1943.4.49
220
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 220
17/02/11 9:23
63
Dosso Dossi
Circe, c. 1531
Museo Galleria di Villa Borghese, Roma
221
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 221
17/02/11 9:23
Magas
64

El crculo mgico, 1886
Tate, Londres: donado por el patronato del legado Chantrey 1886, inv. N01572
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 222
17/02/11 9:23
65

La dama de Shalott, 1894
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 223
17/02/11 9:23
Magas
66

Circe ofreciendo la copa a Ulises, 1891
Oldham Art Gallery
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 224
17/02/11 9:23
67

La bola de cristal, 1902
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 225
17/02/11 9:23
Magas
68
Evelyn de Morgan
Medea, 1889
Williamson Art Gallery and Museum, Birkenhead; Wirral Museums Service, inv. BIKGM=2251
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 226
17/02/11 9:23
69
Emil Nolde
Sacerdotisas, 1912
Neue Galerie, Nueva York
227
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 227
17/02/11 9:23
Magas
70
Kiki Smith
Mujer de rodillas en una pira II, 2001
Bronce y bronce silceo, 91,4 x 151,4 x 67 cm + base de madera
Cortesa de la artista y de The Pace Gallery, inv. 34185.03
228
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 228
17/02/11 9:24
229
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 229
17/02/11 9:24
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 230
17/02/11 11:09
Mrtires
Caravaggio
Caspar de Crayer
Andrea Gastaldi
Antoine-Jean Gros

Santa Eulalia, 1885
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 231
17/02/11 9:24
Mrtires
71
Caravaggio
Santa Catalina de Alejandra, c. 1597
inv. 81(1934.37)
232
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 232
17/02/11 9:24
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 233
17/02/11 9:24
Mrtires
72
Caspar de Crayer
El martirio de santa Catalina, c. 1622
Muse de Grenoble
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 234
17/02/11 9:24
73

Santa Eulalia, 1885
Tate, Londres: donado por Sir Henry Tate 1894, inv. N01542
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 235
17/02/11 9:24
Mrtires
74
Antoine-Jean Gros
Safo, 1801
Coleccin del Muse Baron Grard-Bayeux, inv. P0023
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 236
18/02/11 12:38
75
Andrea Gastaldi
Safo, 1872
Galleria Civica Torino-GAM, Turn
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 237
21/02/11 12:04
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 238
17/02/11 11:10
Msticas
Marina Abramovic
Ferdinand Hodler
Green Dress, 2009
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 239
17/02/11 9:24
Msticas
76
Ferdinand Hodler
Cancin desde la lejana, c. 1917
Kunsthaus Zrich, donacin
de Alfred Rtschi, 1919
77
Ferdinand Hodler
Mujer jubilosa, 1909
Coleccin privada, Suiza
78
Ferdinand Hodler
Mirada al innito, 1915
Coleccin privada, Dallas
240
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 240
17/02/11 9:24
241
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 241
18/02/11 12:38
Msticas
79
Marina Abramovic
La cocina I. Homenaje a santa Teresa, 2009
BESart-Coleco Banco Esprito Santo
242
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 242
17/02/11 9:25
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 243
17/02/11 9:25
Msticas
80
Green Dress, 2009
Cortesa de la artista y de Cmara Oscura Galera de Arte, Madrid
244
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 244
17/02/11 9:25
81
Bamboo, 2008
245
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 245
17/02/11 9:25
Msticas
82
Fern, 2008
246
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 246
17/02/11 9:25
83
Mirror, 2008
247
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 247
17/02/11 9:25
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 248
17/02/11 11:50
Lectoras
Albert Anker
Ambrosius Benson
Mary Cassatt
Henri Fantin-Latour
Francisco de Goya
Gustav Adolph Henning
Winslow Homer
Anni Leppl
Onorio Marinari
Henri Matisse
Gerhard Richter
Charles-Guillaume Steuben
douard Vuillard
Antoine Wiertz
Anni Leppl
Leyendo, 2010
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 249
17/02/11 9:25
Lectoras
84
Ambrosius Benson
Mara Magdalena leyendo, c. 1530
Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca dOro, Venecia
250
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 250
17/02/11 9:25
251
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 251
17/02/11 9:25
Lectoras
85
Francisco de Goya)
La lectura, 1819-1822
Litografa. Lpiz, pincel y rascador sobre papel verjurado, 17,2 x 24,7 cm
Fundacin Lzaro Galdiano, Madrid, inv. 11609
252
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 252
18/02/11 12:38
86
Onorio Marinari
Santa Catalina leyendo un libro
Sammlungen des Frsten von und zu Liechtenstein, Vaduz-Viena
253
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 253
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Lectoras
87

Muchacha leyendo, 1828
1916 Geschenk von Max Heilpern. Museum der Bildbenden Knste, Leipzig, inv. 1086
254
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 254
21/02/11 12:14
88
La lectora, 1829
Muse des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, inv. 1182
255
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 255
17/02/11 9:25
Lectoras
89
Antoine Wiertz
La lectora de novelas, 1853
Muses Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Bruselas, inv. 1971
256
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 256
17/02/11 9:25
257
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 257
17/02/11 9:25
Lectoras
90
Henri Fantin-Latour
Muse dOrsay, Pars
258
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 258
17/02/11 9:25
91
Winslow Homer
Retrato de Helena de Kay, c. 1872
259
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 259
21/02/11 12:10
Lectoras
92
Mary Cassatt
Lydia leyendo el peridico matinal (n. 1), 1878-1879
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE; adquisicin del Museo, inv. JAM 1943.28
260
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 260
17/02/11 9:26
93
Albert Anker
Muchacha leyendo, c. 1882
Muse des Beaux-Arts, Le Locle
261
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 261
17/02/11 9:26
Lectoras
94
douard Vuillard
Madame Hessel con vestido rojo leyendo, c. 1905
leo sobre cartn, 39,5 x 36,6 cm
Coleccin privada, Pars
262
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 262
17/02/11 9:26
95
Henri Matisse
La lectora, 1895
leo sobre tabla, 61,5 x 48 cm
Centre Georges Pompidou. Muse National dArt Moderne/Centre de cration industrielle, Pars, inv. AM 3968 P
263
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 263
17/02/11 9:26
Lectoras
96
Gerhard Richter
Leyendo, 1994
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
264
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 264
17/02/11 9:26
97
Anni Leppl
Leyendo, 2010
C-print sobre aluminio, 32 x 42,5 cm
Anni Leppl, en posesin de la artista
265
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0901thyssen_116_288.indd 266
17/02/11 11:13
Pintoras
Lucia Anguissola
Marie Bashkirtseff
Mary Beale
Rosalba Carriera
Elin Danielson-Gambogi
Artemisia Gentileschi
Frida Kahlo
Angelica Kauffmann
Lee Krasner
Barbara Longhi
Berthe Morisot
Gabriele Mnter
Charley Toorop
Elisabeth-Louise Vige-Lebrun
Angelica Kauffmann
Autorretrato, c. 1770-1775
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 267
17/02/11 9:26
Pintoras
98
Lucia Anguissola
Retrato de Sofonisba Anguissola, 1560-1565
leo sobre tabla, 12,4 x 9 cm
Coleccin privada, Nueva York
268
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 268
18/02/11 12:38
99
Autorretrato pintando a la Virgen, 1556
Muzeum Zamek w ancucie, Lancut
269
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 269
18/02/11 12:59
Pintoras
100
Barbara Longhi
Autorretrato como santa Catalina, c. 1580
Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bolonia
270
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 270
17/02/11 9:26
101
Autorretrato como alegora de la pintura, c. 1638-1639
leo sobre lienzo, 98,6 x 75,2 cm.
The Royal Collection, Windsor, inv. RCIN 405551
271
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Pintoras
102
Rosalba Carriera
Autorretrato, 1730-1731
Pastel, 40 x 29 cm
ASL9 Grosseto, Comune de Castel del Piano (GR)-Sistema Museale Amiata
(Comunit Montana Amiata Grossetano)
272
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 272
21/02/11 12:15
103
Mary Beale
Autorretrato, c. 1675
St. Edmundsbury Heritage Service, St. Edmundsbury, inv. 1993.35
273
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 273
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Pintoras
104
Angelica Kauffmann
Autorretrato, c. 1770-1775
National Portrait Gallery, Londres
274
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 274
17/02/11 9:26
105
Angelica Kauffmann
El dibujo, c. 1778-1780
Royal Academy of Arts, Londres
275
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 275
21/02/11 12:05
Pintoras
106
Angelica Kauffmann
Autorretrato, 1787
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florencia
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 276
17/02/11 9:26
107
Autorretrato, 1791
leo sobre tabla
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florencia
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 277
17/02/11 9:26
Pintoras
108
Marie Bashkirtseff
En el estudio, 1881
The Dnipropetrovsk Museum of Art, St. Dnipropetrovsk
278
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 278
18/02/11 12:39
279
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 279
17/02/11 9:26
Pintoras
109
Marie Bashkirtseff
Coleccin del Muse des Beaux-Arts de Nice, Niza
280
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 280
17/02/11 9:27
110
Berthe Morisot
Autorretrato, 1885
Muse Marmottan-Monet, Pars, inv. MMT15673
281
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 281
17/02/11 9:27
Pintoras
111
Autorretrato, 1900
Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 282
17/02/11 9:27
112
Gabriele Mnter
Autorretrato, c. 1908
leo sobre cartn, 49 x 33,6 cm
283
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 283
17/02/11 9:27
Pintoras
113
Charley Toorop
Rijksmuseum Krller-Mller, Otterlo
284
0901thyssen_116_288#.indd 284
21/02/11 12:09
114
Charley Toorop
Autorretrato con paleta, 1932-1933
Gemeentemuseum, La Haya
0901thyssen_116_288.indd 285
17/02/11 9:27
Pintoras
115
Lee Krasner
Autorretrato, c 1930
The Jewish Museum, Nueva York, inv. 2008-32
286
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17/02/11 9:27
116
Frida Kahlo
Autorretrato con collar de espinas y colibr, 1940
leo sobre lienzo sobre masonita, 62,2 x 48,3 cm
Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin (Nickolas Muray Collection)
287
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0901thyssen_289-323_Heronas 17/02/11 10:12 Pgina 289
Heroines
English Texts
List of Works
Heroines
Guillermo Solana
To my mother: my rst heroine
Do women have to be naked to get into the Metropolitan Museum

of Art? was the provocative question based on hard facts which
Guerrilla Girls asked. Less than 5 percent of artists in the Modern
Arts section are women, but 85 percent of the nudes are female
[g. 1]. In Western art the image of women has been over-exploited
and that over-exploitation can be linked to Linda Nochlins classic
question: Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?
The harder the access to artistic creation by real women, the greater
the proliferation of depicted women in painting or sculpture. It is
as if the ever-greater presence of women as the object of depiction
were somehow intended to make up for their conspicuous absence
as the subject and creator of images.
Of the huge number of depictions of female gures in Western art,
the vast majority can be reduced to two complementary stereotypes:
motherhood or erotic object, madonna or pin-up. However, the very
culture that imposed those dominant stereotypes has also produced
counter-types and exceptions questioning the issue of gender roles.
Though so obviously patriarchal, Greek mythology also produced
gynocentric legends like those of Artemis, Atalanta, the maenads
and the Amazons. Invented to exorcise the threat of female otherness,
those myths contain critical potential. In her classic essay on the
laugh of the Medusa, Hlne Cixous saw in the Gorgon the female
expression excluded by patriarchal cultures; feminist artists have
often turned a misogynic stereotype into a subversive image.
What does the title Heroines mean? The history of Western art
is full of images of seductive, indulgent, submissive, defeated and
enslaved women. But the women whom this exhibition centres on
are strong women: active, independent, deant, inspired, creative,
domineering and triumphant. Or, to use a key word that has been at
the top of the feminist agenda for the last few decades: this exhibition
is interested in images which could be sources of empowerment
for women themselves.
Lists of heroines have a long history, starting with the rst
catalogues of famous females by Hesiod and Homer, in which women
appeared only as accessories to the males as the heroes or gods
mothers and daughters, wives and mistresses. The rst compendium
of women who were illustrious on their own merit was that in
Boccaccios De claris mulieribus, which followed in the footsteps
of Petrarchs De viris illustribus. Inspired by Boccaccios work but
intent on correcting his point of view, in 1405 Christine de Pizan
wrote the rst defence of women to be penned by a woman: The Book
of the City of Ladies [see gs. 18 and 19]. Pardon the anachronism
but Christine de Pizan was the rst feminist because she attributed
the disadvantages of being a woman not to Mother Nature but to
290
force of habit. Her book led to a long Querelle des Femmes which has
lasted seven centuries and is still very much alive.
This exhibition is also a kind of city of ladies centred especially
on the cycle of modernity, from the 19th century to the present day.
Following a non-chronological but thematic order, it explores the
backgrounds and aspirations of heroines: the iconography of solitude,
work, delirium, sport, war, magic, religion, reading and painting.
In each chapter artworks from different periods, languages and
artistic environments are juxtaposed, providing food for thought on
what has changed through those differences and what has remained
the same. And in each chapter, one or several voices of women artists,
particularly contemporary women, respond to images created by
their male counterparts.
As the rst requirement for being a heroine is solitude, chapter
one in the exhibition presents women alone, starting with modern
images of heroines of Antiquity like Penelope and Iphigenia. In their
apparently passive attitudes of waiting and homesickness lie the
seeds of independence and even resistance. Modern heroines of
solitude, on the other hand, are no longer identied with Penelope
but with Ulysses: they do not wait around for the absent hero, they
become travellers like him.
A whole 19th-century painting tradition focused on the epic
story of the peasant woman. The second chapter is dedicated to
female reapers, gleaners, water carriers and washerwomen robust,
monumental women supporting the edice of the family and society
like caryatids. The rhetoric of these images is ambiguous: on the one
hand they are a celebration of the working woman, while on the other,
they exalt their servitude as some kind of natural, eternal destiny.
Daughters of the Earth, earth-bound forever, those peasant-caryatids
are heroines in chains.
The bacchante is often depicted in painting as some kind of
erotic, decorative toy created for the voyeurs delight. But behind
this function lurks the terrible violence of the mythological
maenads with their superpowers, women capable of uprooting
great trees with their bare hands or tearing a bull (or a man) apart.
The furious maenad, that slayer of men and rebel against the
patriarchal order who fascinated so many 19th-century artists,
is a typical example of the image revived by contemporary female
artists as a source of empowerment.
Like Artemis and her nymphs, the mortal Atalanta rejects the
powers of Aphrodite and excels in the purportedly masculine pursuits:
hunting, hand-to-hand combat, running . . . Atalanta represents a
potential threat to gender roles that has been deactivated time and
time again, from Ovid himself to pictorial interpretations of the myth.
In Victorian painting, however, the iconography of ancient huntresses
and athletes was revived to depict the emancipation of the female
body and the right by women to indulge in sports as the rst step in
the conquest of other social and political rights.
The rst part of the exhibition culminates in the image of the
female warrior. To begin with, virgin warriors, maidens in armour
after the Joan of Arc prototype. Armour enables women to crossdress and engage in typically male activities, but it is also a convincing
metaphor for virginity. In the art of the late-19th century, through
painters as diverse as Edgar Degas and Franz von Stuck, female
warriors threw off their cuirasses to return to the original image
of the ancient Amazons and take up the feminist demands which
were beginning to be made.
While the rst part of the exhibition, at the Museo ThyssenBornemisza, is dominated by the sheer physical power of the heroines,
the second, in the rooms of the Fundacin Caja Madrid, explores the
spiritual powers of sorceresses, martyrs and mystics often stigmatised
as witches, madwomen or hysterics. The sorceress in painting has
often been reduced to the level of femme fatale and described
in accordance with male desire, while her similarities to Orpheus
and wisdom capable of humanising and civilising man and beast
have been ignored. The female martyr-saints are not simply victims
but triumphant heroines, assertive in extremis. The mystical female
levitating can be seen as an image of the experience of women in
transitional stages such as adolescence.
The spiritual powers conventionally attributed to women are
found residually in the reader type. The exhibitions last chapter
is dedicated to images created by women before a mirror, to the
development of the self-portrait by female painters from Sofonisba
Anguissola to Frida Kahlo.
Solitude and journeying

Nostos homecoming is one of the great themes of Ancient Greek
literature. In the Iliad, nostos is a dangerous temptation for the hero
and, as if by way of a counterbalance, in the Odyssey the journey
of return to Ithaca, delayed by countless impediments, becomes
the heros main aim. Nostos divides into two typical roles: that of the
absent man and that of the woman waiting for him at home. Ulysses
struggle against all that holds him back at sea is matched by
Penelopes resistance to her suitors. The heroic signicance of that
resistance lies in the fact that Penelope is not under the protection
of any male (neither her husband nor her father nor her son, who
is too young). Solitude endows her with a rare independence.
The Penelope typically depicted in ancient art sits with her legs
crossed, her head covered and her chin resting in her hand in an
attitude of melancholy. The gure in Frederick Leightons Solitude
[cat. 3] has also adopted that pose. She sits deep in the heart of a
tomb-like cave which could also be a reference to the womb, to the

concavity of the female body. Her position, sitting high up with her
legs dangling, give her an air of dependence, as if she were condemned
to live out a perpetual minority.
Antoine Bourdelles Penelope [cat. 4], on the other hand, stands;
the position of her hip and leg reveal a resolute impulse. Compared
to Leightons drowsy Solitude, Bourdelles Penelope seems to be
awakening, perhaps even rising to another level of consciousness. The
sculptor took this pose from a drawing he made of his pupil Cloptre
Sevastos admiring Indian sculptures in the British Museum.
In contrast with Penelope, another Greek heroine has a nostos
of her own. This is Iphigenia, offered by her father Agamemnon
as a propitiatory victim as his ships set sail for Troy but saved by
the goddess Artemis. In Euripides and Goethes tragedies, Iphigenia
lives in safety as a priestess of Artemis on the distant coast of the land
of Tauris but is homesick for Greece. For half his lifetime the painter
Anselm Feuerbach was obsessed with that gure of Iphigenia
and depicted her in three different versions. In the second [cat. 2],
the heroine sits at the doors to the temple of Artemis looking
longingly out over the sea that separates her from her homeland.
Her body, outlined by the folds of her Classical clothes, is majestic,
as if in an ancient relief. But the tragedy lies in the difference between
her body and her head. The former is chained to a rock, fused with
it, as if she had been buried alive; only her head rises above the
horizon as her mind drifts far away, to the other side of the sea.
Furthermore, her face is seen in a prol perdu; it is elusive, in ight.
Iphigenia is like an anti-Penelope: she is not waiting for anyone
to return, it is she who longs to go. Yet Iphigenia is not Ulysses,
for she is not the mistress of her own destiny. She yearns for her
homeland in the same way as the captive Trojan girls (Briseida and
Cressida, Cassandra and Andromache), now enslaved and in exile.
The solitude of the modern heroines seems more abstract.
Evening marks the rst appearance of melancholia in Edvard Munchs
work [cat. 5]. The young girl in the yellow hat gazes out into the
distance but she looks without seeing, lost in thought, inaccessible
to us. We know she is the painters younger sister Laura in the rst
stages of schizophrenia. Munch would paint her again years later at
the asylum in Gaustad in a picture entitled Melancholy (19001901).
In Evening there is the suggestion of a shadow a ghost in front of
Laura; infrared reectography has revealed that the picture originally
contained a woman in a long dress, standing. By erasing that gure,
the painter created the powerful central void and sharp asymmetry he
was to make use of so many times to express melancholy and madness.
Like Munchs painting, Edward Hoppers Hotel Room [cat. 6] is a
modern image of melancholy (possibly inspired, as Margaret Iversen
has maintained, by Drers Melancholia). A woman sits on a bed,
291
Heroines
Guillermo Solana
reading something on a piece of yellow paper; the shadow on her face

hides her expression. The hat on the chest-of-drawers, the shoes, the
unopened suitcases and the coat draped over the armchair all reveal
that it is not her own room but a temporary one. For some, the fact that
she is reading a yellow piece of paper recalls Rembrandts Bathsheba
Reading King Davids Letter [g. 2] or the women Vermeer depicted
reading love letters. But in the records where Hoppers wife Josephine
Nivison noted the details of each painting, we nd this description:
Hotel Room. A tall girl in a pink shirt, chestnut hair, reading a schedule
(yellow). The piece of paper is not a letter from someone who is
absent but a train or bus timetable. The modern woman experiences
her nostos not like Penelope but like the traveller Ulysses.
Sarah Jones has confessed to the inuence on her more recent
work of a late painting of Hoppers, Sun in an Empty Room (1963).
Her photograph [cat. 7] belongs to a series of young girls in their
bedrooms, sometimes sitting on their beds. And the bed takes
us to the psychoanalysts couches Jones has been photographing
obsessively for over a decade. The couch is the place where we relive
our past in order to break its spell. To me the printed curtains seem
to evoke a place that was once a home but which has turned strange,
alien. Sarah Joness photograph is perhaps the image of a failed
nostos, of someone who returns to their place of origin and no longer
recognises it as their own. You cant go home again . . .
Peasant women, caryatids

In May 1885, the art historian Heinrich Wlfin wrote in his diary:
On the epic. My journey gave me a moment in which I thought
to feel the spirit of the epic. It happened in Rothenburg: we were
surrounded by ruins in the courtyard of an old monastery but the
blue spring sky smiled brightly down on the grey walls and red roofs
and a gentle breeze blew on the white owers of a small apple tree.
In the old monastery garden a woman was digging the earth:
primordial, eternal human labour. At that moment I felt something
of the essence of the epic: the contemplation of past worlds and a
feeling of the never-changing relationship between nature and
human being endowed the spirit with that sense of calm and moral
recollection which with good reason we call epic.
It may seem strange to see the epic not in the gure of a conqueror
an Alexander or Napoleon but in some nameless peasant woman
digging the earth. It all began, perhaps, at the 1851 Salon, when JeanFranois Millet exhibited his solemn The Sower, which drew peasant
gures out of genre painting and raised them to the level of allegories
of Work and the Earth. Shortly after, another painter, Jules-Adolphe
Breton took up and adapted Millets peasant realism, featuring
women rather than men. His hardy peasant women stand out
292
heroically against the dawn or twilight skies [cats. 1012 and 14]
and in verses the painter, who was also a poet, wrote of their Classical
echoes. In his book Le Champs et la mer, for example, he evoked the
gleaner as a Ceres of Gaul who carried her load of golden spikes
on her back. He also compared peasant women going to the fountain
with amphorae on their heads with marble statues. Washerwomen
at sunset become giants and have an air of ancient canephorae about
them. When they carry the weight of a bundle, basket or pitcher on
their heads, the canephorae are reminiscent of caryatids, those powerful
columns which support the eternal edice of the Family and Society.
Millets and Bretons painting of peasant women led to the
appearance in the second half of the 19th century of a movement,
represented by epigones such as Lon Lhermitte, Julien Dupr and
Jules Bastien-Lepage, who in varying degrees combined academic
idealism and photographic realism. However, their inuence spread
over an even wider eld to include painters as diverse as the
academicist William-Adolphe Bouguereau and the Impressionist
Camille Pissarro. Bouguereaus The Reaper [cat. 8] was attacked
in the reviews of the 1872 Salon as a (failed) attempt by the artist
to emulate Breton. This reapers authority lies not only in her selfassured attitude and Michelangelesque constitution but also derives
from the fact that any reaper holding a scythe is, in the language
of allegory, an unequivocal symbol of death. With his peasant woman
[cat. 15] Pissarro dispensed with declamation but his simple prose
contains an epic message: she too is a heroine.
That message was to survive the disruption caused by the advent
of the 20th-century avant-garde movements. Around 1928, the former
pioneer Malevich returned to the peasants with their empty, oval
faces which he had painted before the Great War. The Girl with a Red
Pole [cat. 16] displays the detail of a portrait yet the subject seems
to be wearing a mask. To a certain extent, the pole she clutches (a rake
or some such farming tool) makes her as it does with Pissarros
peasant woman an image of balanced power. This solemn, hieratic
rigidity was to reappear in Maruja Mallos The Net [cat. 17].
On emigrating to America shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish
Civil War, Mallo gave herself up to what she called the religion
of work the glorication of workers, especially peasants and
shermen, accompanied by mystic symbols like sh and stars.
The androgynous features of the two personages in The Net make
it hard to know whether they are two women or a man and a woman.
Janine Antoni creates powerful symbolic constellations using
everyday objects and her own body. Caryatid (Terra Cotta Amphora)
[cat. 13] is an upside-down photograph of the artist with a pitcher
on her head and her back turned to us. With its curved outline and
womb-like concavity, the pitcher is an age-old symbol of the female
body. In patriarchal folklore, a broken pitcher represents lost
virginity, but here it becomes a gesture of anger against the gender

roles imposed on women. The eternal caryatid refuses to go on
supporting the world and decides to walk on her head.
Maenads and bacchantes

The drunken, dissolute bacchantes in 19th-century painting can be
taken as a perfect incitement to a form of voyeurism cloaked in the
dignity of Classical models. Within that genre of archaeological
eroticism we nd Bouguereaus Bacchante on a Panther [cat. 18],
one of a series of paintings imitating ancient Roman mosaic gures
intended to adorn a Paris mansion. Curiously, Bouguereau took
his inspiration from a mosaic in which the panther was not ridden by
a maenad but by Dionysus himself [g. 3]. Dating from 1874, another
Antiquity-inspired piece, Exhausted Maenads after the Dance [cat. 19],
is an unnished work by Alma-Tadema, whose gures evoke the
Classical maenad asleep on a panther skin (another version being
the famous Sleeping Hermaphrodite).
But there is a nightmarish reverse side to the bacchante as the
subject of erotic dreams, for those same academic artists who painted
the charms of the maenads were also interested in their ferocious
misandry. As if in revenge for being used as decorative sex objects,
maenads and bacchantes returned with the threat of castration
and death. Around 1865, Charles Gleyre, who had produced a large
number of sensuous bacchantes for the delight of male voyeurs,
painted Pentheus, Hunted by the Maenads [cat. 20], taking his
inspiration from the terrible plot of Euripides The Bacchantes.
In order to avenge himself on Pentheus, Dionysus induces him to
disguise himself as a woman so that he can spy on the maenads rites
in the forest. But it is a trap and the maenads discover Pentheus and
tear him to pieces (his mother, Agave, included; mistaking him for
a lion, she cuts off his head). No precedent to the violent dynamism
of this composition of Gleyres exists in ancient art.
The Death of Orpheus by mile Lvy [cat. 21] is more consistent
with Classical models: on vessels dating from as early as the 5th
century A.D., the legendary poet is depicted lying prostrate on the
ground, clutching his lyre to his chest and surrounded by assailants.
In Lvys painting, the chain of maenad dancers who descend to the
poets broken body form a fearsome sisterhood. In contrast with their
overwhelming power, Orpheus body lies soft with a certain sexual
ambiguity about it. Pentheus and Orpheus, victims of the furious
maenads, share the same fate of feminisation.
What academic idealists describe as tragedy, the realist Lovis
Corinth approaches satirically, almost through caricature [cat. 24].
His bacchantes return from the orgy in the embrace of a bloated,
drunken Silenus who, like Orpheus although differently, seems
to be suffering from the effects of some kind of invisible castration:

from a distance this ambiguous Silenus could be confused with
another bacchante. We might enquire as to the butt of Corinths
satire. The academic principles of the ideal nude perhaps? Or is
this some kind of misogynic mockery of emancipated women?
In this respect, Julia Kristevas thoughts on the abjection of the
maternal body to the patriarchal eye or Mary Russos ideas
on the transgressive value of female grotesque might help. Rodins
Iris [cat. 23] is not a maenad but her obscene dance embodies
that same grotesque aspect and abjection of the female body.
Although consistent with the iconography we have followed so
far, there is something strange about Mary Cassatts Bacchante [cat. 22].
Here only a woman artist could avoid both voyeurism and misogynic
horror at one and the same time. Her bacchante is a gypsy with a
frail, sickly face who plays cymbals with an expression of melancholy
rather than drunkenness: a kind of mystical bacchante.
Ultimately the maenads joined the feminist cause. Evidence
of this is an exhibit by Nancy Spero reproducing a 5th-century B.C.
Attic kylix [cat. 26]. Speros strategy is to construct a simultaneity
of women through time, a kind of pantheon of female gures from
different ages and cultures. In her collages ancient goddesses (such
as Tiamat of Babylonia, Nut of Egypt [cat. 27] and Artemis of Greece)
co-exist with modern women Greek dancers and Vietnamese
peasant women, Egyptian mourners and Olympic athletes. Protest
and celebration, political rage and Dionysian delirium also come
together in the work of a younger artist, Pipilotti Rist. The protagonist
in her piece Ever is Over All [cat. 28] is the most eloquent of
contemporary maenads. Taking the form of a girl in a blue dress and
red shoes, she smilingly goes out into the street, as happy as a cricket
on holiday, wielding a thyrsus like those carried by the maenads.
Huntresses and athletes

Abandoned at birth, Atalanta was suckled by a she-bear and later
found by hunters, who raised her. Two centaurs tried to rape her but
she killed them. Dedicated to Artemis/Diana, mistress of the forests
and wild animals and the protectress of women, Atalanta is sometimes
depicted on Greek vessels as a maenad (with serpents and animal
skins) or an Amazon archer. Her great passions were hunting, wrestling
and racing. With Meleagrus and a number of other heroes she took
part in the hunting of the Calydonian boar, striking the rst blow. In
the games honouring King Pelias, she wrestled with Peleus. The third
story about her is that of the famous test she set her suitors, agreeing
to marry the one capable of outracing her (while those who lost
would die). One suitor, Hippomenes, approached Aphrodite for help
and she gave him three golden apples to throw in Atalantas path.
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Hippomenes was the vehicle Aphrodite/Venus used to defeat Atalanta

and, through her, Artemis. In Ovids account, it is Venus who tells
the story of Atalanta to the hunter Adonis.
The story of the prenuptial race appears to have been invented
to neutralise the subversive potential of the gure of Atalanta. Pictures
of the race only serve to reinforce that point. Guido Reni conceived
the scene as a kind of strange dance in the dark, a ballet between two
nudes [cat. 29]. The race is at mid-point: Hippomenes has thrown
the second apple and holds the third ready. Although the race is being
run from left to right, the two gures are moving in opposite directions.
As Marc Fumaroli pointed out in a brilliant commentary, Renis
painting suggests an allegory: by going to pick up the apple, Atalanta
leans towards the ground and is almost on all fours; her whole body
is below the horizon, as if trapped within the earth and the night.
Hippomenes, on the other hand, stands upright with his trunk, arms
and head above the horizon and entering that part of the sky where
day is beginning to break. Furthermore, as Fumaroli suggests,
Reni has given Atalanta the hips and forms of a Venus. Rejecting
the voluptuous gure pursuing him, with a gesture Hippomenes
raises one foot from the ground, as if about to take ight (with the
veil behind him a metaphorical wing). It is hard to imagine a more
adverse interpretation of the myth for the heroine and indeed
for women in general than Renis.
In contrast, the more conventional interpretation of the French
classicist Nicolas Colombel [cat. 31], includes landscape which Reni
had excluded and has an Eros-Hymenaeus gure with a torch and
crown presiding over the race (a motif from ancient renderings of
the theme). Atalantas posture is basically the same in Renis painting
but here, instead of the philosophical contraposition between malecelestial and female-terrestrial, Colombel simply suggests the
submission of wife to husband, the trivial moral of the tamed shrew.
Atalanta is the mythical precursor of womens athletics. From
the beginning of the 19th century, progress in the eld of physical
education programmes for girls always came before women actually
achieved any political or social rights. Two Victorian painters express
the two sides of that progress the reality and the ideal. One ne day,
somewhere on the British coast William Powell Frith saw a number
of ladies practising archery and decided to recreate the scene with
his three daughters as models [cat. 33]. His painting portrays the
Victorian dilemma of encouraging sports for women yet having them
wear clothes ridiculously unsuitable for sports. During the last fteen
years of the 19th century, a growing number of associations and
publications championed the right of women to engage in sporting
activities and the necessary dress reform. At a time when the corset and
the crinolette were still widely is use, Leighton visualised the female
form as free of all constrictions [cat. 34]. Although his painting is
294
presented as a genre scene, it almost certainly refers to the story

of Nausicaa, who appeared in the Odyssey playing with a ball (a 2ndcentury B.C. female Alexandrian scholar attributed the invention of ball
games to Nausicaa). As an androgynous air surrounds the personage
throwing the ball, signicantly some reviews of the time judged this
attitude abnormal and ungraceful. By and large, however, the
relationship between bodies and robes and the surrounding landscape
suggests a newborn harmony between the female form and nature.
In the closing years of the 19th century, one last marginal resort
for womens athletics remained: the circus. On returning to his native
France in 1882, after eleven successful years in London, James
(or Jacques) Tissot produced a series of paintings entitled Women
of Paris featuring the modern woman strolling in the park, dining
at a caf in the open air, serving customers in a shop and attending
a dance or the theatre. The last in the series contained circus artistes
and was entitled The Ladies of the Chariots [cat. 35]. As critics of
the time pointed out, these ladies with a martial air were reminiscent
of the statue of Liberty Bartholdi had presented at the Universal
Exposition of 1878. Tissot, furthermore, would have seen the notes
and the painting in which his good friend Degas had immortalised
the feats of the famous Miss La La [g. 4], who, at the Cirque
Fernando, was hauled to the roof by a rope held between her teeth.
The circus is an unusual version of the ancient stadium and a place
where Artemis and Atalanta might have earned their living as acrobats
and trapeze artists, lion tamers and ecuyres.
Virgins in shining armour

The Greeks, who dreamed up the maenads, also invented the group
myth of the Amazons. Amazon, a-mazon, according to popular
etymology means without breast and was not, as Hippocrates
insisted and has so often been repeated, used to describe a group
of women who cut off one breast so that they could use a bow; rather
the term was somehow associated with pubescent girls. Aeschylus
and Herodotus called them parthenoi not virgins in the literal sense
but young unmarried girls. It was Christianity, however, which took
the idea of the virgin warrior literally. The Classical Amazon
reappeared in the 15th century in the form of Joan of Arc, an original
gure in whom masculine and feminine qualities combined. In her
famous poem Diti de Jehanne dArc, written in the Maids lifetime,
Christine de Pizan compared Joan with the biblical heroines Esther,
Judith and Deborah but also with Joshua and Gideon. Furthermore,
she placed her more highly than Hector and Achilles (Tel force
not Hector nAchilles!) but at the same time praised her through
female images, stating that she fed France from her breasts with
the sweet and nourishing milk of peace.
That synthesis of features of both genders was also applied to

the iconography of Joan. In one of the earliest extant images of her
an anonymous illustration from The Champion of Women by
Martin Le Franc the Maid is armed with a lance and shield, her
torso and legs covered in armour and her hair loose [g. 5]. In the rst
monument to Joan of Arc, raised around 1502 on the Pont dOrlans,
she is depicted in armour with her hair owing to her waist as she
kneels with Charles VII before an image of the Virgin Mary and Christ
Crucied; likewise, in a painting from Rubenss workshop [cat. 36],
she is portrayed in a cuirass and with red hair. In his last picture,
Dante Gabriel Rossetti also depicted her with red hair [cat. 37].
Joans fabulous hair in these images (which contradict documents
stating that she wore her hair short) appears to have been an invention
to make up for the masculine hardness of the cuirass. But that same
cuirass is not exactly devoid of ambiguity. As Marina Warner pointed
out in her book on Joan of Arc, armour can be a metaphor for virginity;
on the Albrecht altar (painted before 1440, but still perhaps in Joans
lifetime) the Virgin Mary appears in her advocacy as the turris
davidica in full armour, although also with a skirt (and blonde hair
cascading down her back).
The story of Joan of Arc took the image of the virgin warrior
beyond the borders of France. Drawing their inspiration from
the mediaeval French epic, the new Italian poets Boiardo, Ariosto
and Tasso revamped the gure of the warrior maiden. Boiardo and
Ariosto turned to Marphisa and Bradamante, while in Jerusalem
Delivered Tasso created the characters of Clorinda and Erminia.
Delacroix painted a scene in which the latter, dressed in armour,
comes upon an old shepherd and his family, who are alarmed but
she reassures them [cat. 38], saying they have nothing to fear.
The virgin warrior reconciles aggressive force and pastoral meekness
(according to Christine de Pizan, Joan of Arc was also a simple
bergire a shepherdess).
Tassos other warrior, Clorinda, is featured in a canvas by
Domenico Tintoretto [cat. 39]. Tancred falls in love with Clorinda,
who is ghting on the other side. During a nighttime battle he mortally
wounds her, recognising her only when it is too late but she converts
to Christianity before she dies. Tintoretto painted the moment when
Tancred brings water in his helmet to baptise her. The story takes
us back once again to the Amazons and the Classical story of their
queen Penthesilea, killed by Achilles, who falls in love with her
at the sublime moment. In the Classical iconography of this scene,
the Greek hero cradles the dying Amazon in his arms. A present-day
version of the same scene combining tragic love and religious piety
can be seen in Marina Abramovics Virgin Warrior/Warrior Virgin
performance [cat. 40], which took place in the Palais de Tokyo, Paris,
in December 2004.
Stories of virgin warriors often involve the exchanging of

gender roles. A unique case is that of Rembrandts Pallas Athena
[cat. 43], which belonged to the Hermitage before being purchased
by the tycoon Calouste Gulbenkian. In the rst, hand-written
Hermitage catalogue of the late-18th century, the painting was
recorded as a Pallas but in the contemporary inventory of the
Baudouin collection, from which the painting had come, it was
described as a Portrait of Alexander in Pallas Armour (and in
later literature as Mars, Portrait of Titus and Young Warrior).
All of which gives rise to a curious dilemma. If the Rembrandt
was a depiction of the goddess Pallas in armour, then this would
be a conventional (so to speak) case of transvestism. However,
if the subject were Alexander dressed in Pallas armour, it would
be a case of dual transvestism.
In the revealing photographs from her Undergarments and
Armor series [cat. 44], Tanya Marcuse raises the question of fetishist
similarities between armour and the old-fashioned corset structures
that encase the esh and subject it to prescribed gender roles;
instruments of torture to glorify the power or beauty of the body.
Physical perfection as a form of Kafkaesque metamorphosis that
turns its victims into beetles.
The return of the Amazons

The catalogue of the Impressionist groups fth exhibition in 1880
listed a painting by Edgar Degas entitled Petites lles spartaites
provoquant des garons [cat. 45] and dated 1860, twenty years earlier.
However, the picture was not actually exhibited, possibly because
the painter was not completely satised with it, despite the fact that
he had reworked it recently, eliminating some archaeological details
and giving the adolescents a more contemporary look. As Degas
himself explained, the painting was inspired by a passage from
Plutarchs Life of Lycurgus describing the masculine-style education
given to young Spartan girls. Lycurgus appears in the background
with a group of Spartan matrons.
In all likelihood the young Degas painted Spartan Girls Challenging
Boys to settle scores with the French Neo-Classical tradition.
Richard Brettell has described it as a parody of Davids The Oath of
the Horatii [g. 6], in which a clearly-dened compositional division
separates the oath takers from the group of women bewailing their
fate. However, with Degas the roles are inverted and it is the girls
who take the active, aggressive part. Degass own description of the
painting reached us through Daniel Halvy: It is the young Spartan
girls challenging the young boys to a ght. Norma Broude has
provided the testimony of another friend of Degass, the Italian critic
Diego Martelli, who summed things up in this way: The young Spartan
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Guillermo Solana
girls who incited the boys to take part in the race which decided,
as was the law of that people, their submission. Martellis words
suggest that the race might have been a prenuptial test not very
different from Atalantas. In a somewhat riskier interpretation,
Carol Salus surmised that Degas wished to depict the courtship
rituals of young Spartans.
We may never know exactly what the painters premise was,
or whether the Spartan girls challenge was an invitation to a ght or
a race or whether or not the painting has connotations of courtship.
In any event, the painting raises the question of womens
emancipation with an unequivocally modern air. Degass unfair
reputation as a misogynist was refuted by Norma Broude some
time ago. Sufce it to say that at around the same time as his scene
of the Spartan girls, Degas painted two other scenes featuring strong
women: Semiramis Building Babylon and Scene of War in the
Middle Ages [g. 7]. Through an abundance of data, Norma Broude
has shown that the painting of the Spartan girls reected a social
phenomenon which Degas could not have been unaware of: the
growing feminist activism in France in the 1870s, which culminated
with the rst ever international feminist congress the International
Congress of Womens Rights of 1878.
With Degass Spartan girls, the female warrior returned to late19th century painting, though now free of her armour, half-naked
and closer to the Amazons of the ancients. The return of the Amazons
is even more explicit in the work of the German artist Franz von
Stuck [cats. 4850], who made it the subject of his archaeological
fantasies. Stucks Amazons appear to be ghting centaurs, who,
like them, are wild creatures, borderline human beings. Despite the
great differences between Degas and Stuck, in this particular case
both keep at an ironic distance with respect to the myth and seem
to reect an awareness that there is something of the pastiche in any
imitation of ancient art.
The Amazonomachies of our time swing between the violence
of Stuck and the sporting spirit of Degas. The former Vorticist
William Roberts entered the Royal Academy in 1966 with a Pop
update of this academic theme [cat. 46]. A further turn of the screw
along Pop Art lines, Hilary Harknesss Gallic Beauties of Yesteryear
(2001) [cat. 47] suggests an ironic post-feminist view. Degass
Spartan Girls Challenging Boys evoked a certain adolescent
barbarism which reappeared in a more intensied form in the work
of the Russian AES+F Group [cat. 51]. In their Mad Max-style,
post-nuclear landscapes, gangs of youths ght a free-for-all war
in which gender roles are fading. The black teenage girl who
threatens the white boy reminds us that in the Amazons battles,
Queen Hippolyta was sometimes seen holding, like Judith,
the severed head of a man.
296
Contemporary Amazons prefer to be good-humoured: like

Rineke Dijkstras female Israeli soldiers [cat. 56] who do not carry
weapons. More disturbing is the smile on the face of Nancy Floyds
armed female soldier [cat. 55], taken from her documentary series
Shes Got a Gun, which includes interviews with the women in the
photographs an Iraq war veteran, a markswoman only eleven years
of age, a police chief, and a disabled woman prepared to kill to defend
herself. They are images which question the notion of women as
instinctively peaceful; as Nancy Floyd observes, an armed woman
suggests other possibilities.
The challenge of the Amazons reappears with a number
of contemporary artists from different generations who share an
afnity with the world of performance and an acid sense of irony
vis--vis patriarchal stereotypes. In the last decade, Eleanor Antin,
the inuential 1960s pioneer, has reinvented herself with a series
of photographic tableaux consisting of pastiches of mythological
paintings with a witty and exquisite sense of humour. In her version
of the Judgement of Paris (After Rubens) [cat. 57], each of the
three goddesses embodies a stereotype: Hera is the typical 1950s
housewife, Aphrodite a vamp, and Athena a kind of battle-hardened
Lara Croft. Helen, who was not in Rubenss original painting, sits
on the sidelines, looking out at the spectator.
Mona Hatoum, a Briton of Palestinian-Lebanese origin, has
often used her body to explore situations of violence, incarceration
and vigilance linked to the war in the Near East. In Over My Dead
Body (1988) [cat. 58], the head of the artist is a battleeld invaded
by the (Lilliputian) troops of the patriarchal order. Giant versions
of the female body invert power relationships. In recent pieces,
Hatoum has returned to toy soldiers to refer to the concept of endless
war, while Cristina Lucas exposes the other side of male heroism
with freedom itself descending to earth and falling prey to its own
followers [cat. 59].
Jamaican-born Renee Cox uses her body as the raw material
for turning racial and gender stereotypes upside down. Her famous
Yo Mamas Last Supper was a remake of Leonardos Supper
in which a nude Cox took Jesuss place at the table and surrounded
herself with black apostles (except Judas, who was white).
For her rst solo exhibition in New York in 1998, Cox invented
a superheroine called Raje, as embodied by the artist herself in a
colourful, tight-tting African pride uniform [cat. 59]. In her series
of photographs, Raje is always on stand-by to save the world from
machismo and racism.
A more Classical rhetoric takes to the stage in Marina Abramovics
The Hero II [cat. 60]. In an ambiguous tribute not without irony
the artist takes the place of her own father, a general in Titos army,
who rode a white horse during the war. In the original video, artist
and horse stand stock still while a popular song honouring the fallen
hero is heard. The white ag may be an allusion to Joan of Arcs
standard, although it might equally announce an anti-heroic surrender
and an appeal for peace.
Sorceresses
While in the rst half of the exhibition the attribution of physical
power to heroines predominates, the second part focuses on their
spiritual powers. Joan of Arc, who in a previous chapter was dened
as a virgin warrior, displayed other, well-known possibilities: a
visionary and an ecstatic, she was found guilty of witchcraft and
martyred at the stake. From here on, it is sorceresses and female
martyrs and mystics we shall be dealing with.
Kiki Smith pointed out that there are no monuments in our
cities to the memory of the witches burnt at countless stakes. Thus
she conceived her Woman Kneeling on a Pyre [cat. 70] as a public
sculpture in the open air. The outstretched arms are a gesture of
entreaty in extremis that recalls the themes of prayer in the garden,
the crucixion and the lamentation over the dead Christ. Kiki Smiths
witch is the supreme propitiatory victim, the great pharmakos of
a patriarchal tradition in which the spiritual powers of women have
been subject to condemnation or systematic suspicion.
But let us go back in time. Just as witch-hunting was reaching
its height, the mythological sorceresses took refuge in the rened,
esoteric world of the painter Dosso Dossi, both of whose paintings
in this exhibition [cats. 62 and 63] received the title Circe, although
the theme of each continues to be a cause for debate. In the rst,
very early work, the sorceress has an open book at her feet with
a pentacle drawn on the pages and holds a stone with magic
formulas on it. The animals around her remind us of Circe but she
does not hold the wand mentioned by Homer. Some scholars have
suggested that the source of the theme is canto six of Ariostos
Orlando furioso, in which the knight Astolpho describes what
befell the lovers of the charming Alcina. This work has also been
attributed with the moralistic design of warning the (male)
spectator of the dangers of female seduction, but it seems to me
that a different interpretation could be possible. The beautiful
sorceress is showing the signs on the stone to the animals as if in
an attempt to humanise them or restore their lost humanity. Her
attitude evokes the myth of Orpheus, who educated and civilised
all creatures with the magical power of his music. But the animals
(except for the wise old owl) do not seem to be paying attention
to the lesson. And this might be the paintings moral lectio: like
those animals, we the spectators are bafed by the arcane signs
the sibyl shows us and which might enlighten us.
The enigmas surrounding the Dosso from the Borghese continue.

The main character could be Circe or even Melissa, another sorceress
(from Orlando furioso), but a good one as she releases the knights
bewitched by Alcina (perhaps represented by those gurines hanging
on the tree and the dog with the human face). In any event, this
sorceress in fabulous Eastern garb also holds a panel with signs on it,
accrediting her as a mistress of hermetical wisdom, a transmitter
of secret knowledge. To protect herself from evil, the sorceress stands
inside a magic circle, surrounded by illegible cabalistic inscriptions.
The same theme (with the sorceress lighting a re inside a magic
circle) reappears four centuries later in the work of John William
Waterhouse [cat. 64], an epigone of the Pre-Raphaelites who made
magic and the occult a central theme in his paintings and whose
protagonists were almost always women. In a sinister landscape,
by the light of the moon, a sorceress draws a circle on the ground
with her wand, while from the boiling cauldron issues steam lled with
ectoplasm. Beyond the circle, seven crows lurking symbolise the powers
of darkness from which the sorceress has protected herself. Around
her neck she wears a second protective ring, an ouroboros or serpent
eating its own tail, symbolising the eternal cycle of life and death.
Waterhouse used the magic circle in other paintings of sorceresses.
In Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses [cat. 66], the space before the
throne is circular, as is the mirror reecting Ulysses (whose position
is occupied by the spectator). The Lady of Shalott [cat. 65], inspired by
Tennysons famous Arthurian poem (and illustrated by Waterhouse
on several occasions), tells of the legend of a bewitched woman who
lives in a tower and can only see the world through a mirror magic
visions which she weaves into a tapestry. The circle in the background
is the mirror and there is a window reected in it. Waterhouse loved
painting ambiguous mirrors in which what is reected and reality did
not completely coincide. In The Crystal Ball [cat. 67], everything is again
based on the circle: the round table, the window, the chair, the skull and
naturally the crystal ball itself. The ubiquitous circle symbolises
the spell of which the woman is both victim and mistress. It represents
reclusion, the state of encloisterment in which the woman lives,
protected yet constrained by an invisible but insurmountable barrier.
One contemporary of Waterhouses, the painter Evelyn de
Morgan, fought to restore the ill-repute of witches. A familiar subject
in Victorian painting, Medea was depicted by Sandys (1869) [g. 8]
and Valentine Prinsep (1888), both of whom presented the Greek
sorceress as a woman with a sick mind and of legendary wickedness.
De Morgans Medea [cat. 68], on the other hand, is not the murderess
of her children invented by Euripides, nor is she a madwoman with
wild hair but a noble and wise sorceress who, although betrayed,
calmly ponders the revenge she will take with the vial of poison
(intended for Jasons new ance) in her hand.
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Guillermo Solana
There is a vast difference between De Morgans witches and Emil

Noldes priestesses. Related to the female dancers who proliferated
in his painting of that period since Dance Around the Golden Calf
(1910), these bare-breasted gures apparently performing on a
stage [cat. 69] are not sibyls, nor mistresses of hermetical wisdom,
nor fragile seers, but something much wilder a cross between
members of some primitive cult and cabaret chorus girls.
Martyrs
Martyrs are not only victims but can also be heroines who have
triumphed over their persecutors and executioners. The rst of our
legendary martyrs is Catherine of Alexandria. When Caravaggio
painted his Saint Catherine of Alexandria [cat. 71] for Cardinal Del
Monte, he dispensed with three of the saints customary iconographic
attributes the crown, the book and the ring and concentrated
instead on three other attributes directly associated with her
martyrdom the wheel on which she was tortured, the decapitation
sword (although the toy sword in the picture would never execute
anyone) and the palm of victory. For the gure itself, Caravaggio
probably took his inspiration from Raphaels Saint Catherine [g. 9],
but made two changes. First the hands, which represent modesty
and chastity in Raphaels painting, in his version hold the sword.
Furthermore, whereas Raphaels saint raised her eyes heavenward
in supplication, Caravaggios Catherine looks directly out at the
spectator. By and large, Caravaggio reinterpreted the religious
theme in a secular manner, presenting it as the portrait of a young
girl (the courtesan Fillide Melandroni) dressed as a martyr. The
originality of Caravaggios painting is evident when compared with
Caspar de Crayers conventional representation of The Martyrdom
of Saint Catherine [cat. 72]. There is one feature of this work I would
like to highlight: four executioners take part in the execution, four
men in a high position, dominant, while opposite them, two women
rise from below to voice their compassion for the victim.
Saint Eulalia belongs to a long, complex tradition of female
saints martyred on the cross discussed by Pedro Ortega in a recent
academic paper. This iconography usually regarded as marginal
received much unexpected attention in the late-19th century, in some
cases (as with Flicien Rops) for satanically inspired pornographic
and blasphemous purposes. According to tradition, Eulalia was
twelve years old when she was condemned and subjected to terrible
torture: mutilation, aying and crucixion. Waterhouse [cat. 73]
avoided showing disgurement of any kind and used metaphor only:
the snow (which according to legend fell to cover her naked body)
is an image representing virginal purity; and the clothing and above
all the carefully spread hair represent the shedding of her blood.
298
To avoid the scandalous sight of the crucied female body,

Waterhouse separated the scene into its component parts; on one
side the vertical cross and on the other the recumbent body of the
saint with her outstretched arms. Finally, the perspective of the body
evokes the extreme foreshortening in Mantegnas The Lamentation
over the Dead Christ [g. 10].
The third in our list of female martyrs was not Christian but
pagan, and was canonised belatedly by the Romantic movement:
this was Sappho of Lesbos. Sappho is the subject of two pictures
painted by Angelica Kauffmann (Sappho Inspired by Love and Sappho
Conversing with Homer) that are completely devoid of tragedy.
Gross Sappho [cat. 74], presented at the 1800 Salon and acquired
by General Desolle, took a different approach to the theme, focusing
on the legendary leap from the rock at Leucade by means of which
Sappho wished to cure herself of her unhappy love. After Gross
version, the theme would often be reprised in painting from
Chassriau to Gustave Moreau [g. 11]. The Turin painter Andrea
Gastaldi painted his Sappho [cat. 75] in 1872, at a relatively late stage
in this tradition.
Sappho received poetic tributes from Leopardi and Baudelaire,
while two inuential prose writers, the critic Sainte-Beuve and the
Hellenist mile Deschanel, saw her as the embodiment of a literary
ideal: that of poetry as confession, the voice of passion, forever true
and natural. Such praise of female spontaneity revealed its virulent
side when Deschanel described sapphism as hysteria, the written
outpouring of unfullled desire. He concluded by asking: Who
knows how a Christian Sappho might have been? She might perhaps
have been Saint Teresa. Hysteria and mysticism maintain hidden
but real relationships; the two speak the same language and produce
almost identical phenomena.
Mystics
In the abundant records from the trial of Joan of Arc, two rather
startling testimonies are cited. The rst is a letter from Perceval de
Boulainvilliers, chamberlain and advisor to Charles VII. According
to his statement, one day as Joan was grazing her sheep, some girls
invited her to join in a race with them. She accepted the challenge
and ran so fast that one of the girls shouted: Joan, I can see you
ying above the ground. (Johann, video te volantem juxta terram.)
The other statement came from Joan herself and concerned
something that had happened some years after the incident with
the girls. As the Maid entered Troyes, a friar, brother Richard, fearing
her to be an emissary of the devil, came out to meet her waving a
cross and holy water: Come, take heart, approach, good father.
Joan said gaily, I will not y away. (Allons, approchez ardiment,
beau pre, je ne menvoulleray pas!). The two statements hint

at the existence of that supernatural power sometimes possessed
by mystical saints and possessed women: levitation.
The most illustrious of these female levitants, Saint Teresa
of Avila, is the subject of Marina Abramovics homage in her series
The Kitchen, a project executed in the kitchens of the La Laboral
in Gijn. Abramovic chose this setting to evoke the kitchen of her
grandmother, a very religious woman who took her to church every
day. The kitchen was a place of secrets where Marina the child told
her dreams to her grandmother, who in turn, told her stories. This
interaction between the spiritual and domestic worlds led Abramovic
to the mystical experiences of Saint Teresa and in particular to
the theme of levitation the subject of the rst photograph in the
series [cat. 79], in which the artist hung from ropes later photoshopped
out. Saint Teresa described her fears and joys, of how she rst resisted
and then surrendered to the forces that took possession of her and
caused her to levitate the incomparable weightlessness of ecstasy.
She also described how levitating interrupted her work in the kitchen,
leading to a conict between the demands of divine power and
everyday life. Abramovic underlines the analogy between her work
as a performer (pushing physical and mental limits by using my own
body) and the mystical experience (during a performance I nd
myself in a trance similar to the ecstasy of the mystics). But she also
adds: Even if someone could levitate, theyd still feel hunger and
thats the starting-point for understanding my work.
Levitation has a different nuance in Julia Fullerton-Battens
series of photographs In Between, in which teenage girls appear to
oat in the air [cats. 8083]. Here, as in her previous series Teenage
Stories, she explored female adolescence as a period of transition in
which the body becomes strange and the emotions unstable, without
anchorage. Each photograph contains a small dramatic event, even
if it is just the wind blowing a curtain. Furthermore, the young girls
seem to have been surprised by some irresistible force. Sometimes
their ight is as serene as the ascension of a yogi; at other times it is
explosive and erratic.
Ferdinand Hodler depicted levitation in The Chosen One [g. 12],
which is among his best-known compositions. The mystical child
(the painter made his own son, Hector, pose) kneels at the centre
of the scene praying in front of a stunted tree of life while around
him, six female angels oat a few centimetres above the ground.
The Chosen One is an example of Hodlers late work combining
Symbolist inspiration and Art Nouveau stylisation. The philosophical
themes in his works (youth and old age, Eros and Thanatos, solitude,
contemplation) are expressed through what the painter called
parallelism, a system of symmetries and rhythmic repetitions of
gures and postures. Hodlers late work reveals a painter of gestures;
gestures inspired as if by dance but solemn and ritualistic in character.

Such are his studies of female gures for his compositions: Song in
the Distance, Joyous Woman, View into Innity [cats. 7678]. Hodlers
female gures move like sleepwalkers. They intone a song to life with
the gravity of a liturgy. They seem to reach ecstasy though without
pleasure of the esh. They raise their arms to embrace the whole
of nature or to y out into the cosmos.
Readers
Why have pictures of women reading always been so common
in Western painting? One reason could be the association of reading
with the intimacy of the family and the home. But above and beyond
sociological interpretations there is a deeper notion of intimacy with
ones inner world. Reading contains echoes of those spiritual, magical
or mystical powers attributed to women in traditional iconography.
Reading produces a bubble in which women can live their lives
through the lives of others. The female reader can build what Virginia
Woolf called a room of ones own.
Reading is an inner activity that dees all pictorial representation.
In painting we are sometimes able to read a title; anything else is
always illegible, inaccessible. That is why depiction of reading involves
a process of exteriorisation, of theatricalisation. As we cannot read
the text, we read the readers body, which provides a stage for or
somatises the reading. One example of this are the Magdalenes
who shed tears of repentance on their reading: Bensons
Magdalene [cat. 84], however, is a singularly self-controlled lady.
Gustav Hennings young girl [cat. 87] is reading with unction,
her eyes lowered, her lips tight, one hand cupped in the other and
holding the book very close to her body. All this, together with the
hairdo and the simple, geometric dress, suggests that she is reading
a religious book. The monochrome background isolates the reader
from the world around her. The reader painted by Charles-Guillaume
Steuben [cat. 88], also German but who settled in France (and
was a friend of Delacroixs), offers a contrasting attitude. Whereas
Hennings girl appears to be absorbed in her reading, Steubens
looks up as if lost in a dream. Hennings girl ignored us; Steubens
pretends to ignore us, but she may be irting. Is it not natural
to assume that she is reading a novel?
Why novels and their female readers had such a bad reputation
becomes clear in the painting of the Belgian Romantic artist Antoine
Wiertz [cat. 89]. Here the somatic setting for reading reaches an
extreme on the verge of hysteria itself. Fond of provocative themes,
whether erotic or macabre (or both), Wiertz wished to break away
from the routine approach to the girl reading and shock the spectator.
His painting allows us to spy on the young girl who reads naked on
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her bed at night. Her voluptuous pose physically conveys to us the

pleasure of reading. It is trapped inside her and she cannot escape
because the devil is her special supplier and while she reads, he places
the books he has chosen for her (one being a novel by Alexandre
Dumas) on the edge of the bed. Furthermore, the mirror, in which
the girls body is reected, arouses the voyeur while stressing the
masturbatory dimension of the readers pleasure.
From the Bible and religious books to novels, from novels to
newspapers. So common in Impressionist painting (Manet, Degas,
Caillebotte, etc.) the female press reader is one of the more obvious
manifestations of the modern woman, above all when the reading
no longer takes place in the home but in a public place, a caf for
example. Mary Cassatt lived with her sister Lydia in Paris for three
years in the 1870s and Lydia often sat for her [cat. 92]. The fact that
Lydia suffered from incurable chronic nephritis (she would die of
it shortly after) lends an involuntary sense of melancholy to these
scenes (a recent novel was actually inspired by this story).
In the opposite case reading in private Fantin-Latours and
Winslow Homers [cat. 91] two female readers in black were both
painters: Fantins wife Victoria Dubourg, and Helena de Kay, who might
one day have been Homers wife. The early Matisse painting [cat. 95]
is a small treasure chest of secrets. It was painted at Matisses Quai
Saint Michel studio and the woman posing with her back to us is
Caroline Joblaud, the artists companion for four years (until he
married) and also the mother of his daughter Marguerite. The
mysterious reader with her back turned was a theme borrowed from
Corot and the Dutch interiors [g. 13] which invite the spectator to
attempt the impossible task of trying to read over the subjects shoulder.
Anni Leppls photographs always contain something disturbing
and mysterious [cat. 97]. Another, almost identical, photograph
exists, with the single difference that the book appears by itself on the
table. The girls red hair covers her face, depriving us of information,
as neither the book nor the face can be identied. However, at the
same time, that hair endorses the ties which, although subtle, are solid
like tentacles linking the reader and her reading.
Before the mirror

After so many female gures produced by men, the last chapter is
devoted to images created by women in front of a mirror. The selfportrait is among the genres which female artists have most frequently
turned to. In a letter of 1558 quoted by Baldinucci, the poet Annibale
Caro wrote to Amilcare Anguissola about a self-portrait painted
by the latters daughter Sofonisba: . . . there is nothing that I desire
more than the image of the artist herself so that in a single work
I can exhibit two marvels one the painting, the other the artist.
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The self-portrait allowed women to be both the author or creator

(a supposedly male role) and the model (the conventional female role).
This cunning combination of activity and passivity, of being the
painter without abandoning the role of the beautiful subject was
the key to the success of the female self-portrait in a patriarchal
society; a society in which, furthermore, Vanity was always personied
as a woman looking at herself in the mirror.
In the history of the self-portrait, the woman artist has sometimes
underlined her gender by depicting herself with sisters or children,
or pets, or objects serving as conventional female accessories.
As Joan Riviere concluded in her classic Womanliness as Masquerade
(1929), in order to be pardoned for their efciency at work, some
women adopt a masquerade of femininity as a defence mechanism.
Other women, however, have often portrayed themselves as male
colleagues would have done in working clothes, holding a palette
and paintbrushes, and looking out at the spectator. This kind of selfportrait, which we might describe as the masculine type, seems
to have been cultivated more regularly by female painters, perhaps
because they needed to justify themselves as professionals more
than men. That is what Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 15321625), who
produced a large number of self-portraits, did. Her father, a nobleman
from Cremona, gave his six daughters an artistic and humanist
education (following Castigliones advice) which ultimately took
Sofonisba to the court of Philip II as lady-in-waiting, drawing teacher
and painter to the queen, Elizabeth of France. The portrait of the
artist painting the Virgin Mary is a Classical theme in which the male
painter is identied with Saint Luke [cat. 99]. Sofonisba used a
different form of subterfuge to bond with her model, for her portrait
bore the inscription: Sophonisba Anguiscola Virgo Cremonensis se
ipsam pinxit. In this way she presented herself as a virgin portraying
the Virgin (some would have it that the Virgin was actually posing
for the painter in the space occupied by the spectator).
In self-portraiture, the artist normally looks out at the spectator.
Artemisia Gentileschi (15931652/1653) avoided that convention
by portraying herself looking in the direction of the canvas she was
painting [cat. 101], her aim being to depict herself as Painting itself.
As Mary Garrard remarked, painters in general have often attempted
to combine a self-portrait with an allegory of painting but only a
woman could achieve that perfect combination of artist, model and
idea, because tradition has it that all personications of Painting are
female. A pendant with a mask, symbolising imitation, and Artemisias
loose curls (denoting inspiration) are two attributes of painting listed
by Ripa in Iconology. Garrard maintains that Artemisias raised arm
may be an allusion to the Idea or the theoretical, and the hand of the
other arm holding the paintbrushes and palette a reference to practice
or execution, with the two coming together in the artists head.
Angelica Kauffmann (17411807) was not only a great painter

within the Neo-Classical movement (she is associated with
Winckelmann, Goethe, Mengs and Reynolds) but a noteworthy
intellectual of her time. Self-portraits in which she did not include
allegorical allusions are rare. In her self-portrait in the Ufzi [cat. 106],
a buckle displays a cameo of the duel between Athena and Poseidon
over the patronage of Athens. Athena won the competition by planting
an olive tree, the symbol of peace and prosperity, and so the female
sex prevailed over the male sex. Kauffmann was to reuse her own
gure in an allegorical self-portrait entitled The Artist Hesitating
Between the Arts of Music and Painting [g. 14], based on the clich
of Hercules at the crossroads. While Drawing [cat. 105] belongs
to a series of four allegorical images depicting the components of art,
it is also a self-portrait of the artist before the Belvedere Torso, an
aesthetic model (revered by Winckelmann) and archetype of virility
which, in this case, she by no means hesitated over.
When she was invited to provide a self-portrait for the Ufzi,
Elisabeth-Louise Vige-Lebrun (17551842) rst asked to see
Kauffmanns self-portrait for the same gallery. During her stay in
Rome in 1790, she called on Kauffmann at her home and spent two
afternoons in long conversations with her; she was greatly impressed
at how highly-cultured Kauffmann was. Shortly thereafter and while
still in Rome, she painted a self-portrait for the Ufzi [cat. 107] very
different from Kauffmanns, as it was much smaller, more sensual
and less intellectual (more feminine in conventional terms). Like
so many times before, Lebrun depicted herself painting a portrait
of Marie-Antoinette, thus reafrming her loyalty to her old patron.
Despite the portraits purported lack of intellectual aspirations, the
shadow cast on the canvas seems to be an allusion to Plinys legend
about the invention of painting by a maid of Corinth. The beautiful
oval face and seductive gure of the artist contain a moral lesson
on the pride of a woman who managed to survive a failed marriage,
great nancial difculties and an arduous period of exile.
Born into a family of the Russian lesser nobility, Marie Bashkirtseff
(18581884) lived in France and studied painting at the Acadmie
Julian in Paris. In the Studio [cat. 108] depicts an everyday scene at
the school, where the women were separated from the men; the nude
being drawn by the girls is not a man but a child. The haughty Marie
sits to the right, away from the main group, as, according to her diaries,
she considered herself socially and artistically superior to the others.
Berthe Morisot (18411895) admired Bashkirtseffs diaries
but not her painting, considering it mediocre. Morisots name is
indispensable in relation to the Impressionist group, though she has
all too often been regarded as subordinate to Manet through being
his model, sister-in-law, follower, etc. In 1885, Morisot painted three
self-portraits: the rst, a pastel sketch, consisted of little more than
a vague, wide-eyed face with an anxious look. In the second, she
stands with her daughter, who turns towards her. In the third, included
in this exhibition [cat. 110], she is alone with her palette in her hand
and looks directly out of the picture with no hint of shyness. Studying
the succession of these three works, Anne Higonnet has discovered
a transformation in Morisot from an insecure woman changed
by the parallel experiences of motherhood and artistic creation into
another person.
The young Lee (Lenore) Krasner (19081984) spent the summer
of 1930 on Long Island, where she lived with her family, painting in
front of a mirror nailed to a tree. She did her self-portrait in the open
air [cat. 115], as she wanted to break away from the image of the
female conned indoors. She portrayed herself as a worker, dressed
in overalls, using a paint-stained rag instead of a palette. The
composition and execution are reminiscent of Czanne and Van Gogh
(the wood in the background recalls the copse at Auvers painted
by the latter). Many years later, Lee realised that in that self-portrait
she had anticipated the leitmotif of the whole of her subsequent work:
the relationship between self and nature.
In a certain sense that relationship is also Frida Kahlos (1907
1954) [cat. 116] theme, with her jungle background reminiscent
of Le Douanier Rousseau. The black animals (the monkey, the
cat, the dead bird) may symbolise a tragic destiny, while the two
butteries on her head and the two winged owers suggest the ight
of the soul. Or perhaps both animals and insect-owers represent
the artists shamanic condition. The necklace of thorns that pierce
her esh and the stoicism with which she bears the pain leave
a strong Christological stamp on the painting. All of Kahlos work
is a multiple self-portrait with each self-portrait a catharsis and selffabulation an inventing of a personal mythical identity.
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Heroine Artists
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Since the beginning of the 21st century, there has been pressure
on Classical and contemporary art museums to tackle the theme
of the so-called womens revolution (the only peaceful revolution
among so many utopian ones to have prospered) of the second half
of the 20th century. The incorporation of women into every aspect of
social life led to the feminisation of occupational areas traditionally
regarded as female-related, such as health and education, and to
posts in administration, trade and management. Other areas like
culture offered more resistance, due to their privileged roles in
the symbolic conguration and maintenance of hegemonic values.
Half a century after the womens lib movement burst upon
the scene and with over fty percent of those who train for and work
in cultural programmes (and with their contribution make them
possible) now women, the great museums in Europe and America
are considering for their collections, exhibitions and indeed the
rest of their activities, the need to organise specic events capable
of reshaping the values of our new society. This while lending their
support to the legitimate demand for the empowerment of women
which, without images of the legacy of the past and present, would
be lacking in the imaginary vital for any far-reaching, permanent
transformation.
The Heroines exhibition can be considered as within that
tendency towards the afrmation of the gender perspective in art
thanks to which a fresh look at historical and contemporary collections
and exhibitions is being taken. Examples in this respect include:
Lars Nittve, director of the Stockholm Moderna Museet organising
a public subscription to complete the other half of the modern
art collection in 2005; the Tate starting to study collections and
discovering deciencies in 2007; and the opening at the Pompidou
Centre in 2009 of elles@pompidou, a female view of its collection,
for which it proved necessary to make a large number of acquisitions
of work by women artists. Not only has there been a deliberate shift
in direction in those museums acquisition policies but also a basic
change in their exhibitions programmes: at the Modern Museet, with
its two venues Stockholm and Malm the programming situation
is one of parity; across the Tate spectrum the Britain and Modern
in London, plus Liverpool and St Ives parity tends to be adhered
to in proportion to the existence of women artists historically.
Meanwhile, in contemporary art a similar transformation is taking
place. While at the Kassel Documenta XII in 2007, half the artists
for the rst time ever were women, in the United States two megaexhibitions, WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution and Global
Feminisms, were sweeping across the country from east to west. These
coincidences conrmed the transatlantic alliance in what we might
call the third wave of art: historiography and feminist theory after
it burst upon the scene in the late 1960s and returned in the late 1980s.
302
Since then an uninterrupted succession of solo and group exhibitions

by artists and curators has continued on both sides of the Atlantic
not forgetting the interesting initiatives from non-Western cultures
that have added to that trend on the global scene.
When the great historical and contemporary museums
experienced the need to incorporate new works and new looks,
they found themselves face to face with a wide-ranging historiographic
and theoretical corpus the result of decades of contributions by
gender studies in the Anglo-Saxon world, which thrived in universities.
They also found a bulk of research which, though perhaps less
concentrated, was no smaller in countries where for decades working
in that area has always led to an additional cost in the complex
professional paths of female artists and researchers, critics and curators,
and gallery owners and administrative staff. Historically speaking,
today we are familiar with the works of hundreds of women artists
from the pre-15th to mid-20th century. Equally important, we also
know what conditions they worked in and why due to erroneous
attributions and prejudices about the quality of their work, which
in retrospect can now only be described as the result of misogyny in
the patriarchal tradition they were relegated in art historiography
to a point where their names were practically forgotten. Feminist
historians like Frances Borzello, Norma Broude, Whitney Chadwick,
Mary D. Garrard, Lynda Nead and Linda Nochlin, Roszika Parker
and Griselda Pollock to name but a few among many have
discovered not only artists and lines of interpretation vindicating
works by women but have pointed out opinions by male artists,
critics, historians, commissioning customers and spectators that
have contributed to women being taken for granted as subjects
for artists but not acknowledged as artists. They have also opened
up interpretations of divergent images which, like those in this
exhibition, do not depict the traditional roles of women but reveal
a legacy testifying to shifts in the patriarchal system over a richer
and more complex period than one might expect. Considered in its
entirety, this tendency has led to the most important broadening
of the history of art as a discipline since its foundation, both in its
objectives and methodologies giving rise to new narratives.
Furthermore, a group effort of this kind has required a fresh basic
approach to categories central to the theory of art. For some time
we have known (until not so long ago we only thought we knew) why
there had never been any great women artists. Through feminist
theory we now understand how the mystied concept of the artist
as a (masculine) genius determined our way of looking at art. It has
also provided an answer to one of the enigmas which act as pitfalls
for those who have not yet become familiar with what is now an
indispensable methodology: the question of whether a female
imaginery exists. Even as critic Lucy Lippard began discussing this
0901thyssen_289-324#_Heronas 18/02/11 12:39 Pgina 303
question, with militant feminism in full swing and in spite of

many works in which it was easy to distinguish an oval or circular
composition dubbed by young women in work groups as cunt art
(with evident assertive zeal inverting the negative stereotypes
women had been saddled with), the answer still had to be in the
negative. It is absurd to say that some kind of ultimately psychobiological determinism explains creativity in female artists, and
at most we might consider cultural inuences and aesthetic options,
whatever their origins and repercussions.
Even if art has no sex, the art system has always been marked
structurally by a form of sexism that has discriminated and in
general continues to do so against the talent of women who work in
the world of art, so restricting their contribution to artistic excellence
and excluding parameters traditionally considered as feminine
from the criterion of quality.
An Icon: Hon (Her in Swedish), built by Niki de Saint-Phalle
[g. 15] (the only woman in the Nouveaux Ralistes group) in
collaboration with Jean Tinguely and Per Olof Ultved, as a temporary
exhibit for the Stockholm Modern Museet in 1966 (little more than
fteen years after Simone de Beauvoirs book The Second Sex was
published), tells us of the antagonism those then expressing their
point of view met with socially. Belonging to the monstrous, amusing
series of Nana sculptures subsequently installed in parks in various
major Western cities, Hons 27-metre polyester surface displays colours
which are a denite tribute to Pop Art. In the model of the female
lying on her back with her legs open and knees bent in a position
of total availability similar to the defenceless position required for
a gynaecological examination or recommended for giving birth by
the doctors who replaced midwives in the 19th century, and explicitly
obscene to those fearful of the vagina dentata an entrance through
the sex led the public into a kind of grotto wonderland (in a mockery
of the misogynistic concept of Woman as the eternal stranger).
Having penetrated, visitors came to a place of recreation and even
a milk bar in the chest. A little over the top perhaps but, despite
the fact that some today might regard Hon as a forerunner of the
museum/amusement park installation model, the room was closed
down only days after its inauguration. The subversive, playful power
of its smile did not fool anyone, and even less so when the press
began featuring series from before the Nanas with which SaintPhalle had begun making a name for herself on the art scene: her
Shooting Paintings, red at with a 22 rie and inspired by her Target
Portraits, in one of which Saint- Phalle shot at an efgy of her lover
posing as St Sebastian, while in another on the Kennedy-Khrushchev
encounter, she completely ridiculed the virility of action painting,
with its symptomatic jets and ejaculations typical of Post-World
War II machismo.
Provocation was the watchword of the feminist movement

under a number of exceptional women in the Europe of the 1960s.
While a very young Orlan was bursting naked out of the frame in
a photographic series of tableaux vivants, Valie Export, in an action
from her expanded cinema series, was walking around Vienna with
a miniature theatre around her naked upper body encouraging
passers-by to put their hands through the curtains and, if they had
the nerve, touch her, (Tapp- und Tastkino, Tap and Touch Cinema,
1968), or else waving a weapon at people while she exhibited her
naked pubis through a triangle cut out of her trousers (Action Pants:
Genital Panic, 1969). The bad girls were really angry.
In California too, where the rst university programme of
feminist art was set up in the late 1960s, satirical performances
and essays ridiculed the canonical history of modern art that history
which had excluded avant-garde females from art production to
the point where they had become ashamed of being women and had
tried to adapt their work to conform with the criteria of their male
colleagues, the outcome being that the market and the institutions
did not even appreciate their efforts. And even as late as 1975,
Carolee Schneemann in her performance Interior Scroll followed
a reading from her book Czanne, She Was a Great Painter by standing
naked and reciting a litany written on a roll of paper she slowly
extracted from inside her vagina.
Other female artists would engage in various forms of social
activism: Sanja Ivekovic grabbed the attention of the security forces
sweeping over the area in a helicopter by sitting on a balcony looking
relaxed, reading, smoking, drinking whisky and masturbating during
a drive-past by Yugoslavian president Tito in the street below
(Triangle, 1979). Meanwhile, in New York the ex-magazine designer
Barbara Kruger was perfecting a direct, forceful style for the posters
subsequently displayed in the streets on walls, billboards and means
of transportation, calling for civil disobedience We have received
orders not to move [g. 17].
A history of their own

Another strategy and important for an understanding of the Heroines
project was to compile an own history for women by examining
women who had gone before and honouring them. Although many
feminist artists have examined female gures recurrent in the history
of Western art in their work, the inevitable point of reference in this
respect is The Dinner Party (197479) [g. 16]. This complex work
of collaboration coordinated by Judy Chicago honours thirty-nine
exceptional women from mythology and the history of mankind,
each represented by a place setting (embroidered tablecloth, plates
adorned with vulvas, glasses, etc.), although if the names inscribed
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on the oor tiles inside the triangle of this elaborate banquet (the
Heritage Floor) are also included, tribute is actually paid to a total
of 999. Since 2007 The Dinner Party has been permanently installed
in the Elizabeth A. Sakler Center for Feminist Art in the Brooklyn
Museum, New York. Despite reviews in the early 1980s from the
British historians Griselda Pollock and Roszika Parker saying that
it would be easily absorbed by male culture, as it did not break away
in any radical manner from the signications and connotations
of women in art as a body, a sexual element, as nature, as an object of
male possession, this installation has turned into an icon representing
the homage paid to the history of women by the (for the rst time
in history) self-proclaimed feminist art of the last three decades
of the 20th century.
Somewhere between hagiography and denunciation, The
Dinner Party was not actually a novel work, however, but more like
an abstract of a long journey marked by times of greater or lesser
degrees of integration or segregation of women in the course of
Western history. As the historians Bonnie S. Anderson and Judith
P. Zinsser point out in their monumental A History of Their Own,
the history of modernity followed a pattern of systole and diastole
corresponding to periods of the appearance of paradigms, when
women managed to win bundles of independence (restricted,
however, in moments of consolidation of the new order). Due
to its new national legislative codes, the Renaissance turned out to
be the period in history when the majority of women lost control
over their property and income, were forbidden to take decisions
regarding their own fertility, and were refused access to higher
education and career training. After the Enlightenment, which
developed in the circles of the salonires in the wake of the French
Revolution, women were deprived of their rights to such an
extreme that the situation prompted the appearance of groups of
19th-century feminist activists who paved the way for the movement
for womens suffrage. Their ght for the right to be citizens country
by country and gradually would only be won after World War I.
During the emergence of that social movement, the German activist
Louise Otto-Peters said: The history of all times, and of today
especially, teaches that [. . .] women will be forgotten if they forget
to think about themselves.1
Heroines
But history, real solemn history, I cannot be interested in . . . I read
it a little as a duty, but it tells me nothing that does not either vex
or weary me. The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences,
in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women
at all it is very tiresome.2
304
The story of the recognition of heroines and famous women can be

traced back to the beginning of modernity, with its scattering of
writings and images of women aware of the need to maintain their
legacy and sustain a tradition of their own.
From the 15th century on we nd women writing from positions
which today we would call feminist and establishing the genre
of the extolment of the history of women. In The Book of the City of
Ladies, Christine de Pizan, considered the rst professional European
authoress, spoke out in 1405 in defence of women by citing heroic
female gures from mythology and the Bible and famous women
in ancient and contemporary history. Her main source was De claris
mulieribus (1362) with which Giovanni Boccaccio created the
famous women literary genre so popular from the numerous
editions printed in Europe. However, while Boccaccio presented
his exemplary women as exceptional and isolated cases, so
conrming the misogynistic prejudices of the patriarchal mentality,
Pizans City was an assertive version of the female identity. How
important this treatise was to the authoress is borne out by the
fact that she spared no expense in the production of the illustrated
edition and worked with several Paris printing houses to devise
an iconographic programme presenting her as an intellectual
who wrote, distributed her books and taught [gs. 18 and 19].
It is also with Pizan that we nd the rst reference to the genre
of the demonstrative self-portrait, which, as we shall see, was
characteristic of female painters and marked a turning-point
in the works of anonymous mediaeval female illustrators.
Christine de Pizan, who published almost forty works, including
Letters on the Debate of the Romance of the Rose (13981402),
in which she criticised the second part of Jean de Meuns book
for maligning women, was also to found the Querelle des Femmes,
a movement in defence of the merits of women which was supported,
from the 15th century on, by female intellectuals. In the early-17th
century, when Marie de Gournay wrote The Equality of Men and
Women (1622) and The Ladies Grievance (1626), she returned
to the list of female characters customarily cited in books written
in defence of women. These works were often dedicated to
contemporary monarchs, for example Marie de Medici, Anna
of Austria, Anne of England and, in the 18th century, Catherine
the Great of Russia, Maria Teresa of Austria and her daughter
Marie-Antoinette of France, who were also included in successive
versions of La Galerie de femmes fortes.
With the passing of time the inuence of this important literary
tradition interlaced with praise and recognition of women extended
from the privileged classes to bourgeois women in modern cities:
in 1710, the English writer Mary de la Rivire Manley published
a Book of Heroines in her magazine The Female Tatler and stated
that the pleasant sight of such brilliant heroines was a source of great
pleasure for her and made her more aware of the great advantage
she possessed of being a woman. And in 1924, the photographer
Claude Cahun, who was well-known for her series of portraits of
herself dressed as a man (today an essential reference to the theme
of contemporary identity) and belonged to the group of Amazon
artists (women of literature, intellectuals and collectors so welldocumented by Greta Schiller in her lm Paris Was A Woman),
started work on her Heroines series of articles for the periodical
Mercure de France.
The alliance rst of inuential women and later of independent
ones with women of literature and art runs beneath modernity like
an underground river: Mary of Hungary and her court painter
Catherina van Hemessen, Isabella the Catholic and Beatriz Galindo
(to whom the former entrusted the education of her daughters), MarieAntoinette and Vige-Lebrun, who portrayed other noblewomen
as maenads or Minervas . . . Dedications and commissions which later
became endorsement plus the establishment of female institutions
committed to the furtherance of education and rights for women
would gradually weave a web of rejection of male domination also
in the eld of culture.
The rst association of women artists formed in the mid-19th
century (an intensive period in the reform of female education)
was the Society of Female Artists (Great Britain, 1856). At the same
time, American artists were also working towards a common cause:
after Harriet Hosmer, Rome saw the arrival of a large number
of sculptresses, two of the best-known being Anne Whitney
and Edmonia Lewis, who were especially interested in making
monuments to women both famous and unknown. The Womens
Pavilion at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876, with
almost four thousand metres of exhibition space for the work
of women from thirteen countries, turned out to be as controversial
due to its segregationism as the Womens Pavilion at the Worlds
Columbian Exhibition in Chicago in 1893. Ten years earlier Harriet
Hosmer had said: I honor every woman who has strength enough
to step out of the beaten path when she feels her walk lies in another:
strength enough to stand up to be laughed at if necessary. [. . .] But
in a few more years it will not be thought strange that women should
be preachers and sculptors, and every one who comes after us will
have to bear fewer and fewer blows. Based on the fact that the thread
for the weaving of that web was the creation of the female imaginary,
the cultural construction of the heroines was a mirror in which
women could identify themselves.
Today young feminist artists pay tribute to their predecessors,
to the female avant-garde artists who were still being boxed-in by
their male companions and scorned by male critics and historians.
And also to those like Harriet Hosmer who gave substance to the
previously unimaginable pantheon of heroines [gs. 20].
Regarding an imaginary
As Western cultural tradition has always upheld that it is men who
have always been the creators and artists, any similar suggestions
about women have always been rejected. In Women in the Year 2000
(1977), Carolee Schneemann recalled an anecdote from her student
days regarding her male history of art lecturer: he had been scandalised
when she demanded to know why, when he spoke of cave painters,
he always referred to them as male, when it could just as easily have
been women waiting in the caves for the hunters to return who
had actually produced those magical images. Prejudice regarding the
passive role of women is rooted in female biology: the ovum remained
undiscovered until 1827 and the complementary fertilisation process
was not understood until 1883. Previously the power to beget had
been attributed to the masculine principle germinating in a passive
environment in the worst case a barren, empty one. By extension,
women were assigned tasks regarded as non-creative and repetitive,
such as the crafts, tasks linked to the usefulness of their domestic
duties a situation as timeless and unchanging and with its own
immutable laws as mother nature until not so long ago was thought to
be. Thus tracing the genealogy of female artists has been a distinctive
challenge inherent to the tracing of the identity of women throughout
history. It is hoped that through a few examples these lines will make
a small contribution to an understanding of the intra-history of
women artists, starting with the mythical imagery of Antiquity and
moving on to the development of an identity of their own which they
were forced to construct throughout modernity in order to counter
the patriarchys deep-rooted vexation at having to admit to the
existence of women capable of creativity.
For modernity the best-known painter among the heroines of
Antiquity is possibly Thamar, who, in an illustration in Boccaccios
De claris mulieribus, was depicted looking at herself in a mirror
and painting a self-portrait in a miniature oval. According to Pliny
the Elder, she was the daughter of the artist Micon and won fame
for her painting of the goddess Diana at Ephesus. Boccaccio named
three women painters Irene, Marcia and Thamar in a series
of 104 biographies of women, whereas in Natural History, Pliny
also referred to Calypso, Aristarete, Laia and Olympia. As Whitney
Chadwick pointed out in Women, Art, and Society, this kind of
whimsical game of appearing and disappearing names is typical
of art literatures treatment of women artists during modernity
and has hindered the construction of a non-exclusive history of art
enormously. Dating from the Middle Ages, we are familiar with the
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wonderful work of the Spanish illuminator Ende (10th century) who,

with the monks Senior and Emeterio, produced the Beatus Apocalypse
of Gerona in the mountains of Leon and the work of the German
nun Guda, Claricia of Bavaria (12th century) as well as a number
of other women illuminators, such as Diemud, Sintram and Herrad of
Landsberg (although their manuscripts are now lost). However, above
all, we know that from practically the earliest of Christian times there
were abbesses from aristocratic families governing convents whose
scriptoria copied and illuminated manuscripts. In The Book of the City
of Ladies, Christine de Pizan included Anastasia, who was regarded
as one of the best illuminators in Paris. And even in the 15th century
there are records of female artists associated with convents, such as
Catherine de Vigri (St Catherine of Bologna, patron saint of artists),
Antonia Uccello and Suor Barbara Ragnoni, who all experimented
with the new fresco and oil painting techniques.
Following in Pliny the Elders footsteps, Vasari was obliged to
include the artists cited in Natural History in his rst edition of Lives,
which instituted the history of art as the history of artists. Among the
eight female artists of Antiquity mentioned by Pliny the majority
daughters of painter fathers the most complete entry is on Iaia
of Kyzikos, who was active in Rome around 100 B.C. and: used both
chisel on ivory and the painters brush. She used to paint women,
two examples being a painting on panel of an old woman in Naples
and a self-portrait, for which she used a mirror. No hand was faster
than hers in painting a picture. So great was her talent that her prices
surpassed those of the most celebrated painters of her time. In the
second edition, Vasari included a total of 160 artists, fteen of whom
were women. One was the Bolognese sculptress Properzia de Rossi,
whose inclusion is an allusion to the unusual artistic environment of
Bologna the only Italian city which not only had a university attended
by women since the Middle Ages but also a unique guilds and crafts
system to which a large number of woman artists belonged. However,
in other areas in Europe like northern France and the Netherlands,
the existence of female artists was not as exceptional as Vasari
suggests; for example, records show that around 1480 one quarter
of the Bruges Guild of St Lukes members were women, as it was
customary for children of both sexes to take up their fathers crafts.
Although in order to compare the brilliance of his own period
with Antiquity Vasari mentioned female artists who, like De Rossi
or Lavinia Fontana, had surpassed their fathers, he also dictated how
their work should be viewed by posterity by equating their qualities
with virtues considered feminine, i.e. by underscoring differences
in pictorial genre and female execution and thus implicitly
asserting the superiority of men over women in the arts. In other
words, the most outstanding artists were not true women but actually
chaste, masculine types. As in fact, the young Sofonisba Anguissola
306
(c. 15321625) portrayed herself in 1554, holding a book with a Latin

annotation presenting her as a virgin a model extolled in Christian
culture which conforms to an unreal model and which, as Andersen
and Zinser said, implies a condemnation of womens sexuality in the
name of purity and places limits on their lives with tacit prohibitions.
As Anguissola belonged to the aristocracy, she was not able to sell
her paintings, and so they circulated around the European courts like
precious gifts. Of her ve sisters, four were painters and one a writer
and Latinist. During her long stay at court in Madrid as a painter
and companion to Elizabeth of France, she painted the portraits of
the latters daughters, Isabella Clara Eugenia and Catherine Micaela,
as well as those of Philip II and Philips fourth wife Anna of Austria.
Throughout her life she was constantly in touch with the relevant
artists of her age including her masters Bernardino Campi and
Bernardino Gatti, the divine Michelangelo, the Titians, Van Dyck,
Alonso Snchez Coello and Sir Anthony More. Furthermore,
her portraits were emulated by Caravaggio and copied by Rubens.
Around fty paintings of hers have reached us, the most important
being her highly coveted self-portraits. In 1558, before travelling
to Spain, one commissioning customer said to her father: There
is nothing that I desire more than the image of the artist herself so
that in a single work I can exhibit two marvels one the painting,
the other the artist.
The self-portrait: a genre in its own right

Fifteen self-portraits of Anguissola are known of [see, for example,
cat. 99]. Like Albrecht Drer, she understood the peculiar
importance of the self-portrait as the most suitable pictorial genre
for expressing ones own poetics in the noble art of vocational painting
(understood as Art) and upon whose value no price could be put: a
rhetorical form of praise inherited from Antiquity but which would
not cease to be studied in-depth throughout modernity and which
in her case was literal. But Anguissola also made of self-portraiture
a genre characteristic of women painters. As the specialist Frances
Borzello soon discovered, what is particularly interesting is the large
number of self-portraits executed by the best-known female painters
and the inevitable existence of those who, in time, approached the
genre from the most banal of angles. However, most striking of all
about Sofonisba Anguissolas self-portraits is the bold, direct way
in which she looks out at the spectator: she asserts herself as both
subject and equal.
Anguissolas mastery as the pioneer for the female painters who
followed her in the enunciative possibilities of the self-portrait can
be seen in the repetition of her methods. For example, she portrayed
herself as an aristocrat playing the spinet [g. 21], so declaring not
only her social origin but also paintings sisterhood with other
arts like literature and music a model repeated shortly afterwards
by Lavinia Fontana (15521614).
However, the most signicant model was to be the self-portrait
demonstrative of authorship in the technical execution of the
painting. Here she painted herself with her brushes and other tools
of her trade, thus displaying her awareness of the fact that she is a
woman and her need for professional self-assertion in a thoroughly
male environment. This type of representation continued to be seen
until practically the end of the 19th century in response to misogynistic
attacks casting doubts on authorship and which, rather than ceasing,
recurred intermittently as female artists left the mediums and
genres portraits and still-lifes, miniatures and small-format
paintings they had grudgingly been allowed to partake in. Thus
it was only at the turn of the 20th century that the demonstrative
type of self-portrait was replaced by a more personal symbology
which, in series and cycles, denoted a tendency towards greater
introspection. All of this before performative actions once again took
on special signicance in feminist art and revealed its roots in the
former defence of artistic mastery with the depiction of the artists
own gure in the act of execution.
Almost two centuries before the slogan The personal is political
became the main strategy for the feminist artists of the 1970s who
brought their own bodies into play, there appeared an eloquent subgenre of the demonstrative self-portrait the painter as a mother.
Through the use of local customs and in an almost humorous vein,
the rather naive self-portrait of Marie-Nicole Dumont (17671846),
a daughter and wife of painters, reveals the added difculty of being
both painter and mother. Dumont was alluding to the state of
dependence of most female artists (then still generally artists
daughters and wives) a status with a certain degree of acceptance
in art circles, as long as the women were prepared to allow family life
to take priority over their work as artists.
This was an obstacle, however, which did not affect ElisabethLouise Vige-Lebrun (17551842), who turned being a woman
to her advantage by marrying an artist who was above all a competent
art dealer and (of mutual accord) showed off his painter-wifes
charms and beauty by making use of the exceptional to the norm
of the age. In her Memoirs, Elisabeth-Louise prided herself on not
allowing motherhood to encroach on her professional life and in
several self-portraits (with and without paintbrushes) depicted
herself together with her daughter. By this prolic artist she is
thought to have painted over a thousand pictures including
historical themes and landscapes and excellent portrait painter
(over six hundred, twenty of which were of Marie-Antoinette alone
and also some with her children), forty self-portraits have come
down to us [see, for example, cat. 107]. All reect the optimism
of the enlightened salonires and their exibility in adapting to the
changing tastes of an age which passed from the grace of the Rococo
(during an especially feminine period in the tastes of the elite)
to the austerity of the Neo-Classical style. Of these, Self-portrait with
a Straw Hat [g. 22], rivals successfully the Portrait of Susanna
Fourment by Rubens, whose sensuous allegories, as Erika Bornay
has pointed out, exalted the kidnapping, humiliation and violence
perpetrated on mythological goddesses and biblical gures by men.
Headless men and fallen women

A theme characteristic of the rst generation of female painters who
took up their rightful place among the ranks of artists is that of Judith
and Holofernes, a story synonymous with revenge for an outrage
against a woman. This represented a signicant appropriation and
modication of a traditional theme arising out of a new awareness.
During the Renaissance this biblical theme had become more
prevalent along a line of political interpretation: as with Donatello,
iconographies of decapitated men whether Holofernes or Goliath
laid bare to the public eye the victory of the hitherto weak (the new
republican bourgeoisie) over the old tyranny of mediaeval feudalism.
This interpretation disappeared in the period of Baroque excess,
political absolutism and religious fanaticism to be replaced by
renderings in which the violent context appears to emphasise
the sensuality of a bedroom scene. This can be seen in Tintorettos
version and in general, it was played out in depictions in which the
nudity or non-nudity of the protagonists and the closeness within
the composition of hands, heads, sexual zones and shocks of hair
determined the type of inverted eroticism and misogyny. Only
Caravaggio retained the political and profoundly moral sense of the
theme, choosing the exact moment of the bloody decapitation and
echoing an event that had been a public scandal in the Rome of his
time the sad story of Beatrice Cenci, whose revenge for an affront
to her father cost her her head in 1599 and who each year thereafter
was the heroine in a popular symbolic protest against the aristocracy.
From the numerous versions by Baroque female artists, it can
be assumed that the revenge scene did not solely imply a sense
of rejection of violence by men against women about which
the Venetian Arcangela Tarabotti (16041652) wrote in Paternal
Tyranny, an indictment against men, calling them pimps and procurers
who abuse their daughters. It certainly turned into a statement
of her alignment against male domination within the framework of
the Querelle des Femmes, intensied during the 17th century by the
iconographic and literary galleries of femmes fortes promoted by
governors like Marie de Medici.
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Although the best-known versions of this kind are those of

Artemisia Gentileschi (15931551/1653), who was directly inuenced
by Caravaggios bloodthirsty style and whose versions were justied in
artists legends by the dishonour she is said to have suffered personally,
the fact is that both previous and subsequent female painters whose
biographies appear to be unconnected with such events also dealt
with this theme. Hence the version of Lavinia Fontana, dated
c. 1595, in which a self-portrait of the Bolognese painter has been
identied in Judiths elegant and fascinating ight. In some cases,
paintings of Judith and Holofernes are virtually the only or at least
the most important incursions into the historical genre, one example
being the splendid version of Fede Galizia (15781630) [g. 23]
famous as a miniaturist, portraitist and above all as the most
brilliant pioneer of the still-life genre in Italy in which the typical
pensive pose of the old serving maid over the severed head reminds
us of the pictures aim of spurring us to thought.
By the painter Elisabetta Sirani (16381665), also Bolognese,
the daughter of Guido Renis head assistant and well-known for her
religious scenes, two other versions exist. As in Gentileschis version,
Judith is surrounded by other heroines (from other works of hers),
from a portrait of Beatrice Cenci to the brave Portia, which, with the
fable of Susanna and the elders, form a gallery of affronted heroines
throughout history in a succession of cultures and religions.
A curious syncretism between the Hebrew-rooted iconography
of decapitated men and that of victors over evil in the Catholic religion
from the Immaculate Conception to the archangels can be found
in the curious version of The Archangel St Michael Conquering a
Demon by the Sevillian Luisa Ignacia Roldn (16501704) [g. 24],
known as La Roldana and sculptress to the court of Charles II and
Philip V. Even then the naturalistic portrait of St Michael was
identied as the artist and that of the demon as her husband the two
becoming a symbol of the differences of opinion between married
couples who were artists. It also came to be identied with the battle
of the sexes, which by then was beginning to feature in Golden Age
literature, with avenging protagonists like the girl with the pitcher
and other female characters dressed as men appearing in works by
Lope de Vega and Caldern. These were popular versions of the
masculinity of contemporary queens such as Elizabeth I of England
or Christina of Sweden who would have preferred to abdicate rather
than marry and to whose names could be added those of Mara de
Zayas, Ana Caro and Juana Ins de la Cruz all defenders of women
within the framework of the Querelle in Spain, where, as Teresa
Langle de Paz has shown, a repressive moral doctrine was reinforced
with the Counter-Reformation.
As a pendant of the iconography of avenging females, those
artists of the 17th century were not only wont to depict heroines
308
of Antiquity like Cleopatra or Melpomene, but also took a particularly

discreet and respectful formal approach to fallen women. While
the ecstatic rapture of penitent virgins like Mary Magdalene had led
to explicitly erotic iconography intended for customers private
rooms, depictions by female artists of affronted women like Susanna
or Bathsheba radiate respect for their subjects dignity and demure
chastity, even when the heroines are naked. Here the issue of nudity
also contradicts the belief that women were incapable of studying
anatomy (as well as the supposed strict norms of artistic and social
environments), and at the same time of asserting a distinctive view
a womens view of the traditional iconographic repertoire.
Accomplices and rivals

For centuries female artists have been forced to accept the canons
dictated by their male teachers of whom they were regarded as
no more than followers. But one recent interpretation of a canvas
by Sofonisba Anguissola leads us to reconsider the possibility of
rejection of this kind of subordination, starting with the period in
which some works establish a tradition of their own, and the assertion
by this pioneer of her own mastery, which, furthermore, can be based
on a conceptual reection on painting later emulated successfully
at the Spanish court by Velzquez. In 1559, Sofonisba Anguissola
produced a self-portrait belonging to the new genre of the painting
within a painting [g. 25], i.e. with the artist portraying herself while
also portraying the artist who is supposedly painting the picture.
Although the painter was at rst believed to have been her teacher
Bernardino Campi, he is now thought to have been Titians son Orazio
Vecellio, whom she may have met in Milan en route to Madrid.
Her painting could be the pendant in an exchange between painters,
in this case entitled Anguissola Painting Vecellio (destroyed in the
Madrid Alczar re). But was it really only a kind of lovers game,
as the always novel-like, old art literature would have us believe
or really a contest between rivals to which she committed herself
in order to suggest something more; i.e. the woman ceasing to be
a depicted object and becoming the painter in a male tradition which
at that time would only accept her as an amateur?
From the 16th century on and for hundreds of years more, female
artists became protges of women from elite circles, to whom they
taught the noble art of painting which, with music and literature
and other, more minor arts like embroidery and gardening, were
considered part of the genteel young womans education. They also
often inuenced the latters aesthetic tastes. Sofonisba Anguissola
taught the Queen of Spain, as Angelica Kauffmann taught the Queen
of Naples daughters. Furthermore, others like Sirani in Bologna
opened schools to teach young women who were not painters
daughters, proving their belief in the importance of extending the

training to other women a constant demand that would not cease
to increase in all areas of knowledge until well into the 20th century
and evident in the sarcastic (and dramatic) opening to Virginia Woolfs
A Room of Ones Own (1929).
Meanwhile, discredit for their purported amateurism must have
made one way of inclusion in the history of art evident to female
artists, as Vasari has pointed out: this was the importance of being
recognised as mistresses of new lineages. Adlade Labille-Guiards
(17491803) Self-portrait with Two Pupils [g. 26], which was
admired in the Salon of 1785 with the statue of the Vestal virgin
in the background, was a manifesto against the Acadmie Royale de
Peinture et de Sculpture which, despite having admitted her together
with Vige-Lebrun two years before, had still limited its number
of woman artists to four. Labille-Guiard would return to this issue in
1790, after the Revolution and evidently pursued it tirelessly as one
year later she presented eight portraits of members of the National
Assembly in the Salon, including Robespierre and Armand, Duke
of Aiguillon. But like the failure of the emancipation of women, which
came as a direct result of the Revolution, young female artists were
also denied access to the cole des Beaux-Arts until almost the end
of the 19th century.
Among the women who suffered the consequences of the new
order after the Revolution, when women were barred from any form
of political activity, were female artists disillusioned with a system
that had left them in a state of total dependency on private education
and of subordination to their male teachers and colleagues. Although
in this respect a line of iconography can be traced, the image which
best sums up the situation was produced by Constance Mayer
(17751821), a pupil of Greuze and David. Self-Portrait with the
Artists Father: He Points to a Bust of Raphael, Inviting Her to Take
This Celebrated Painter as a Model [g. 27] won her a place in the
history of art, not only because of its obvious high quality but also
because it became associated with the painters biography in a story
typical of the melodramas of 19th-century heroines: Constance
Mayer committed suicide when she was told that she could not go
on working with her lover Proudhon, who had hitherto placed his
signature on the pictures they had painted jointly.
In 1789, the Petition of the Women of the Third State to the French
King appealed: to be instructed, to possess employment, not in order
to usurp the authority of men, but to be held in greater esteem; so
that we may have resources to live and protection from misfortune,
so that poverty may not force the weakest among us [. . .] to join
the multitude of unfortunates who ll the streets. For some women
painters the image of the others was to become a symbolic motif
during the 19th century. Contemporary to Mayers self-portrait,
Portrait of a Black Woman was painted by Marie-Guillemine Benoist

(17681826) [g. 28], also a pupil of Davids and known for her
feminist standpoints even before at the Salon of 1800. Six years after
the abolition of slavery, her painting became a manifesto in favour of
members of the black race and, by extension, of womens emancipation.
Benoist would later open a teaching workshop for women only.
What most characterises Benoists portrait is the respect she
showed for her model and recognition of her as an individual in her
own right. Similarly, an absence of quaint details and the aim to turn
the subject into a symbolic gure distinguish Breton Girl with Jar
(1886) by the nnish artist Amelie Lundahl from the portraits of her
contemporaries Bouguereau and even Jules Breton [see, for example,
cats. 1012 and 14]. Portraits of the others acted like mirrors held up
to the artists, who extended the sincere honesty of their own tradition
of self-portraits to the portraits of marginalised female subjects as
in the Polish painter Olga Boznanskas Gypsy Girl. However, the most
outstanding portrait gallery was perhaps that of the Orientalist painters,
with whom the exoticism and the sexualization and consequently,
as Nochlin pointed out, the dehumanisation so evident in the male
canon of contemporary painters, were replaced by respect for the
model. This was consistent with the women painters studied by Reina
Lewis, all of whom seemed to identify with the regime of exclusion
of those others, from Henriette Browne to Britains Barbara Bodichon,
a feminist activist who wrote Brief Summary of the Laws of England
Concerning Women in 1854 and founded the English Womens Journal.
ve years later Bodichon, who was connected with the London Langham
Place circle, seconded the initiative to apply for entry (later rejected)
to the Royal Academy School of Art with another four women painters.
For almost two centuries, the exclusion of female artists from
the ofcial academies was the keynote in Europe. In England, the only
female academicians in the 18th century were Angelica Kauffmann
and Mary Moser (then relegated to very low positions, as a well-known
painting by Johann Zoffany proves). Furthermore, no other woman
was to enter the Royal Academy until well into the 20th century.
In Spain, the phenomenon of the numerous female artists who had
entered the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando on
merit from the mid-18th century was nipped in the bud with the
change in statutes in 1844, when, in imitation of the French Academy,
it became an institution uniting knowledge and power.
As a result, in the mid-19th century, segregated study centres
were established in the Anglo-Saxon countries: in Germany, the
Knstlerinnen-Verein; and in England, the foundation of the Female
School of Art and Design in 1843 served as a pretext for not admitting
women into the Royal Academy. In the United States the Womans
Art School of Design and other similar institutions were established,
with the educational focus on typical female domestic tasks.
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However, the fact that in France the work of women was given
greater exposure at the Salon exhibitions explains why, by the turn
of the 19th century, female artists from other parts of Europe and
the United States were expressing their satisfaction at the difference
between the atmosphere on the Paris art scene and that of their
countries of origin. Whereas in 1801 just under 15 percent of the
artists who exhibited were women, in 1855 the gure had reached
over 22 percent. In the second half of the 19th century, female artists
were training in private academies like the Acadmie Julian, the
Trlat or the Colarossi. Some exhibited in the ofcial Salons with
a certain amount of success, which helped further their careers
on their return to their own countries. Throughout the whole of
the 19th century, many foreign female artists studying in private
academies in Paris painted the portraits of other women, and it
is thanks to their gaze that we now have the images of everyday life
of the times testifying to the regime of segregation which then
governed society. Whether alone or accompanied by other women,
the bourgeois ladies are seen in their homes, tense and expectant,
and in the cities sharing tasks in environments with ever larger
numbers of female workers. As the Swedish painter Eva Bonnier
demonstrated, some women artists even tried to join forces with
an incipient group of bourgeois female collectors.
From the second half of the 19th century, direct relationships
with the most important artists of the time was to prove decisive
for women in gaining access to an art system that was undergoing
a transformation. The cases of female painters connected with
Impressionism speak for themselves: one being Marie Bracquemond,
a pupil of Ingress and the wife of an engraver, who took part in some
of the groups exhibitions; another was Berthe Morisot, who studied
under Corot and was the sister-in-law of Manet (whom she
unsuccessfully tried to encourage to take part in the Impressionist
exhibitions, as she herself did from rst to last); and there was her
friend, the American Mary Cassatt, a pupil of Pissarros and a member
of the group from 1879 to 1886.
Different proles are those of Eva Gonzals, a pupil and model
of Manets, and Suzanne Valadon, pupil and model of Degas,
Toulouse-Lautrec, Puvis de Chavannes and Renoir which without
doubt inuenced the decision regarding her admission in 1894 into
the Socit Nationale des Beaux-Arts as the rst female painter.
The pictorial career of the very shrewd Valadon underwent a number
of changes thanks to her familiarity with various male painters
and she also made full use of the cityscapes copied from postcards
by her deranged son Maurice Utrillo proving how thorough was
her knowledge of every aspect of the painting profession. Through her
self-portraits Valadon, who was of very humble origins, often recalled
how important entering the art world as a model had been for her,
310
thus emphasising her dual role as painter and model. Nevertheless,

she scorned the aesthetised eroticism she had been subjected to in the
paintings of her masters (who furthered scopophilia by insinuating
that they had caught out the model as if with a hidden camera).
On the other hand, Valadons apparently shameless nudes serve
as a rst-hand account of the women of humble origins and doubtful
reputation who earned a living in this way. And with audacity they
also challenge the whole tradition of master painters regarding their
most recurrent theme: the depiction of women.
Another female artist who painted a nude self-portrait, doing so
while she was pregnant, was Paula Modersohn-Becker (18761907)
[g. 29]. She was married to the landscape artist Otto Modersohn
and thanks to her foundation and museum in Bremen the rst
ever dedicated to a female artist we know that during her fourteen
years as a painter she produced over seven hundred oils and around
a thousand drawings. During the period when she painted this selfportrait, she was involved in researching Primitivism, a trend that
greatly interested some of the most outstanding artists of the time,
starting with Gauguin. However, unlike Gauguins exotic Tahitian
girls with the faraway look in their eyes, Paula gazes out of the picture
directly, as she cradles her belly in her hands in her sixth month
of pregnancy. Since she was then living in Paris, far away from her
husband and in the company of her friend the sculptress Clara
Westhoff, the picture could be interpreted as a declaration of a certain
self-sufciency as a woman. Whatever the case, it is certainly
a statement of independence as a painter.
Be that as it may, the story was not so different between the
women who were admitted into the ofcial Salons and were successful
or at least enjoyed certain prestige locally on returning to their
countries and the women Impressionist painters, as was later also
the case of most of the female artists who shared poetics with their
male colleagues, husbands, lovers and friends in the early avant-garde
groups: all of these women were eventually excluded from the story
of the history of art in modernity and it is only over the last few
decades that the importance of their work has been re-established.
Today we nd something ghostly about that story, as inevitably our
present interests illuminate the anachronistic deformities of the past
and we realise the sensation of deep unreality which so many female
artists scorned by the critics, the art market and their own male
colleagues, must have experienced. Documents referring to their
sense of insecurity are extremely numerous. But more powerful
were the paintings with which they solved crucial problems on the
construction of representation: on their subject, the angle of the look
and those for whom the works were destined.
Laura Knights (18771970) Self-portrait with Nude [g. 30]
marks a turning point in her life as an artist and woman. She was
married to the painter Harold Knight, whom she met at Nottingham

School of Art, and after a decade as a painter she did a portrait with
herself apparently as a painter. The scene, dated 1913, could have
been a way of making up for the lack of drawing lessons with nudes
during Knights training, as at that time young women were denied
that kind of practice. It was also a visual appropriation of the model,
potter and designer Ella Naper, who fascinated the Knights when
they were living in the bohemian Lamorna Valley artist community
and with whom, as the artist recalls in her autobiography Oil Paint
and Grease Paint (1936), she was to share a long friendship. The
canvas therefore expresses a twofold desire: for the painter this is
a demonstrative self-portrait, although her back is turned to those
who are to judge her; as a lover, by duplicating the image as an
expression of sublimation, she achieves three planes of female
representation painter, model and guration complete the pictures
circular composition, thereby asserting autonomy in the creative
process and a version of female identity that challenges the
essentialism of Woman according to the rules of the exclusive
heterosexist regime. Immediately after, World War I broke out,
triggering far-reaching changes in the status of women becoming
citizens with the right to vote and in opening many doors hitherto
closed to vocational training. In 1929, Laura Knight became the
rst female artist to be made a Dame Commander of the Order
of the British Empire and in 1936 the rst woman since Kauffmann
to be elected to the Royal Academy.
The exceptional case of Laura Knight illustrates the effectiveness
of the closure to access to educational institutions followed by public
and private institutions charged with ensuring the recognition of
women on a professional level, and the lasting consequences on the
maintenance of the hegemonic values in patriarchal culture.
In art training, as opposed to other professional areas, tenacity
and endeavour in professional development offer no guarantees
whatsoever. The art system is a professional area that operates
through co-optation; talent and excellence in a work of art are not
the only factors that come into play. Variables in the values system
and not only those connected with aesthetic criteria implicitly
inuence selections being made at the time of artistic production
and then periodically a posteriori. The life of works of art depends
on the interpretations and assessments of each period and, as we have
seen, in our tradition those cycles are subject to consideration about
authorship. But without tradition there is no invention. Thus changes
made in art institutions though they are linked to the social structure
of their age nevertheless require, a transformation of the criteria
in the tradition of art theory itself to effect changes which arise

almost linearly in other areas. In conclusion, with this perspective
the art system tends to preserve those values established in the past
through inertia while new theories do not cease to be applied to the
art institutions.
For instance, the data provided for the exhibition Making Their
Mark. Women Artists Move Into the Mainstream attempted to specify
the effect of feminist policies in art from 1970 to 1985 a variation
of between fteen and twenty-ve percent (peaking at forty
percent) of breakthrough by female artists into the American art
system. Such data could not have existed without an intensive
simultaneous deployment of activism, management, theory,
criticism and art historiography, irrespective of the professional
integration in general of women in the United States.
In Spain, the fact that such a conjunction only took place in the
mid-1990s and then on a limited scale for example, without activism
and without the support of specialised gender studies in the universities
(factors which mitigated possibilities of its assimilation into the art
system as a whole) explains the difculties that still exist for female
artists in the Spanish art system. For example, Carmen Laffn is
currently the only female artist member of the Academia de Bellas
Artes de San Fernando, and recognition of woman artists through
the most prestigious prizes is negligible despite the fact that over
half of the ne arts graduates since the 1960s have been women.
This lack of equal opportunities extends into variable percentages
but these are always lower than art system standards in countries
around us; and in Spain in other professional areas, whatever
the standards we use to evaluate our art system. So it is that Spanish
female artists work within a system of anachronistic, structurally
19th-century art in which the young receive only a third of all prizes
and scholarships and, by and large, number only eighteen percent
of those who exhibit in galleries, scarcely seven percent at the ARCO
international fair and less than ten percent of solo exhibitions
in museums and contemporary art centres.3
The Heroines exhibition should be an occasion to provide the
historiographic support necessary for the backing which the true
artist heroines of Spain today deserve. It is the duty of art to provide
answers to the decisive questions of each age, beginning with
reection on its own structure and purpose.
1. Louise Otto-Peters in Die Frauen-Zeitung, 1849.

2. Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, 1817.
3. More information at www.mav.org.es.
311
From the Gaze to the Word. Four Mythical Heroines
We always return to the Ancient Greek writings to nd women whom

we call heroines. Heroines: the women and wives in the lives of
heroes. Heroines, involved in extraordinary feats. Solitary heroines,
enchantress heroines . . . women weak yet strong, intelligent and
active. Penelope, Circe, Medea, Iphigenia . . . mythical female gures
upon whom our imaginary is constructed. To wander through the
words and images of those texts is to reencounter such women and
relive their stories.
Penelope, the weaver of an active form of solitude

A woman alone, in a pensive attitude, her head resting in her hand,
her straight body radiating extraordinary self-assurance and
resolution, Bourdelles Penelope [cat. 4], transports us to legendary
Ithaca. Looking at her face, we are drawn through her eyes into
her thoughts moved not so much to look at her but rather with her
and are plunged into a nostalgic reection and evocation of her life.
Her thoughts reach back beyond the Odyssey, to the time when she
was still a young Spartan girl, daughter of the nymph Peribea and
King Icarius, cousin of Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. Her father
had promised her to whichever of her suitors won a race and the
winner had been none other than Ulysses. Apollodorus,1 however,
wrote that Tyndareus offered Ulysses the hand of his niece Penelope
in return for wise counsel, although the object of Ulysses desire
was actually the beautiful Helen. So the prudent young Spartan
girl was actually a consolation prize for a hero who felt incapable,
given the competition, of winning the fairest of them all. Once
married, Ulysses decided to return to his homeland Ithaca, but
his father-in-law asked the couple to settle in Sparta, and as they
could not agree, Penelope was asked to decide for them both.
Blushing, she did not answer and hid her face with her veil. King
Icarius understood the gesture and allowed them to leave. This
decision shaped the legend of Penelope the perfect wife who meekly
followed in her husbands footsteps. Traits such as these are what
denes the exemplary woman, the literary paradigm of delity,
the Classical iconographic stereotype of the passive waiting woman,
with which tradition has shrouded and concealed the real Penelope.
Back in Ithaca, Telemachus is born and while he is still a baby,
Ulysses his father leaves home to ght in the Trojan War. Ten years
will pass before that war ends and ten more before his father returns.
While the hero faces adventures, disasters and dangers and allows
himself to be seduced and loved by nymphs and goddesses,
Penelope the young queen has been left to run the household, her
only companions an old man, her father-in-law Laertes, and a child,
her son Telemachus. Time passes and Ithaca is in need of a king,
but Laertes is too old and Telemachus barely out of adolescence.
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As there is no news of the hero, princes from neighbouring regions

come to the island to seek Penelopes hand in marriage. But she is
still convinced that her husband will return. She is a woman in love
as those eyes also seem to tell us and has decided to go on waiting
for the man she loves. The hand supporting that face so rapt in
thought [cat. 3] recalls the words with which she bade the epic poet
who told of the return of the Greeks from the Trojan War to be silent:
. . . but give no more of your sad song; it wrings my heart, for I am beset
with the deepest suffering. I ever remember my husbands face.2
The waiting seems devoid of action. Penelope is not allowed to speak

outside her quarters. It is the men who speak, who argue, who decide.
They deny her the chance to voice her thoughts and it is her own son
who replies:
Mother, why grudge the loyal bard his right to please us. [. . .] So go
to your quarters now and attend to your own work, the loom and the
spindle, and tell your maids to go about theirs. Talking is the mens
concern, and mine especially, since I am the master of this house.3
And astonished by these words, although understanding the

reason for them, Penelope withdraws. She has accepted a life of
marginalisation, she obeys Telemachus orders without complaint.
The woman in love is now above all a mother; a mother deeply
concerned for her son, whom she still looks on as a child, despite
the fact that he is now grown-up enough to take decisions of his own
and not share them with her. One night Telemachus decides to go
in search of his father and, under cover of darkness, silently sails
away. When the queen, knowing the dangers at sea, learns of his
departure, she is overcome with anguish:
She was overcome by such anguish that she had not the heart to
seat herself on one of the many chairs in the palace, but sank down
on the threshold of her well-constructed chamber, sobbing pitifully.4
[. . .] my beloved son, a child untrained in action and debate, has left
in a great ship. I tremble for him more than his father and fear lest
anything befall him.5
Her heart sinks and she feels weak at the knees. At the thought that
Telemachus might also die, she is overcome by an immense feeling
of pain and desolation. If he dies and Ulysses is already dead, she
asks herself, what have I left; what is the point of sitting on a throne
or even on one of the palace chairs? And, sitting on the cold oor like
one of her maids, in her bedroom doorway, she weeps. The heroines
breakdown is a reection of her weakness. Her strength is also sapped
by her powerlessness to administer and safeguard the food supplies,

which the suitors are consuming voraciously.
That face resting in the hand [g. 31] compels us to share those
feelings and recollections of a woman who is in love yet all on her
own, of a loving and caring mother all alone, of a weak, witless wife
awaiting the return of her lord and master. However, if we lower
our gaze to her rm, round body, we cannot help but imagine that
queen of Ithaca perfectly capable of taking responsibility not only
for her home but also for the kingdom and fully able with her shrewd
intelligence to keep it intact for Ulysses return. Without doubt, the
most popular and frequently reconstructed theme in Penelopes life
is her ploy to deceive the princes who have set their sights on her or
rather on the throne. She swears she will choose one of their number
for a husband when she has nished the shroud she is weaving for
Laertes. In Penelopes hands the art of weaving, a pursuit considered
betting for the women of Ancient Greece, becomes a powerful
weapon. She hatches a plan: she will unravel by night what she has
woven by day and so delay keeping the promise she has made to
remarry. The result of her resourcefulness, prudence and cunning
as well as her innate practical intelligence, Penelopes metis or ploy
proves her to be far-removed from that embodiment or prototype of
the weak, forbearing woman that has been so reinforced by tradition.
The Greek heroine weaves her fate with her hands and with it the fate
of the hero. She also weaves memories. In its making and unmaking,
the fabric also becomes memory. And remembering makes return
possible. The cloth accompanies and encircles the salvation of
the hero, who will nally sail back into Ithaca asleep on a linen sheet
laid out for him by his crew to rest on.
Penelopes trick may have originated in the Vedas, where the
night wove a garment which the sun unwove with its rst rays, but
Penelope changes the order, unweaving at night what she has woven
by day because for her life and light are synonymous with the night.
The closer the cloth approaches completion, the nearer draws
her death; the making of Laertes shroud is the making of her own
shroud: its completion would imply the betrayal of her feelings and
her will, forsaking Ulysses, handing over his and his son Telemachus
kingdom to strangers and as a result cause the loss of the identity
of the hero, who would no longer be king of Ithaca. The night, on the
other hand, is her accomplice, as it allows her to unravel the shroud
and, in so doing, open a window on light and on life on her life,
the life she herself has chosen. Her solitary unravelling is no mere
act of destruction; on the contrary, it is a scheme to save both her
marriage bed and her palace.6
But, in the third year a disloyal maid gives her ingenious plan
away and Penelope is obliged to complete the great shroud and choose
one of the haughty princes for her new husband. It is then that the
seemingly weak queen draws on all her powers and sets the rules for
the new game. She demands gifts of her suitors and, beguiling them
with her beauty, raises their hopes while making other plans. Her
metis prescribes some new trick: she suggests an archery contest,
saying she will marry the suitor who can string Ulysses bow and re
an arrow through a line of holes in twelve axe handles placed one
behind another. As she has no wish to embark on a new life, the
competition will further delay the denouement she is so fearful of.
She is fully aware of the enormous difculty of the test as hitherto
only Ulysses has been capable of such a feat. However, perhaps some
inner voice has told her that the one who succeeds would in fact be
like a second Ulysses.
The prudent and shrewd Penelope Homer described her in
these terms rather than as a faithful wife acts wisely and intelligently
to the very end. When Ulysses returns to Ithaca, he does not make
his arrival known immediately, for he too is of the cunning hero type
who falls back on ploys and duplicity. He enters his palace disguised
as a beggar and, to the chagrin of all, wins the contest. Then he reveals
his true identity and slaughters the suitors. Ulysses childhood nurse
Eurycleia awakens her mistress and tells her of the events but
Penelope cannot at rst believe that Ulysses is really back in Ithaca.
No more is she the romantic, passionate young girl capable of
throwing herself into a strangers arms. Instead her reaction is one
betting a sensible woman who has not seen the man she married
for over twenty years; after all those years of absence she has become
hardened and distrustful and it seems that her love is now no more than
mild affection and, perhaps, always had been. Furthermore, she
has devoted a great deal of time to holding onto Ulysses estate and
kingdom and refuses to allow herself to be tricked. The hero rebukes
her for her attitude:
How obstinate you are; the gods of Olympia have given you a harder
heart than any other weak woman! No other woman would steel
her heart and keep so far away from a husband who had just returned
to her and his homeland after twenty years of misadventure. 7
Ulysses nds his wifes hardheartedness strange. They barely recognise

each other and Penelope needs proof that the beggar in the palace
is really Ulysses. Her shrewdness prompts her to suggest a test that
will be conclusive: she asks Eurycleia to prepare his bed, which
Ulysses himself had made and is no longer in the bedroom. Enraged,
the hero asks how anyone could have moved the bed from its place.
This is decisive, for she and Ulysses are the only ones who know that
the bed cannot be moved, as Ulysses himself had built it into the trunk
of an olive tree that grew in the palace grounds. Weak at the knees,
her heart pounding, Penelope weeping rushes to him, throws her arms
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around his neck and smothers his face with kisses. The re-encounter
between the cunning man and the cunning woman, the king and
the queen, like and like, intelligence and intelligence, takes place.
Penelopes story has been rewritten and reinterpreted in
gurative art, poetry, novels and plays time and time again, and even
subverted by feminist and post-modern readings. The Greeks made
her the mistress of all the suitors and a result of her love affairs the
god Pan was born, hence his name. But let us stay with the Penelope
of the Odyssey, the one depicted by other writers, the one interpreted
through Bourdelles sculpture; the woman who has decided to devote
her life to waiting for the man she loves, taking care of his palace
and his kingdom for him, who, nevertheless, does not do so passively
but by weaving her waiting, building time, memory and fate, even
should her dedication prove to be in vain. On that very day in Sparta
when she was asked where she wished to live, she began forging
her own identity as that of a weaver of an active, fruitful form of
solitude. A far cry, no doubt, from the model established by Classical
iconography with that Penelope sitting, head cupped in hand,
in an attitude of patient inaction; a model which, though apparently
reproducing the face of the Penelope we have returned to in Ithaca,
has a body that has made us revive a heroine more exactly like and
closer to the one drawn by Homer, to the one under close and careful
scrutiny in the Odyssey.
Circe, the unnerving erotic sorceress

We came to the island of Aeaea, where Circe of the tresses lived,
a terrible goddess with a human voice, the famous sister of the pitiless
Aetes. Both had been born of Helios, who lights the world of mortals,
and Perse, a daughter of the god Oceanus. [. . .] I saw smoke rising
amid the vast landscape through oaks and thick woodland.8
In words redolent of a folk tale, Ulysses tells of his arrival on

the island of the sorceress Circe: Aeaea, a name like a cry of pain.
This land is yet another danger in the nostos undertaken by Ulysses
on his journey of return to Ithaca. When the hero lands on this
mysterious place he feels totally disorientated:
Friends, we know not where east or west are, nor where the lightgiving sun will sink or rise. [. . .] Let us quickly consider if any
resource remains to us.9
Once again he must draw on his tried and tested cunning to face
the dangers he senses in this place that could easily be at the end
of the earth. He divides his friends into two groups and sends one,
under Eurylochus, to investigate the source of the smoke they have
314
seen. As usually happens in stories, the smoke leads them to the

witchs house. On entering the woods surrounding the house they
are terried to see that terrible wild beasts live there, yet under
the effects of the sorceresss potions, lions and wolves approach them
wagging their tails like tame puppies. Ulysses is a mightily cunning
hero, but so too are the women in his odyssey the wise Penelope and
the supreme enchantress of Aeaea. The brave warriors are unnerved
by the wild animals but suddenly they see a beautiful mansion with
someone whether woman or goddess inside, weaving a large piece
of cloth and singing. At once the mens apprehension at the wild
animals is replaced by the sense of security one feels in the presence
of human habitation, a place where a woman is weaving. A terrible
deception. The beautiful woman weaving the divine cloth is a fearsome
goddess with power over nature and wild animals and, furthermore,
an enchantress. And she sings, for songs are a prelude to her
enchantments. Circe comes out of the house to meet the unsuspecting
warriors and, inviting them in, makes them a dish of cheese, barley,
honey and wine, into which she mixes evil drugs to make them forget
their homeland. Then she taps them with her wand and they turn
into pigs, although their minds remain those of men.
The extraordinary powers of the sorceresses of Antiquity were
inextricably linked to their ability to affect nature, bring down the
moon, cover the sun, move mountains, change the course of rivers or
turn men into animals, stones or plants. Circe is one such enchantress
and through her magic powers she seeks to dominate and destroy all
men who unwittingly approach her island. Forgetting their homeland
is just the beginning of the loss of the mens identity, as it is followed
by their annulment as men through the dashing and destruction
of their manhood. Although debatable, it is curious and not without
signicance that the Greek word choros (pig) is also a slang word
for the female sex. Circes pigs, domesticated, no longer savage
or wild, are in a way like men who have lost their sexual vigour,
i.e. their masculine identity.
All of this group of Ulysses companions fall under the sorceresss
subtle spell except one, Eurylochus the leader, who, fearful that
the young womans invitation is a trap, hides and observes from
a distance. Thanks to his caution, he is able to return and tell
the others what has happened. Ulysses decides to go in search of his
companions. On the way he meets the god Hermes in the likeness
of a young man. Hermes helps Ulysses by giving him a plant with
black roots and a milk-white ower called moly by the gods to use
as an amulet, and warns him:
I will tell you of all Circes evil wiles. She will mix you a drink and
add drugs to the food, but even so she will not succeed in enchanting
you, for the magic remedy I will give you will prevent it. Let me tell
you the rest. When Circe points her long wand at you, draw your
sharp sword and make as if to attack and kill her and she will then
fearfully invite you to lie with her. Do not refuse to go to the goddesss
bed if you want her to free your men and allow you to leave. But ask
her to swear a solemn oath by the gods that she will not try to cast
another spell upon you, for if not, when you are unarmed she will
leave you a coward and impotent.10
Circe opens her doors to Ulysses and hospitably gives him a magic
potion in a gold cup [g. 32]. She wishes to dominate him and, secure
in her power, expects the hero to fall under her spell. But Hermes
herb takes effect and Ulysses is not bewitched. Following the gods
instructions, he draws his sword and rushes at Circe as if intending
to kill her. Terried, the sorceress cries out, surprised that the potion
has not worked. Then she realises who the hero is, as Hermes had
previously told her that Ulysses would stop over at the island on his
homeward journey from Troy. Although Circe the great enchantress
has been defeated, she will not give up. Though forced to abandon her
magic, she is fully aware of her powers of seduction and suggests that
Ulysses sheathe his sword and lie with her so that by joining in love
they may gain trust in each other. As a goddess and sorceress, Circe
is too powerful to need to surrender and has decided that if with
her philtres she has not been able to dominate this man who, by
unsheathing his sword has made a display of his masculinity and
condition as a hero she will attempt to do so in her bed (as Hermes
had so warned) by turning Ulysses the hero into a coward and making
Ulysses the man impotent. She will rob him of his courage and
manhood. Once again, lexicon is revealing, for the word eyn, the bed to
which Circe invites Ulysses, is contained in the name used for Ulysses
companions when the enchantress has turned them into pigs and led
them to the sty: they are the chamaieyndes, i.e. Those who lie on the
ground. It is not difcult to imagine the danger the hero still faces.
Only a god can save a mortal from the designs of a goddess
and witch. The king of Ithaca escapes from the wiles of the perdious
Circe thanks to the moly and Hermes warning that if, before lying
with her, he fears she will rob him of his manhood, he must make her
swear to do him no harm. Thus, what Circe had intended as a powerful
weapon becomes a weapon of triumph for Ulysses, who makes her
break the spell and turn his companions back into men. However,
the victory is not total, for Circe still radiates power and attraction.
She renounces the poisons with which she has dominated men
but not the act of poisoning itself, for she becomes a woman in love,
the goddess of love, Venus, a name whose root is also contained
in the word venenum. Ulysses spends an enjoyable year on the island.
The evil witch becomes a benefactress, the enemy a friend, the woman
skilled in destruction an aide. With Circes help Ulysses leaves that
place he once sensed lay on the edge of the world and rightly so,
for before his departure, Circe tells him that he must descend into
Hades, where the prophet Teiresias will predict the vicissitudes
in store for him on what remains of his journey. So, from Aeaea
he descends into the world of the dead, rst performing a magic
ritual as if through contact with the enchantress her knowledge had
been passed on to him. So it was that the woman who has attempted
to make Ulysses forget who he was provides him with the means to
recover knowledge and memory of himself through death.
Pictures portraying Circe, whether seductively nude or as
a wielder of irresistible power surrounded by animals or in all her
splendour with a cup of potions in her hand, have rewritten the story
of the unnerving goddess with a human voice, the sorceress with
a dangerous, double-edged power capable of bringing either harm
or happiness to those who dare to approach her [cat. 62, 63 and 66].
Medea, the tragedy of a sorceress

Setting up a dialogue between pictures and texts on Medea, the
mythical sorceress (like her aunt Circe), daughter of King Aetes
and granddaughter of the sun god Helios, can sometimes lead
to a sensation of unease and confusion. The large number of literary
and gurative works at our disposal inevitably complicates any
conversation about a character to whom the words epic, lyric and
tragic can be applied, and who was the paradigm of the passionate,
choleric woman, the perverse mother and stepmother, the powerful
sorceress, the perdious barbarian. Also a paragon of transgression
and the epitome of jealousy.
In Pythian Ode IV, Pindar describes the reciprocal spell cast
by Medea and Jason which led to their betrothal in marriage. Under
Aphrodites guidance, Jason becomes a master of erotic magic and,
in a ritual with spells and a bird (the wryneck) attached to a magic
wheel, tries to tempt Medea to leave home, feel homesick for Greece
and fall head over heels in love with him. For her part, Medea draws
on her knowledge of plants and prepares an ointment of oil and herbs
for Jason to rub on his body so that he may pass the tests which
Aetes, the young princesss father, has set him. The magic of love,
so popular with the Ancient Greeks, bears its fruit and, a few spells
later, the two decide to merge their lives.
It has been said that Pindar must on more than one occasion have
seen Kypselos magnicent chest of cedar, gold and ivory as described
by Pausanias. Depicted on it were Medea sitting on a throne with
Jason to one side of her and Aphrodite standing on the other, and an
inscription which read, Jason marries Medea. Aphrodite invites him
to do so. The Medea of Pindar who delights our eyes and ears is an
admirable, majestic enchantress and seer, an expert on the properties
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Carmen Gallardo
of plants, granddaughter of the god Helios and a princess of Colchis;

her demeanour is that of a goddess whom the hero has been granted
the divine honour of making his wife.11 This less familiar Medea who
has not given rise to too much interest over the ages shifts our attention
to Evelyn de Morgans Medea [cat. 68], and it is in her that we seem to
hear Pindars ode about a young princess from the land of the Colchis,
a powerful enchantress and a woman in love to whom the hero
surrenders after receiving her help.
And yet the rather disturbing look of serenity on this Pre-Raphaelite
Medeas face, the unsettling, abstracted gaze directed apparently
inward rather than outward, those huge enthralled eyes, all seem
to contain the tragedy of her life. Being endowed with powers
of prophecy, she appears to divine her own terrible story a tale
begun by Apollonius of Rhodes, revived by the poet Ovid and which
culminated in the tragedies of Euripides and Seneca.
Whether descended from the gods or not, Medea was a young
princess, born in the barbarous land of Colchis, to which Jason came
in his ship Argo at the head of an expedition seeking a wonderful
thing the Golden eece in exchange for which his uncle Pelias
had promised him the return of his throne. As Jason approaches
the palace of Aetes to ask the king for the eece, Eros res an arrow
at Medea and she is smitten with love. In exchange for the coveted
eece, the king sets Jason a number of obviously impossible tasks:
he must yoke two bronze re-breathing bulls and plough the plain
of Ares with them, then sow dragons teeth and kill the warriors
which spring up. Medea knows that only she can help Jason but she is
also aware that her decision to do so would mean betraying her father.
She hesitates, torn between her loyalty to her family and allowing
herself to be swept away by her passion for the handsome foreigner.
nally taking the riskier option, she gives Jason a magic salve, enabling
him to pass the test. But Aetes then breaks his promise and even
tries to kill the Argonauts. This point marks the beginning of princess
Medeas transformation. The scared young girl who decides to run
away with Jason and tenderly tries to ease her mothers pain at her
leaving by putting her tresses under her pillow nally develops into
the sorceress who uses her strength and powers to cast a shadow
of darkness over the hero.
For love the young girl from Colchis will become transgressive
and terrible. The priestess of Hecate, goddess of magic, from whom
she has learnt her arts, will use all her knowledge in the service
of her beloved. She who like a true witch seeks corpses and pernicious
plants with which to prepare her potions and ointments, who beguiles
with her gaze and bewitches with her spells, will not forget to take
all her drugs along on the journey to Iolcus, Jasons homeland. Before
they leave, she will lull the dragon that guards the eece to sleep
so that the Argonaut can take it. And along the way, she will bewitch
316
the giant Talos, whose task is to prevent strangers from landing

on the island of Crete, and she will restore the youth of the heros
father Aeson with an efcacious potion of sea sand, frost, vampire
wing and deer liver. But, out of love, the benecent enchantress
revealed through these acts will also commit the most heinous
of crimes, the rst being the cruel murder of her brother Absyrtus.
Deceiving him, she persuades him to come to her and then kills him,
casting his dismembered body into the sea in order to delay pursuit
by her father Aetes, who she knows will stop to recover his sons
corpse and bury it before continuing. She does not yet realise it, but
this terrible act will, without any doubt, mark the beginning of her
loneliness and abandonment, for although her ties with Jason are still
close, her family ties have been severed forever. Her deep love for the
Argonaut will also spur her to take revenge on Pelias, who refuses to
surrender the throne despite the fact that Jason has presented him with
the Golden eece. With appalling cunning, she dupes the old mans
daughters so anxious to see their father rejuvenated like Aeson
into cutting him into pieces and boiling him in a pot, as she had done
with a ram which had been transformed into a lamb. With vengeance
wreaked on the man who betrayed her beloved Jason, the couple ee
to Corinth, where they are offered shelter by the king, Creon.
There they lived peacefully for the next ten years, a period about
which we know nothing. Perhaps they lived there happily with their
two children until Creon decided to offer his daughters hand to
Jason, who, coveting a kingdom, accepted, agreeing to send his family
into exile. At this point Euripides tragic Medea was born: the terrifying
sorceress who had gradually taken form while that young princess
of Colchis grew old and disgured. Passionately enamoured of Jason,
she had avenged her father Aetes betrayal of her beloved, thereafter
eeing with him and killing her brother; passionately enamoured,
she had also punished Pelias for his perdy. Now, passionately
embittered, she plotted revenge on the man who had betrayed her,
the man for whom she had left her homeland and planned terrible
crimes. Abandoned, alone in a foreign land, she exclaims:
You have a city here, your fathers house, some joy in life and
the company of friends, but I am alone, without a city and subjected
to scorn by my husband; I am like a captive from some savage land,
with no mother, brother or kinsman in whom to seek refuge from
this calamity.12
To these words the transgressive Medea adds a bitter complaint

regarding the unfair condition of women, while her realisation of her
position only intensies her lack of moderation. From this moment
on the mighty, avenging enchantress who has used all her resources
to help and protect her beloved Jason will channel all her knowledge
into attempting to cause him harm harm greater than death. She will
leave him alive, but alone, without his children, without hope of
fathering more, without his future wife. Despairing and abandoned.
It is now not only this womans knowledge of magic that makes
her so extraordinarily superior but also the qualities and character
she displays: she is brave, proud, daring, rebellious, cunning, wise,
angry, brutal, strong and arrogant traits commonly attributed to
heroic males. Yet she is a woman and, as such, will apply these virtuous
or base features to the area most betting her, that of the emotions.
She will not allow herself to be marginalised for being a woman and
a foreigner; her sense of honour precludes that. She does not want
to punish Jason for his heartlessness so much as for how he has
abandoned and spurned her. It is now not love nor even jealousy that
ignite her wrath but a reaction against outrage, derision and injustice.
In the eyes of Evelyn de Morgans Medea we read this tragic
story. But they say more; it is as if they wished to share with whoever
looks into them the intense struggle that raged within Medea when
she decided to poison not only Jasons new wife and his father-in-law
Creon, but also her own children. She hesitated, her heart failed her,
she felt incapable of action, but, at the same time, she spurred herself
on, called herself coward, told herself she would not allow her hand
to waver. nally, she decided that to annihilate her husband meant
she must kill the children he had given her; for the Ancient Greeks,
children were like an exclusive extension of the father. Jason needed
them, for with his new wife dead he would no longer be able to
procreate and with his children dead his life as a hero would fade
into oblivion. That would be Medeas cruel revenge. But the gesture
of killing the children also contained the terrible assertion that they
were hers too [g. 33]. A violent cry of motherhood and a cry
of rebellion against exclusion as a woman both loving and loved.
The enchantress, the barbarian princess abandoned by the hero,
the strong woman who cast a shadow over Jason, dedicated one last
display of power to him. Before setting out on a new life, she prophesied
his end: while resting he would be crushed to death by the mast of his
own ship. A more anti-heroic death could hardly be anticipated.
Iphigenia, nostalgia for Greece

And now, a guest of the inhospitable sea, I live in a house with coarse
fare, with no husband, no children, no city, no friends . . . 13
Iphigenias lament is encapsulated in the silent woman gazing sadly

out to sea. Anselm Feuerbachs painting [cat. 2] places us momentarily
off balance, it confuses us and transports us to the Odyssey, to images
from Ancient Greek art of Ulysses, such as that on a helmet in
the Berlin Antikensammlung in which the hero sits on a rock gazing
at the huge expanse of sea separating him from his beloved Ithaca
[g. 34], his palace and his wife and son, and is racked by homesickness,
having been held captive for years by the nymph Calypso on Ogygia,
a solitary island far out to sea. Calypso has offered him immortality
in exchange for love, but he feels an intolerable loneliness and a need
to start living again. On the island his life is as devoid of activity as death.
He stands at the edge of oblivion, of all that is human. He is like some
dead immortal. Feuerbachs depiction of the homesick Iphigenia
is very similar, a mirror image of the Trojan hero which seems to call
on us to make the two engage in a dialogue. If Ulysses feels close
to non-existence on that remote island because the lack of any kind
of activity has eclipsed his identity and, recalling his feats and yearning
for his old life on his native Ithaca, he allows his gaze to rove the
immeasurable sea, then the emotions experienced by Iphigenia,
the prisoner of the gods in the barbarous land of Tauris, must be
similar. How many times during that long forced exile must she have
remembered her girlhood with her father King Agamemnon, her
mother Clytemnestra and her siblings Orestes and Electra? How
many times must she have called to mind her arrival on the Black
Sea coast and experienced the painful feeling of the meaninglessness
of life? Alone, far from home, from her native land, without her
parents or siblings and absolutely certain that no-one believes she
is still alive. She died on the day the seer Calchas told Agamemnon
that if his eet was to set sail for Troy, he must sacrice his daughter
rst. The Greeks had been becalmed at Aulis and the goddess
Artemis had demanded the sacrice of the kings daughter in
exchange for favourable winds. Agamemnon had summoned
Iphigenia and her mother, saying that he was going to marry her
to Achilles but he actually intended to kill her. Young Iphigenia was
happy when she reached the camp with Clytemnestra and Orestes,
but soon discovered that she was in fact to die and so rebelled against
the idea, making a heartrending plea to her father for mercy.
However, the military leaders had insisted, and, despite Achilles
offer to have her execution stayed, Iphigenia decided to accept death
for the good of the Greek people:
As it was decreed that I should die, I wish to do so nobly, putting
to one side any hint of baseness [. . .] in my hands lies the opportunity
for our ships to set sail and the total destruction of the Phrygians.
[. . .] nor am I so attached to life, because you bore me in the common
interest of all Hellenes. [. . .] And if it is the will of Artemis to take me.
[. . .] I shall give up my body for the good of Hellas. Sacrice me.14
Though she is little more than a child, her reaction is neither

submissive nor passive; she does not let others decide for her. After
her initial dismay and understandable refusal to comply, she agrees
317
Carmen Gallardo
with extraordinary courage and mettle to heroically accept her fate,

baring her neck with resolve and in silence. However, when the
sword is poised over her head, Artemis seizes it and a hind with its
throat slit suddenly appears. The girl vanishes but no-one sees where
she goes [g. 35].
That place had been Tauris and it is there where this melancholy
Iphigenia sits gazing out to sea. The goddess had swept her away
to that land and made her her priestess. That is Feuerbachs Iphigenia.
This Iphigenia is well worth xing ones gaze on, perhaps with the
guidance of Goethe, who placed her under a microscope and magnied
her to enormous proportions.
The young girl snatched from the claws of death by Artemis
spent her days in an inhospitable barbarous land. She lived her life
in immense solitude and in a vain wait made longer by the dismal task
assigned to her that of processing the coarse fare for the goddess
and of purifying, prior to sacrice, strangers who came to those shores.
Her only escape from her thankless, distressing task was to return
in her dreams to the Greece and the loved ones she so yearned for.
But that imaginary nostos which the exiled princess dreamed of, that
return to the oikos, was actually to come true. One ne day a group
of shepherds bring her two Greeks they have caught on the cliff top
and, unaware that she is about to take the rst step on her return
journey to Hellas, she interrogates them in the hope of hearing news
of her family and learns that her father is dead. With that pragmatic
intelligence which sets true heroines apart, she casts about for
a way of telling her family she is still alive. What she does not know,
however, is that the two Greeks are in fact her brother Orestes and
her cousin Pylades, who, prompted by an oracle, have sought out
the island. Nor do the two men realise who the priestess really is.
As with Ulysses on his return to Ithaca, the moment of anagnorisis
takes time to arrive and mutual recognition between brother and
sister turns out to be no easy task. Still unaware of each others identity,
they agree that Pylades will not be sacriced and instead will bear
news of the priestess to Argos written on a tablet. Fearful lest the tablet
be lost at sea, Iphigenia repeats the content for Pylades to memorise.
It is at this moment that brother and sister, separated since childhood,
realise who the other is. Iphigenia puts her nostalgic loneliness aside
and starts making preparations for her return home. She now plans
their escape, which must include taking a statue of Artemis with them,
as the oracle told Orestes that if he wished to be released from his
remorse at killing his mother, he must take an image of the goddess
worshipped in that country back to Greece. Once again, it is the woman
318
who takes the initiative. Iphigenia tells the king of Tauris that the
prisoners are impure because of a murder they have committed and
that she must purify them together with the statue in the sea. So begins
the journey of return so long yearned for which will nally lead her
and indeed all three of them to the recovery of oikos home, family,
and consequently all former rights. Iphigenia, the embodiment and
symbol of nostalgia for ones homeland, rights and lost loved ones,
weaves salvation for herself and her brother. And yet again the
odyssey of the resourceful Ulysses is reected in the life of a heroine.
The Trojan War heros adventures begin with the journey of return,
but recognition by those close to him is required for his goal
homecoming, the reestablishment of the ego to be attained. For
the resourceful Iphigenia too, recognition was indispensable before
she could set out on her journey; without the anagnorisis of the siblings,
return and, therefore, arrival at the oikos the only place where it
is possible to recover ones identity could never have taken place.
Feuerbachs painting facilitates the bringing together of an epic
hero and a tragic heroine, both of whom had to endure the melancholy
caused by an uncontrollable longing for their homeland, both of
whom experienced the loneliness of the impossible return although
the great cunning of both nally led to their dreams coming true.
Here a series of visual images takes us back to the writings
of the Ancient Greeks, which in turn tell the stories of four mythical
heroines who proved powerful and strong in the face of unmitigated
loneliness.
1. Apollodorus: Library of Greek Mythology, III, 10, 9.
2. Homer: Odisea, I, 34044. Madrid, Alianza, 2005. Translation and foreword
by Carlos Garca Gual.
3. Odisea, I, 346 and 35659.
4. Odisea, IV, 71619.
5. Odisea, IV, 81921.
6. Ricardo Olmos: Una lectura femenina de la Odisea. In Paloma Cabrera
and Ricardo Olmos (coordinators): Sobre la Odisea. Visiones desde el mito
y la arqueologa. Madrid, Ediciones Polifemo, 2003.
7. Odisea, XXIII, 16871.
8. Odisea, X, 13650.
9. Odisea, X, 19092.
10. Odisea, X, 289302.
11. Jacqueline Duchemin (ed.): Pindare: Pythiques (III, IX, IV, V). Paris, Presses
Universitaires de France, Collection rasme, 1967.
12. Euripides: Medea, 25458. In Esquilo, Sfocles y Eurpides. Obras completas.
Madrid, Ctedra, Biblioteca urea, 2004.
13. Euripides: Iphigenia in Tauris, 21921. In Ibid.
14. Euripides: Ifigenia en ulide, 1375 and ff. In Ibid.
Women of Power
Amelia Valcrcel
Men and women have never shared the same status or even
comparable importance in any known human society. In every
culture, albeit in different and often interesting ways, the male sex
has possessed and wielded power and authority, and men and women
alike have accepted this fact. Obviously, there is a large difference
between a society that keeps its women behind closed doors and one
where they are allowed to share common areas, or between a society
in which knowledge is the sole prerogative of men and another which
accepts a degree of competence in women, to offer a few examples.
Patriarchy is universal, but each civilisation or historical period has
interpreted it differently. Even so, our gender equality is new and still
latent. In this context, if artistic depiction were merely one of the
more important outward trappings of power, as some have claimed,
women would never have appeared in it all, or vicariously at best.
Yet Western art, aside from being the only school to bring the
amazing journey of realism full circle, has depicted women from
the very beginning. This is quite astounding if we stop to consider
that power has little tolerance for distractions from itself as an object.
When we excavate the great cities of the Roman Empire, from Asia
and North Africa to Gaul and Hispania, we nd massive phalluses
on street corners, door knockers, rural sanctuaries, lamps and even
below the gates. It would seem that masculinity has a very high opinion
of itself. And when it chooses to represent itself with a single attribute,
that attribute is deliberately exaggerated. This same masculinity
is gloried and paraded about at certain Japanese festivals. It is
worshipped in India and also in China. Pre-Columbian cultures gave
it enormous proportions. For centuries, it has erected obelisks of
unmistakably phallic signicance. And, of course, it was masculinity
which spread the rumour that the pointed towers of Christian
churches were actually yet another monument to its primary attribute.
Apparently, the male member par excellence, the representation
and presentation of power, is behind all artistic sublimation.
And yet, if we take the impartial road of serious reection,
we observe that many of the oldest depictions those which Hegel
would have termed symbolic include obvious feminine traits.
We nd them carved into rock shelters, painted on cave walls,
and sculpted [g. 36]. The feminine presence in the most primitive
art is so overwhelming and astounding that it red the imagination
of the rst cultural anthropologists, who played at conjuring up
the past based on its representations and its objects.
They concluded that the comparative abundance of women,
female animals, vulvas and Venuses in prehistoric art was owing
to the predominant social role of women in that primitive world.
According to these experts, before the invention of political states
and the corollary concepts of hierarchy and rank women were
the powerful guides and sweet-tempered leaders of the rst human
group. This theory was propounded by Bachofen and embraced with

equal enthusiasm by Michelet, Bebel and whole host of 19th-century
historicists, who invented a conceptual utopia that was destined
to take hold and ourish in popular thought: matriarchy. This was
a typically Romantic eidetic construct which sought to create a
symmetrical version of known reality, the rmly established pattern
of virile dominance or patriarchy. This new explanation soon gained
widespread acceptance, which grew as the details of prehistory became
known. With the sole exception of Sir Henry Maine, all anthropological
authors of the 19th century assumed that patriarchy had evolved from
a more primitive form of organisation, of unmistakable existence,
which they called matriarchy.
According to this theory, matriarchy explained the continued
existence of benevolent attitudes towards women in the laws of
certain ancient civilisations, the outward appearance of primitive
religions and their goddesses, the practice of marrying from the wifes
home, maternal liation and other circumstances that contradicted
the idea of strict male dominance. This assumption passed from
Bachofen to Morgan, from Morgan to Engels, and from there to
Marxism, and it also featured prominently in the literature of their
Romantic contemporaries. In reality, matriarchy became to the
historical narrative what paradise lost had represented in religious
mythology. Today, most experts do not believe that such a period ever
existed, nor is it the most plausible explanation for the indications
of feminine presence found in our prehistory. But in the 19th and
early 20th centuries, primitive matriarchy was preached far and wide.
It was useful for explaining legends like that of the Amazons, the
existence of great Mother Goddesses, exclusive clandestine rites such
as the mysteries of Bona Dea, customs associated with agriculture
and, of course, the new revelations of prehistoric art. They were all
interpreted as vestiges of an ancient, extinct gynaecocracy.
But what about the representation of women after prehistory?
The earliest human civilisations have left us monumenta, images
and writings that we have been able to decipher. We know that these
cultures were not gynaecocracies, yet there is no lack of female
imagery in the Fertile Crescent or in Egypt. So the matriarchy
hypothesis was stretched a bit further to explain these presences
as vestiges of a more ancient order which the successors had been
unable to thoroughly eradicate. The most enthusiastic exponent
of this theory was undoubtedly Robert Graves, who spread it
throughout the Mediterranean.
And what about Greece? The patriarchal society of Classical
Greece is common knowledge, but women also had an iconic presence
as young girls or mythological characters, ladies or concubines, utists
or caryatids, and even as Amazons. By putting it all together (and
closing ones eyes), a nal piece of the matriarchal tapestry, however
319
Women of Power
Amelia Valcrcel
faded and threadbare, could be woven. But the fabric had been
stretched as far as it could go. The Greeks did not feel love in the
truest sense, or philia, for women. The following passage from
Demosthenes work is often quoted: We have courtesans for pleasure,
slaves/concubines to care for our bodys daily needs, and wives to
bear us legitimate children and to be faithful guardians of our hearths.
Accustomed as we are to imagining a Greek society where
the only proper object of philia was a young man for masculinity
can only truly love itself, though it needs women to procreate it is
hard to see how the Greeks could have enjoyed making the depictions
which have come down to us. Women were of no consequence in
society, but not so their iconic presence. And all this confusion comes
of refusing to accept a much simpler hypothesis, which is usually the
best kind. The fact is that men enjoyed depicting women, both then
and now at least in the understanding that only they could fashion
the images. Perhaps this is because depiction is not all about power;
it also has an enduring erotic component. Not all images can be
directly equated with power.
The eroticism of depiction

Some cultures have obstinately refused to engage in representation.
It is in our heritage, which is both Greek and Jewish. These cultures
are our spiritual ancestors, and one of them Jewish culture
is iconophobic. In order to set themselves apart from neighbouring
peoples, or perhaps for some reason, the Hebrews invented a law
(which Islam later embraced wholeheartedly) prohibiting the
depiction of any living thing, whether man, beast or plant. Only God
had the power to create, and images were an attempt to counterfeit
and appropriate that power. With the image, by making images, men
aspired to be gods. And man twisted this ability to externalise the
exterior, the sole prerogative of the One True God, to fashion accursed
objects that he could bow down and worship. Nothing could be more
repulsive in the eyes of God. Idolatry had to be avoided at all costs.
Ido-latry: worship of shapes, worship of art, artices,
constructions fashioned by hands which then believe themselves
to be self-sufcient sources of power. The Dome of the Rock which
soars above Jerusalem, that golden hemisphere of stunning beauty,
bears an inscription around its inner circumference in which a single
phrase is repeated ve times: God is One and He has no son.
There is no need to remind the faithful that His works in other
words, all of creation cannot be depicted. On this point, Orthodox
Muslims and the Jews whose ancient temple probably lies beneath
this very dome are in total agreement. Hence, nothing is depicted,
whether male or female. Fortunately, and despite the evident risk
of falling into religious idolatry, in this respect we have chosen
320
the way of our cave-dwelling forebears, the great Mediterranean

civilisations, Greece and Rome.
Iconoclastic heresies were always passing phases in our history,
though Byzantium and Europe suffered through several of them. They
say that man is a symbolic animal; if this is true, could any punishment
be crueler than prohibiting him from practising the art of depiction?
Undoubtedly, no. There is an erotic pleasure in depiction, and it has
been practised by men and women alike, and captured everything
that runs, ies or walks, male or female; everything that grows and
moves; even things that cannot be made tangible, like the wind, heat
or cold, moving water and the changes in light throughout the day.
The skilfulness of those depictions has paved a glorious road. We
preserve and cherish that road, particularly the nal stretch leading
from the Romanesque to our times.
Yet of all the things that exist, women are singled out as a favoured
object of representation. In every age, saving the darkest periods,
the presence of female gures is on a par with that of their male
counterparts, lling walls and books though this parity is tempered
by the dictates of their historical canons. They display nite models,
and men and women are represented in a very similar way. The ideal
of feminine beauty is notoriously ckle and changes with the times.
Dominant models change, but the repertoire of female gures is
limited. In the religious context for centuries the only possible
venue of representation women rst appeared as the Theotokos
or the Whore of Babylon. But as piety began to discover new
resources, the Virgin Mary acquired different ages and the women
who accompanied her multiplied the facets of femininity. Female
saints inspired the artists brushes to reach new heights of skill
and elegance. When painting opened the door to other ights
of imagination, during the Renaissance, a new throng of goddesses
and nymphs poured in. And above all of them loomed the principle
of faithfulness in portraiture. A portrait is of a specic person and
should depict that person without excessive alteration. A portrait is
judged by its resemblance to the original. Religious or mythological
painting, on the other hand, allows the artist to forge woman or,
better yet, to invent her.
Powerful women
In every historical society we know of, women have been ruled by
men. However, in a few very exceptional cases, a woman has exercised
sovereign power. The annals of history tell us of several who wielded
their power wisely, and of others who did not fare so well. In any
event, none of these women changed the rules and passed their power
on to another woman; rather, once their time had passed, things
returned to normal. Some women were exceptions to the rule that
barred them from the circles of power, and a small number of these
were also exceptional rulers. A very few were strong, judicious,
fearsome monarchs. But, as a general rule, women did not play on the
eld of overt power, preferring instead the murkier arena of inuence;
these are the mothers behind the throne or the wives in the harem,
or the favourites who history tells us preferred to pull the strings from
the shadows. Of course, this is only possible in an autocracy, but
we must not forget that most of the governments the world has seen
were autocratic. Democracy is the youngest political regime on the
face of the earth.
Certain hierarchic systems, particularly those with an almost
holy reverence for the power of a dynastic line, have made it possible
for women to achieve visible power on rare occasions. In the absence
of a male heir, a woman might come to the throne, but this did not
mean that female leadership was commonplace. The women who
did gain such power were special, members of a noble family lacking
any suitable male heirs. They are the rare exceptions. The ancient
Greeks devised a way to legitimise such exceptions by creating the
gure of the epikleros, the daughter of a man with no male offspring
and therefore his sole heir. As such, the woman was wedded to her
inheritance.
Most of the women who became monarchs or heads of state
have been epikleroi. The line from which they come cannot be
broken because their pedigree is strong enough to defend their claim,
and consequently they inherit the familys position of leadership
and its essential ties to power. Whenever possible, such women were
even married to close relatives. This was the case of the great queens
of Europe, some of whose impressive portraits have come down
to us [g. 37]. These likenesses reect the prescribed formula for
portrayals of power, characterised by distance and a degree of majestic
severity. Power does not possess the pleasing quality at least not
at rst glance that is sometimes found in consorts and more often
in mistresses.
Made to please
For, although it faithfully portrayed women in power, painting usually
relegated this object, woman, to the sphere of beauty and grace.
It dressed her and undressed her, and provided occasions to do so.
Modest women with eyes cast downwards or away from the observer.
Women to be seen. Women reclining on a bed who suddenly stare
straight at their observer, their boldness justied by the fact that they
are Venus. Dianas caught unawares, nymphs abducted, transformed,
alone, or with limbs intertwined in an elegant incarnation of the Graces.
Antiquity had scored another point. Recall, if you will, Apuleiuss
scintillating tales of divine festivals celebrated in the cities of the
empire, complete with young girls clad in thin lmy garments

symbolising goddesses. The Renaissance revived that spirit of
eroticism and also transformed it.
The truth is that the deities of Olympus have been a joke since
the Quattrocento. The art of depiction was enriched by these jokes
and simulated worlds weightless and delicate/ like soap bubbles.
The vibrant colours of the long-dead gods had little power to change
what the living gods deemed good. Mythological painting coexisted
with religious wars and inquisition proceedings. Those shining gods
and goddesses have accompanied and most gloriously the world
which believed that only the very highest deserved to be depicted
[gs. 38 and 39]. And their stories dramatically expanded a
repertoire in urgent need of new material. Canvases, panels,
tapestries and frescos commissioned by the illustrious who, when
enquiring after their works, forget to keep up the mythological
pretence. As the grand Italian lord asked his art dealer, Has the
master nished my naked woman yet?
And so the erotic component was rmly established. The
challenging part, when we reached a certain point, was extricating
women from the sphere of grace and beauty or of desire, pure and
simple to insert them in the landscape of power, depicting them not
as extras or pets, lovers or objects to delight the senses, but as powerful
women outside the monarchy. This has always been a particularly
complicated feat for one good reason: as a general rule, women have
never had power. And those few who have had it did not cease being
women when they came to power; in other words, their power did
not exempt them from the scrutiny of a society that wanted them
to be willing, difcult, modest, dangerous, beautiful, humble, naughty,
seless, witty, elusive, sweet-tempered . . . or everything at once.
In a patriarchal society, the male is the standard against which all
things are measured. Minor exceptions are made for very powerful
women, but nothing more. In general, women are meant to please
the eye. And for the same reason, their cultivated, invented beauty
is fragile and ludicrous. Beauty fades. The pictorial genre known
as vanitas discovered in feminine old age a cruel motif [g. 40].
We are nothing; but women are a little less than nothing.
Seek out the strangers

However, there came a time when human beings turned their gaze
inwards without the mirror of the gods and, perhaps driven by
the overwhelming presence of the portrait, began to depict daily
and domestic life. And they did so, not in a spirit of comedy, but with
the utmost rationalist seriousness. Courtly painting with its itting
characters began to give way to orderly, comfortable interiors and
pleasant outdoor scenes. Painting acquired a domestic, still-life,
321
Women of Power
Amelia Valcrcel
oral quality. And at this point other women began to appear; queens,
nymphs and goddesses deigned to share the stage with farm girls,
female musicians, lace makers and an unusual number of milkmaids
and shepherdesses. Europe, which was going through an iconoclastic
phase in the aftermath of the Reformation, rechanneled artistic
eroticism towards interior and exterior landscapes and Bible stories.
But in this marvellous history where everything is preserved and
nothing discarded, by mere force of accumulation the feminine
acquired a multifarious, teeming repertoire, which explains why
it is so hard to categorise.
The categories associated with women often resemble Jos Luis
Borges famous classication of animals. Women can be divided into:
tall, belonging to the emperor, dark, nocturnal, young, free, short,
blond, delicate, rustic, and even warrior maidens when appropriate.
Thus, apart from the exaggerated and nevertheless oft-attempted
category of the old witch and the category of the sweet Mother of
God, which despite being so often portrayed has done little to facilitate
a better understanding of femininity, everything in between is always
hard to classify. We could say that the template according to which
they should be classied is lacking precise parameters because it has
too many. The eroticism of depiction has multiplied women while
failing to clarify the essence of the feminine. When the poor began
to acquire pictorial interest I hardly need say as objects rather than
as buyers of paintings female gures became even more varied.
It was an extraordinary phase; dancers of every type, from east and
west, nuns, schoolteachers, prostitutes, and anything that bountiful
Mother Nature paraded past the expert eyes of one seeking the still
unseen, appeared and were made visible. The canvases of the 19th
century overowed with new women and reinvented versions of the
old models. All were welcome, from Pallas Athena and the odalisques
in their harems to the women selling fruit in the village square.
Another singular case is that of women who, in deance of social
mores, were able to come to power in turbulent times: the female
warriors. It is not unprecedented for a great female leader to emerge
in times of dire crisis. Veleda led the Germanic peoples and Boudicca
led the Angles tribe of Britain in their revolts against the Roman
Empire. Joan of Arc commanded the French armies. It is hard to tell
whether moments of crisis bring these female leaders to the fore,
or whether it is their leadership that provokes such crises. In any case,
there is always a given: the harsh and tragic demise of the heroine.
When women lead armies, the ranks are lled with desperate men.
They are granted the heroism of one who faces certain defeat.
It is understood that women ght to lose with honour, but to lose.
Though sometimes they may have won.
It was at this point that improbability, which had been prowling
around the perimeter for some time, rushed in to take the eld,
322
because depicting those furthest removed from the established

order is no easy task. The Greeks had already invented this game;
they started out hating women and drawing furies, Erinyes, medusas,
sirens, harpies and gorgons, but in time they began to nd these
imaginary dissidents attractive, and consequently their Amazons
grew increasingly lovelier. In the end, the Amazon queen was a
striking beauty. Romanticism embraced their cause wholeheartedly,
giving iconic credit to all the legends and exploring the exotic
territories of geography and imagination. And when it had nished
with the earth, transformed into Surrealism, it discovered the
landscapes of dreams.
The taste for nudes remained constant, though the need for
pretexts had increased. Since Venus had exhausted her usefulness,
artists had to come up with female slaves, harems and odalisques
instead a new catalogue of imaginary beauties that was shattered,
suddenly and without warning, by the realistic nudes of the refuss.
Manet tossed the rules out the window when he presented a woman
in the obvious pose of a courtesan, a Nana, with the paraphernalia
of the Venus of Urbino. With the Impressionist movement, guration
was nearing its zenith, but so was the iconological motif. It signalled
the rise of what came to be called the dehumanisation of art. The
amazing road of realism had come full circle and begun a loop cycle
that is still being travelled today.
The gaze
However, although they may be difcult to classify, women are
painted to be compared. The same thing is true of beauty; it exists
to be observed, measured and confronted. But every beauty must
be compared with all the rest. Let them come and show themselves,
and I will do the choosing. For the men those who practise the
eroticism of depiction tackle their particular challenge without ever
vacating the seat of Paris. This is the very essence of the masculine
gaze: choice. When it comes to women, humbly and naturally, even
if it is only in their imagination, they choose. No one asks permission.
Presumably, women trustingly submit to that gaze and all are eager
to vie for the title of the lords slave, no triing iconology and one
that moves, like all great iconologies, in religious circles. And so the
masculine gaze is accepted as constituent, based on the relative truth
that the male sex has traditionally dominated the craft of depiction.
What we do know for certain is that there is a lack of reliable
sources from Antiquity, the Middle Ages are not much better, and
we have evidence of female painters since the Renaissance. The 18th
century poured its light onto feminine gures, and a fair number
of women painters did their part, even developing new techniques.
It is also true that they are less in number, because women in general
have never had power, and consequently have never been able to take
up the most important professions. And those who did are the
exception. They were usually daughters or relatives of great painters
who were allowed to learn the trade and, despite this, somehow
managed to keep their virtue and their health intact (though not
always); in short, they were epikleroi who posed no threat to the male
monopoly on artistic talent.
Does a womans art reect a different perspective? There are
certainly interesting nuances, but overall the vision of men and women
is quite similar. They share iconic traditions and techniques, which
heightens the resemblance between their depictions. Another issue
altogether is whether or not they see the same way. Creating a different
or alternative vision or gaze is one of the impossible challenges facing
what is currently known as feminist art. It is by no means certain
that women also sit on the throne of Paris when they engage in
representation. And, inspired by a growing self-awareness that we can
trace back to the Enlightenment, the effort to achieve veracity and
nobilit, manifested in the self-portrait and the portrait respectively,
indicates that they are more perceptive, but the advantage is very slight
and hard to prove. Moreover, the divergence of gazes, if it ever occurred,
would have been erased when the great gurative tradition cracked.
With the collapse of realism, no doubt hastened by the
daguerreotype and the photograph, line and shade were reassembled
in an unprecedented way. Yet women remained. At times they were
just a few strokes, recognisable volumes presented without a pretext,
nude and facing forward in thick lines, though for such undertakings
it is better to be named Modigliani or Picasso [g. 41]. The imprint
of the feminine all but disappears from the avant-garde, except
in conversions to the distant past. The gaze is lost or completely
absorbed in thought.
Yet, it is really true that guration is dying? There could be some

truth to this statement, if not for the fact that it touches upon something
unimaginable up until now. Paintings formidable competitor,
formi-dable, so skilled at giving form, which will never have
competition, exists and has proliferated ad innitum. The image
of moving photolithographs, what we call kin or cinema, motion
and its consequences, is everywhere. Never before have human
beings been surrounded by so many images as we are today. It has
come to the point where city dwellers are more familiar with the
images than with the things they depict. And no territory is immune
to this proliferation. Part of our fascination with the Orient one
century ago was owing to the paucity of images which characterised
that world. What is, is; what you see is what you get. But not even the
Far East has been able to resist the onslaught of lm, photography,
television and advertising. Images travel the entire globe. Although
the Taliban may have dynamited the great Buddha statues of
Bamyan, no contemporary culture can be considered strictly
iconophobic. The cinema is present in all of them, surrounded
by its visual offspring.
Yet, on this planet of multiplied images, women still do not have
power, and the gaze that contemplates them, even when it is female,
is still slanted. It is like looking at oneself in a mirror that reects
another mirror, for this resounding triumph of the eroticism of
depiction has done little so far to change the aporias embraced
by the old discourse. Only the format has changed, while the gurative
catalogue and the forms are practically the same. Women are still
being scrutinised by a foreign gaze, or at least one not entirely theirs,
which does not know how to classify them, which only sees them
because it knows it must. The hands are still ready and the images
are jostling to get out. Great things are yet to come.
323
List of Works
Cat. 1
Gaston Lachaise
Heroic Woman, 1932
Bronze, 224.8 x 104.3 x 48.4 cm.
The Lachaise Foundation,
Boston, MA, Inv. no.: LF 92
Cat. 10
Jules Breton
The Shepherds Star, 1887
Oil on canvas, 102.8 x 78.7 cm.
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo (Ohio).
Gift of Arthur J. Secor, Inv. no.: 1922.41
Alone
Cat. 11
Jules Breton
Gleaners at the Sunset, 1863
Prez Simn Collection, Mexico
Cat. 2
Anselm Feuerbach
Iphigenia (Second Version), 1871
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart
Cat. 3
Solitude, 1890
Oil on canvas, 168 x 79 cm.
Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldenale
Cat. 4
Penelope, 1909
Bronze, 120 x 43 x 37 cm.
Petit Palais-Muse des Beaux-Arts
de la Ville de Paris
Cat. 5
Edvard Munch
Evening, 1888
Oil on canvas, 75 x 100.5 cm.
Inv. no.: 689 (1967.7)
Cat. 6
Edward Hopper
Hotel Room, 1931
Inv. no.: 509 (1977.110)
Cat. 7
Sarah Jones
Camilla (III), 1999
C-print on aluminium, 149.86 x 149.86 cm.
Laura Steinberg & B. Nadal-Ginard Collection
Caryatids
Cat. 8
The Reaper, 1872
Cat. 9
Francisco de Goya
The Water-Carrier, 1810
Szpmuvszeti Mzeum, Budapest, Inv. no.: 760
Cat. 12
Jules Breton
At the Fountain, 1892
Muse des Beaux-Arts de Quimper
Collection, Inv. no.: 55-78
Cat. 13
Janine Antoni
Caryatid (Terra Cotta Amphora), 2003
Photograph and broken vessel installation.
Photograph: 231.1 x 74.9 cm.;
Vessel: 48.3 x 40.6 x 35.6 cm.
Courtesy of the artist and Luhring
Augustine, New York
Cat. 14
Jules Breton
Dawn, 1896
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh;
Gift of Sarah Mellon Scaife and
Richard King Mellon in memory of
their mother, Jennie King Mellon,
Inv. no.: 40.5.3
Cat. 15
Camille Pissarro
Peasant Woman Carrying two
Bundles of Hay, 1883
Dallas Museum of Art, Gift of the
Meadows Foundation, incorporated,
Inv. no.: 1981.132
Maenads
Cat. 18
Bacchante on a Panther, 1855
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest
of Noah L. Butkin, Inv. no.: 1980.238.2
Cat. 19
Exhausted Maenads after the Dance, 1874
Oil on canvas, 59.1 x 132 cm.
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Cat. 20
Charles Gleyre
Pentheus, Hunted by the Maenads, c. 1865
Kunstmuseum Basel
Cat. 21
mile Lvy
Death of Orpheus, 1866
Muse dOrsay, Paris
Cat. 22
Mary Cassatt
Bacchante, 1872
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,
Philadelphia
Cat. 23
Auguste Rodin
Iris, Messenger of the Gods (Flying Figure),
189091
Bronze, 83.3 x 87 x 36 cm.
Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel,
Inv. no.: 89.9
Cat. 24
Lovis Corinth
Bacchantes Returning Home, 1898
Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal,
Inv. no.: G 0212
Cat. 15
Kazimir Malevich
Girl with a Red Pole, 193233
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow
Cat. 25
Nancy Spero
Untitled, 1984
Acrylic on paper, 46 x 58 cm.
Hall Collection, Inv. no.: SPERONA04.01
Cat. 17
Maruja Mallo
The Net, 1938
Private Collection, courtesy Galera
Guillermo de Osma, Madrid
Cat. 26
Nancy Spero
Maenad, 1999
Mixed media on paper, 50.2 x 62.2 cm.
Galera Pilar Serra, Madrid, and
Galerie Lelong, Paris
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List of Works
Cat. 27
Nancy Spero
The Goddess Nut II, 1990
5 panels. Handprinting and collage on paper,
213.4 x 279.4 cm. (total measure)
Courtesy of the Estate of Nancy Spero
and Galerie Lelong, New York,
Inv. no.: GL7092
Cat. 35
James Tissot
The Ladies of the Chariots, 188385
Gift of Mr Walter Lowry. Museum of Art,
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence,
Inv. no.: 58.186
Armour
Cat. 28
Pipilotti Rist
Ever is Over All, 1997
Audio and video
View of the installation at the National
Gallery for Foreign Art, Soa.
Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Athletes
Cat. 29
Guido Reni
Atalanta and Hippomenes, 161819
Museo di Capodimonte, Naples,
Inv. no.: Q-349
Cat. 36
Peter Paul Rubens
Joan of Arc, c. 1620 and after 1640
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North
Carolina. Purchased with funds from the State
of North Carolina and gift of the North Carolina
State Art Society (Robert F. Phifer Bequest),
Inv. no.: 52.9.111
Cat. 37
Joan of Arc, 1882
Oil on panel, 52.7 x 45.7 cm.
Lent by the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge, Inv. no.: 685
Cat. 43
Pallas Athena, c. 165559
Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon,
Inv. no.: 1488
Cat. 44
Tanya Marcuse
Undergarments and Armor Series, 20024
6 photographs. Platinum and palladium prints,
9.53 x 12.07 cm. (each)
Julie Saul Gallery, New York
Amazons
Cat. 45
Edgar Degas
Spartan Girls Challenging Boys, c. 1860
The National Gallery, London. Bought,
1924, Inv. no.: NG3860
Cat. 46
William Roberts
Combat, 1966
Royal Academy of Arts, London
Cat. 30
Peter Paul Rubens
Diana the Huntress, c. 1620
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid,
Inv. no.: P1727
Cat. 38
Eugne Delacroix
Erminia and the Shepherds, 1859
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
Cat. 31
Nicolas Colombel
Atalanta and Hippomenes, 1680
Sammlungen des Frsten von und
zu Liechtenstein, Vaduz-Vienna
Cat. 39
Domenico Tintoretto
Tancred Baptizing Clorinda, c. 15851600
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
The Samuel H. Kress Collection,
Inv. no.: 61.77
Cat. 32
Robert Mapplethorpe
Lisa Lyon, 1982
Gelatin silver print, 61 x 61 cm.
The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation,
New York
Cat. 40
Marina Abramovic
Virgin Warrior Piet (with Jan Fabre), 2005
Cibachrome print, 200 x 125 cm.
Courtesy & collection Arsfutura-Serge
Le Borgne, Paris
Cat. 33
The Fair Toxopholites, 1872
Royal Albert Memorial Museum
& Art Gallery, Exeter
Cat. 41
Peter Nicolai Arbo
Valkyria, 1865
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
Cat. 50
Franz von Stuck
Wounded Amazon, 1904
Galerie Katharina BttikerArt Nouveau-Art Dco
Cat. 42
Franz von Stuck
Pallas Athena, 1898
Oil on panel, 77 x 69.5 cm.
Museum Georg Schfer,
Schweinfurt
Cat. 51
AES+F
Last Riot 2. Tondo 23, 2007
Digital print, digital collage on canvas,
diameter: 150 cm.
Triumph Gallery, Moscow
Cat. 34
Greek Girls Playing at Ball, c. 1889
East Ayrshire Council, Scotland
Cat. 47
Hilary Harkness
Gallic Beauties of Yesteryear, 2001
Courtesy Mary Boone Gallery, New York
Cat. 48
Franz von Stuck
Amazon, c. 1903
Bronze, 65 x 50 x 17.5 cm.
Private Collection, Munich
Cat. 49
Franz von Stuck
Amazon and Centaur, 1912
Private Collection
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Cat. 52
Francisco de Goya
Y son eras. Los desastres de la guerra
Series, 5, 1863
Etching, aquatint, dry point, burin and
burnisher on paper, 24 x 31.5 cm.
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando,
Calcografa Nacional, Madrid, Inv. no.: 3855
Cat. 53
Francisco de Goya
Qu valor! Los desastres de la guerra
Series, 7, 1863
Etching, aquatint, dry point, burin and
burnisher on paper, 24 x 31.5 cm.
Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando,
Calcografa Nacional, Madrid, Inv. no.: 3857
Cat. 54
Cristina Lucas
Shot of La Libert Raisonne, 2009
Video HD, 4 18
Courtesy Cristina Lucas and Galera Juana
de Aizpuru
Cat. 55
Nancy Floyd
A1C Ashley-Ann Cady with M24 Remington 700
Bolt Action Rie, Moody Air Force Base, Valdosta,
Georgia, 2006
C-print, 88.9 x 88.9 cm.
Nancy Floyd
Cat. 56
Rineke Dijkstra
Israel Portraits, Induction Center B Tel
Hashomer, April 12, 1999
C-print, 126 x 107 cm.
Courtesy Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
Cat. 57
Eleanor Antin
Judgement of Paris (After Rubens) Light
Helen from Helens Odyssey, 2007
Chromogenic print, 93.98 x 182.88 cm.
Courtesy Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York
www.feldmangallery.com
Cat. 58
Mona Hatoum
Over my Dead Body, 19882002
Inkjet on PVC, 204.5 x 305 cm.
Courtesy White Cube Mona Hatoum
Cat. 59
Renee Cox
Eruption, 1998
Cibachrome mounted on alluminium,
101.6 x 152.4 cm.
Renee Cox
Cat. 60
Marina Abramovic
The Hero II, 2008
Warm tone silver gelatin print, 100 x 100 cm.
Courtesy & collection Arsfutura-Serge
Le Borgne, Paris
Cat. 61
Jean-Jacques Scherrer
The Entry of Joan of Arc into Orleans, c. 1887
Muse des Beaux-Arts, Orleans, Inv. no.: 791
Cat. 69
Emil Nolde
Priestesses, 1912
Neue Galerie, New York
Cat. 70
Kiki Smith
Woman Kneeling on a Pyre II, 2001
Bronze and silica bronze,
94 x 151.4 x 67 cm. + wooden base
Courtesy of the artist and The Pace
Gallery, Inv. no.: 34185.03
Sorceresses
Cat. 62
Dosso Dossi
Circe and her Lovers in a Landscape, c. 1525
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Samuel
H. Kress Collection, Inv. no.: 1943.4.49
Cat. 63
Dosso Dossi
Circe, c. 1531
Museo Galleria di Villa Borghese, Rome
Cat. 64
The Magic Circle, 1886
Tate, London. Presented by the Trustees
of the Chantrey Bequest 1886, Inv. no.: N01572
Cat. 65
The Lady of Shalott, 1894
Cat. 66
Circe Offering the Cup to Ulysses, 1891
Oldham Art Gallery
Cat. 67
The Crystal Ball, 1902
Martyrs
Cat. 71
Caravaggio
Saint Catherine of Alexandria, c. 1597
Inv. no.: 81(1934.37)
Cat. 72
Caspar de Crayer
The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine,
c. 1622
Muse de Grenoble
Cat. 73
Saint Eulalia, 1885
Tate, London: Presented by
Sir Henry Tate 1894, Inv. no.: N01542
Cat. 74
Antoine-Jean Gros
Sappho, 1801
Muse Baron Grard-Bayeux
Collection, Inv. no.: P0023
Cat. 75
Andrea Gastaldi
Sappho, 1872
Galleria Civica Torino-GAM,
Turin
Mystics
Cat. 68
Evelyn de Morgan
Medea, 1889
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum,
Birkenhead; Wirral Museums Service,
Inv. no.: BIKGM=2251
Cat. 76
Ferdinand Hodler
Song in the Distance, c. 1917
Kunsthaus Zrich, Gift of
Alfred Rtschi, 1919
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List of Works
Cat. 77
Ferdinand Hodler
Joyous Woman, 1909
Private Collection, Switzerland
Cat. 78
Ferdinand Hodler
View into Innity, 1915
Private Collection, Dallas
Cat. 79
Marina Abramovic
The Kitchen I. Homage to Saint Therese, 2009
BESart-Coleco Banco Esprito Santo
Cat. 80
Green Dress, 2009
Courtesy of the artist and Cmara
Oscura Galera de Arte, Madrid
Cat. 81
Bamboo, 2008
Cat. 82
Fern, 2008
Cat. 83
Mirror, 2008
Readers
Cat. 84
Ambrosius Benson
Mary Magdalene Reading, c. 1530
Oil on oak panel, 46 x 37 cm.
Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca dOro, Venice
Cat. 85
Francisco de Goya
Reading, 181922
Lithograph. Pencil, paintbrush and scraper
on laid paper, 17.2 x 24.7 cm.
Fundacin Lzaro Galdiano, Madrid,
Inv. no.: 11609
Cat. 86
Onorio Marinari
Saint Catherine Reading a Book
Sammlungen des Frsten von und
zu Liechtenstein, Vaduz-Vienna
Cat. 95
Henri Matisse
Woman Reading, 1895
Oil on panel, 61.5 x 48 cm.
Centre Georges Pompidou. Muse National
dArt Moderne/ Centre de cration industrielle,
Paris, Inv. no.: AM 3968 P
Cat. 87
Girl Reading, 1828
1916 Geschenk von Max Heilpern. Museum
der Bildenden Knste, Leipzig, Inv. no.: 1086
Cat. 96
Gerhard Richter
Reading, 1994
Oil on linen, 72.39 x 101.92 cm.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
Cat. 88
The Reading, 1829
Muse des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, Inv. no.: 1182
Cat. 97
Anni Leppl
Reading, 2010
C-print mounted on aluminium, 32 x 42.5 cm.
Anni Leppl, in possesion of the artist
Cat. 89
Antoine Wiertz
The Reader of Novels, 1853
Muses Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique,
Brussels, Inv. no.: 1971
Women Painters
Cat. 90
Henri Fantin-Latour
Muse dOrsay, Paris
Cat. 91
Winslow Homer
Portrait of Helena de Kay, c. 1872
Oil on panel, 31 x 47 cm.
Inv. no.: 591(19 38.25)
Cat. 92
Mary Cassatt
Lydia Reading the Morning Paper (no. 1), 187879
Oil on canvas, mounted on balsa and masonite
panel, 81.28 x 59.69 cm.
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE; Museum
purchase, Inv. no.: JAM1943.28
Cat. 98
Lucia Anguissola
Portrait of Sofonisba Anguissola, 156065
Oil on panel, 12.4 x 9 cm.
Private Collection, New York
Cat. 99
Self-Portrait Painting the Madonna, 1556
Muzeum Zamek w ancucie, Lancut
Cat. 100
Barbara Longhi
Self-Portrait as Saint Catherine, c. 1580
Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna
Cat. 101
Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, c. 163839
The Royal Collection, Windsor, Inv. no.:
RCIN 405551
Cat. 93
Albert Anker
Young Girl Reading, c. 1882
Muse des Beaux-Arts, Le Locle
Cat. 102
Rosalba Carriera
Self-Portrait, 173031
Pastel on paper, 40 x 29 cm.
ASL9 Grosseto, Comune de Castel del Piano
(GR)-Sistema Museale Amiata (Comunit
Montana Amiata Grossetano)
Cat. 94
douard Vuillard
Mrs Hessel Wearing a Red Dress, Reading,
c. 1905
Oil on board, 39.5 x 36.6 cm.
Private Collection, Paris
Cat. 103
Mary Beale
Self-Portrait, c. 1675
St Edmundsbury Heritage Service, St Edmundsbury,
Inv. no.: 1993.35
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Cat. 104
Angelica Kauffmann
National Portrait Gallery, London
Cat. 109
Marie Bashkirtseff
Self-Portrait with Palette, 1884
Muse des Beaux-Arts Collection, Nice
Cat. 114
Charley Toorop
Gemeentemuseum, The Hague
Cat. 105
Angelica Kauffmann
Drawing, c. 177880
Royal Academy of Arts, London
Cat. 110
Berthe Morisot
Self-Portrait, 1885
Muse Marmottan-Monet, Paris, Inv. no.: MT15673
Cat. 115
Lee Krasner
Oil on linen, 76.5 x 63.8 cm.
The Jewish Museum, Nueva York,
Inv. no.: 2008-32
Cat. 106
Angelica Kauffmann
Self-Portrait, 1787
Galleria degli Ufzi, Florence
Cat. 111
Self-Portrait, 1900
Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki
Cat. 107
Self-Portrait, 1791
Oil on panel
Galleria degli Ufzi, Florence
Cat. 112
Gabriele Mnter
Oil on board, 49 x 33.6 cm.
Inv. no.: 688 (1985.17)
Cat. 108
Marie Bashkirtseff
In the Studio, 1881
The Dnipropetrovsk Museum of Art,
St Dnipropetrovsk
Cat. 116
Frida Kahlo
Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and
Hummingbird, 1940
Oil on canvas on masonite, 62.2 x 48.3 cm.
Harry Ransom Center, The University of
Texas at Austin (Nickolas Muray Collection)
Cat. 113
Charley Toorop
Rijskmuseum Krller-Mller, Otterlo
329
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Bibliografa seleccionada
Bonnie S. Anderson y Judith P. Zinser: Historia

de las mujeres. Una historia propia. Barcelona,
Crtica, 2009.
Apolodoro: Biblioteca mitolgica. Madrid, Alianza,
Biblioteca Temtica, 2004. Traduccin introduccin
y notas de Julia Garca Moreno.
Uta Grosenick (ed.): Mujeres artistas de los

siglos XX y XXI. Colonia, Taschen, 2002.
Homero: Odisea. Madrid, Alianza, 2005.
Traduccin y prlogo de Carlos Garca Gual.
Erika Bornay: Mujeres de la Biblia en la pintura

del Barroco. Madrid, Ctedra, 1999.
Teresa Langle de Paz: Cuerpo o intelecto?

La respuesta femenina al debate sobre la mujer
en la Espaa del XVII. Mlaga, Universidad de
Mlaga, 2004.
Erika Bornay: Las hijas de Lilith. 7 ed. Madrid,

Ctedra, 2010.
Reina Lewis: Gendering Orientalism: Race, Feminity

and Representation. Londres, Routledge, 1996.
Frances Borzello: Seeing Ourselves: Womens SelfPortraits. Nueva York, Harry N. Abrams, 1998.
Patricia Mayayo: Historias de mujeres, historias

del arte. Madrid, Ctedra, 2003.
Norma Broude y Mary Garrard (eds.): The

Expanding Discourse. Feminism and Art History.
Nueva York, Harper Collins, 1992.
Lynda Nead: El desnudo femenino. Arte,

obscenidad y sexualidad. Madrid, Tecnos, 1998.
Whitney Chadwick: Mujer, arte y sociedad.

Barcelona, Destino, 1999.
Victoria Combala: Amazonas con pincel. Barcelona,
Destino, 2006.
Jacqueline Duchemin (ed.): Pindare, Pythiques III,
IX, IV, V. Pars, Presses Universitaires de France,
Collection rasme, 1967.
Esquilo, Sfocles y Eurpides: Esquilo, Sfocles
y Eurpides. Obras completas. Madrid, Ctedra,
Biblioteca urea, 2004.
Mary D. Garrard: Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image
of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art. Princeton,
Princeton University Press, 1989.
Linda Nochlin: Women, Art, and Power, and Other

Essays. Nueva York, Harper and Row, 1988.
Linda Nochlin y Ann Sutherland Harris:
Women Artists. 1550-1950. Los ngeles,
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1977.
Ricardo Olmos: Una lectura femenina de la Odisea.
En Paloma Cabrera y Ricardo Olmos (coords.):
Sobre la Odisea. Visiones desde el mito y la
arqueologa. Madrid, Ediciones Polifemo, 2003.
Roszika Parker y Griselda Pollock: Old Mistresses.
Women, Art, and Ideology. Londres, Harper Collins,
1981.
Griselda Pollock: Vision and Difference: Femininity,
Feminism, and the Histories of Art. Londres,
Routledge, 1988.
Catherine Gonnard y Elizabeth Lebovici: Femmes

artistes, artistes femmes. Paris, de 1800 nos jours.
Pars, Hazan, 2007.
Helena Reckitt y Peggy Phelan: Art and Feminism.

Londres, Phaidon, 2001.
Germain Greer: La carrera de obstculos. Vida

y obra de las pintoras antes de 1950. Madrid,
Bercimuel, 2005.
Randy Rosen y Catherine C. Brawer: Making their

Mark. Women Artists Move into the Mainstream,
197085. Nueva York, Abbeville Press, 1989.
331
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Crditos fotogrcos
Alemania
Berln
Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, photo: Ingrid Geske
2011. Photo Scala, Florence / BPK, Bildagentur
fuer Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin: g. 34
Bremen
Kunstsammlungen Bttcherstrasse, Paula
Modersohn-Becker Museum: g. 29
Leipzig
Museum der Bildende Knste bpk / Ursula
Gerstenberger: cat. 87, colofn
Schweinfurt
Museum Georg Schfer: cat. 42
Stuttgart
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart: detalle de p. 98, cat. 2
Wuppertal
Von der Heydt-Museum: cat. 24
Austria
Viena
Liechtenstein Museum: cats. 31, 86
Blgica
Bruselas
Muses Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique: cat. 89
Espaa
Madrid
Calcografa Nacional: cats. 52, 53
Cmara Oscura Galera de Arte: detalle de pp. 5051, cat. 83
Fundacin Lzaro Galdiano: cat. 85
Cortesa de la Galera Guillermo de Osma: detalle
de pp. 102-103, cat. 17
Museo Nacional del Prado: gs. 37, 38, 39, 40,
detalle de p. 162, cat. 30
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. Fotografa:
Hlne Desplechin: detalles de pp. 20 y 38, p. 22,
cats. 5, 6, 71, 91, 112
San Lorenzo de El Escorial / Archivo fotogrco
Oronoz: g. 24
Hartford
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art / Art
Resource, NY / Scala, Florence: g. 27
Houston
MFAH-The Museum of Fine Arts: cat. 39
Nueva York
Copyright by Guerrilla Girls. Courtesy
www.guerrillagirls.com: g. 1
2011. Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art,
New York / Scala, Florence: g. 41
Neue Galerie New York: cat. 69
The Jewish Museum / Art Resource / Scala,
Florence. Photo by Richard Goobody, Inc.: cat. 115
The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Art Resource /
Scala, Florence: g. 26
The Pace Gallery Kiki Smith / Photography
by Ellen Page Wilson: cat. 70
Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art
Collection of the Brooklyn Museum. Photo
Donald Woodman: g. 16
Omaha
Joslyn Art Museum: cat. 92
Pittsburgh
Photograph 2010 Carnegie Museum of Art,
Pittsburgh: cat. 14
Austin
Harry Ransom Center, Harry Ransom Humanities
Research Center. The University of Texas at Austin:
cat. 116
Boston
The Lachaise Foundation: cat. 1
Cleveland
The Cleveland Museum of Art: detalle de p. 142,
cat. 18
Dallas
Dallas Museum of Art: cat. 15
Grecia
Pella
Museo Arqueolgico, The Bridgeman Art Library:
g. 3
Raleigh
North Carolina Museum of Art: cat. 36
Hungra
Toledo
Toledo Museum of Art, Image Source, Toledo: cat. 10
Budapest
Szpmuvszeti Mzeum: cat. 9
Washington
National Gallery of Art: detalle de p. 91, cat. 62
Italia
Finlandia
Bolonia
Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna, Archivio
Fotograco Soprintendenza BSAE Bologna:
cat. 100
Helsinki
Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Gallery,
Central Art Archives, Kari Soinio: cat. 111
Bayeux
Muse Baron Grard RMN / Jean Popovitch:
p. 41 derecha, cat. 74
Burdeos
Muse dAquitaine Mairie de Bordeaux, photo
L. Gauthier: g. 36
Grenoble
Muse de Grenoble: cat. 72
Nantes
Muse des Beaux-Arts de Nantes RMN / Grard
Blot: cat. 88
Filadela
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts: cat. 22
Niza
Muse des Beaux-Arts, photo Muriel Anssens:
detalle de p. 113, cat. 110
Goldenale
Collection of Maryhill Museum of Art: detalle
de p. 84, cat. 3
Orleans
Muse des Beaux-Arts dOrlans, photo
Franois Lauginie: cat. 61
0901thyssen_332-336#.indd 332
Quimper
Muse des Beaux-Arts: cat. 12
Providence
The Rhode Island School of Design Museum,
Photography by Erik Gould: p. 28 y cat. 35
Francia
Estados Unidos
Pars
Bibliothque nationale de France / Giraudon / The
Bridgeman Art Library: g. 5
Centre Georges Pompidou / Muse national dart
modern Collection Centre Pompidou, Dist.
RMN / Jacqueline Hyde: cat. 261
Collection Arsfutura-Serge Le Borgne: cubierta,
cats. 40, 60
Muse du Louvre
RMN / Grard Blot / Christian Jean: g. 6
RMN / Les frres Chuzeville: g. 33
RMN / Jean Schormans: g. 2
2011. Photo Scala, Florence: g. 28
Muse dOrsay
RMN (Muse dOrsay) / Grard Blot: g. 7
RMN (Muse dOrsay) / Herv Lewandowski:
p. 45, cat. 90
RMN (Muse dOrsay) / Konstantinos Ignatiadis:
cat. 21
Muse-Marmottan Monet: detalle de p. 74, cat. 110
Petit Palais-Muse des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de
Paris Petit Palais / Roger-Viollet: cat. 4
Grosseto
ASL9 Grosseto, comune de Castel del Piano
(GR) Sistema Museale Amiata (Comunit
Montana Amiata Grossetano): cat. 102
Florencia
Galleria degli Ufzi / Instituti museali della
Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale
Fiorentino: p. 48, cats. 106, 107
Miln
Pinacoteca di Brera, Alinari / The Bridgeman
Art Library: g. 10
Npoles
Museo Archeologico Nazionale 2011. Photo
Scala, Florence / Luciano Romano courtesy
of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali: g. 35
Museo di Capodimonte: 2011. Photo Scala,
Florence courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Attivit
Culturali: g. 21
Per gentile concessione della Fototeca della
Soprintendenza per il PSPAE e per il Polo Museale
della Citt di Napoli: detalle de pp. 80-81, cat. 29
22/02/11 9:01
Roma
Museo Galleria di Villa Borghese: 2011. Photo
Scala, Florence courtesy of the Ministero Beni
e Attivit Culturali: g. 23
Maria Castellino Archivio Fotograco Soprintendenza Speciale per il Patrimonio Storico, Artistico
ed Etnoantropologico e per il Polo Museale della
citt di Roma: cat. 63
Museos Vaticanos / Photo Scala, Florence: g. 31
Siena
Pinacoteca Nazionale / 2011. Photo Scala,
Florence courtesy of the Ministero Beni
e Attivit Culturali: g. 25
Turn
Galleria Civica dArte Moderna e Contemporanea
di Torino: cat. 75
Venecia
Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca dOro:
cat. 84
Mxico
Mxico D. F.
Coleccin Prez-Simn: cats. 8, 11, 67, detalle
de p. 214
Pases Bajos
Amsterdam
Van Gogh Museum: cat. 19
La Haya
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag: cat. 114
Otterlo
Rijksmuseum Krller-Mller: cat. 113
Polonia
Lancut
Muzeum Zamek w ancucie: cat. 267
Portugal
Lisboa
BESart Coleco Banco Esprito Santo:
p. 12, cat. 79
Fundao Calouste Gulbenkian: detalle
de p. 176, cat. 43
Reino Unido
Birkenhead
Williamson Art Gallery and Museum: detalle
de p. 94, cat. 68
Birmingham
Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery /
The Bridgeman Art Library: g. 8
St. Edmundsbury
St. Edmundsbury Heritage Service: cat. 103
Cambridge
The Fitzwilliam Museum: contracubierta,
p. 2, cat. 37
Dumfriesshire
Drumlanrig Castle / The Bridgeman Art
Library: g. 13
0901thyssen_332-336#.indd 333
Exeter
Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery:
cat. 33
Falmouth
Falmouth Art Gallery: cat. 65
Kilmarnock
East Ayrshire Council: cat. 34
Londres
British Library / 2011. Photo Scala Florence /
Heritage Images: gs. 18 y 19
National Portrait Gallery: g. 30, detalle de
p. 264, cat. 104
Royal Academy of Arts: cat. 105; photographer:
John Hammond: cat. 46
Royal Collection: cat. 101
Tate National: p. 40 izquierda, cats. 64, 73, detalle
de p. 228
The National Gallery: detalle de pp. 14-15,
p. 33 abajo, cat. 43; The Bridgeman Art Library:
gs. 4, 9, 22
Oldham
Oldham Art Gallery: cat. 66
Oxford
Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, UK /
The Bridgeman Art Library: g. 32
Yorkshire
Nostell Priory / National Trust Photographic
Library / John Hammond / The Bridgeman
Art Library: g. 14
Varios
Marina Abramovic: cubierta, detalle
de pp. 12, 31, 190, cats. 40, 60, 79
AES+F: cat. 51
Eleanor Antin: cat. 57
Janine Antoni: cat. 13
Renee Cox: cat. 59
Patricia Cronin: g. 20
Rineke Dijkstra: cat. 56
Nancy Floyd, courtesy of Solomon
Projects: cat. 55
Julia Fullerton-Batten: detalle
de p. 236, cats. 80, 81, 82, 83
Hilary Harkness: cat. 47
Mona Hatoum: cat. 58
Sarah Jones, courtesy Anton Kern
Gallery, New York and Maureen Paley,
London: detalle de p. 118, cat. 7
Anni Leppl: detalle de p. 246, cat. 97
Cristina Lucas: cat. 54
Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.
Used by permission: cat. 32
Tanya Marcuse: cat. 44
Gerhard Richter: cat. 96
Pipilotti Rist / Photo by Angel
Tzvetanov: cat. 28
Kiki Smith / Photography by Ellen
Page Wilson: cat. 70
Nancy Spero: cats. 25, 26, 27
Rusia
Mosc
State Tretyakov Gallery: detalle de p. 128,
cat. 16
Suecia
Estocolmo
Moderna Museet / Hans Hammarskild: g. 15
Nationalmuseum: cats. 38, 41
Suiza
Basilea
Kunstmuseum Basel: cat. 20
Fondation Beyeler / Robert Bayer, Basel:
cat. 23
Berna
Kunstmuseum Gottfried Keller-Stiftung,
Winterthur: g. 12
Le Locle
Muse des Beaux-Arts: cat. 93
Zrich
Galerie Katharina Bttiker Art Nouveau-Art
Dec: cat. 50
Kunsthaus Zrich: p. 43 derecha, cat. 76
Ucrania
St. Dnipropetrovsk
The Dnipropetrovsk Museum of Art: cat. 108
22/02/11 9:01
Exposicin
Catlogo
Comisario
Guillermo Solana
Edita
Fundacin Caja Madrid
Coordinadora de la exposicin
Laura Andrada
Coordinacin Fundacin Caja Madrid
Josena Blanca
Paloma Martn
Registro
Puricacin Ripio
Montaje, produccin y difusin
Diseo grco y sealizacin
Snchez / Lacasta
Coordinacin editorial
Departamento de Publicaciones
del Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza
Ana Cela
Catali Garrigues
ngela Villaverde
Traduccin
Nigel Williams (textos de Guillermo Solana,
Roco de la Villa y Carmen Gallardo)
Art in Translation (texto de Amelia Valcrcel)
Diseo grco
Snchez / Lacasta
Adela Morn
Preimpresin
Lucam
Impresin
Brizzolis
Encuadernacin
Ramos
de la edicin: Fundacin
Coleccin Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 2011
de los textos: sus autores
de las traducciones: Nigel Williams y Art in
Translation, 2011
de las fotografas: vanse crditos fotogrcos
Eleanor Antin
Janine Antoni
Renee Cox
Rineke Dijkstra
Nancy Floyd
Guerrilla Girls
Hilary Harkness
Mona Hatoum
Sarah Jones
Reproduced with permission of The Estate Dame
Laura Knight DBE RA 2011. All Rights Reserved
Barbara Kruger
Gaston Lachaise
Anni Leppl
Cristina Lucas
Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation
Tanya Marcuse
Nolde Stiftung Seebll
Gerhard Richter 2011
Pipilotti Rist
William Roberts
Kiki Smith
[2011] Banco de Mxico Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo
Museums Trust, Mxico, D.F./ VEGAP, Madrid
The Estate of Nancy Spero. VEGAP, Madrid, 2011
Maruja Mallo, Marina Abramovic, AES +F, douard
Vuillard, Charley Toorop, Lee Krasner, Judy Chicago,
Niki de Saint-Phalle, Gabriele Mnter. VEGAP,
Madrid, 2011
Succession H. Matisse / VEGAP / 2011
The Munch Museum / The Munch-Ellingsen
Group. VEGAP, Madrid, 2011
Sucesin Pablo Picasso. VEGAP, Madrid, 2011
El Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza ha tratado de localizar a los propietarios de los derechos de todas las obras artsticas
reproducidas. Pedimos disculpas a todos aquellos que nos ha sido imposible contactar.
Todos los derechos reservados.
Esta publicacin no puede ser reproducida ni en todo ni en parte, registrada, ni transmitida por un sistema de recuperacin
de informacin en ninguna forma ni por ningn medio, sea mecnico, fotoqumico, electrnico, por fotocopia o cualquier
otro, sin el permiso previo por escrito de la Fundacin Coleccin Thyssen-Bornemisza.
Fotografa de cubierta: Marina Abramovic, El hroe II, 2008 [cat. 60]
Fotografa de contracubierta y de p. 2: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Juana de Arco, 1882 [cat. 37]
ISBN: 978-84-15113-02-7
D.L.: M-9192-2011
0901thyssen_332-336#.indd 334
22/02/11 9:01
Este catlogo, realizado

con motivo de la exposicin
Heronas,
se termin de imprimir
en febrero de 2011
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Heronas

El Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza desea expresar su

ngeles Gonzlez-Sinde Reig

Rodrigo de Rato Figaredo

agradecimiento a las siguientes personas e instituciones

as como a todos los prestadores que han preferido

Baronesa Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza

Enedina lvarez Gayol

por su especial ayuda y colaboracin en este proyecto,

Juan Jos Azcona Olndriz

AES+F, Marina Abramovic, Ruth Addison, Joree

Francisco Baquero Noriega

S.A.R. la Infanta Doa Pilar de Borbn

Pedro Bedia Prez

Mercedes del Palacio

Luis Blasco Bosqued

ngeles Albert de Len

Carmen Cafranga Cavestany

Carlos Ocaa Prez de Tudela

Arturo Fernndez lvarez

Jack F. Becker, Neal Benezra, Efran Bernal, Dirk Boll,

Sir Norman Rosenthal

Jos Manuel Fernndez Norniella (Vicepresidente)

Serge Le Borgne, David R. Brugham, Christian Bhrle,

Archiduquesa Francesca von Habsburg-Lothringen

Jorge Gmez Moreno

Katharina Bttiker, Olivier Camu, Andr Cariou, Joo

Miguel Satrstegui Gil-Delgado

Javier Lpez Madrid

Castel-Branco Pereira, Marie P. Charles, Blandine

Guillermo R. Marcos Guerrero

Chavanne, Gilles Chazal, Claudia Cremonini, Guy

Rodrigo de Rato Figaredo

Jos Ricardo Martnez Castro

Cogeval, Anna Coliva, Caroline Collier, Alexandra

Mara Corral Lpez Driga

Mercedes de la Merced Monge

Conde, Renee Cox, Keith Cunliffe, Juan Curto,

Jos Antonio Moral Santn (Vicepresidente)

Batrice Debrabandre, Melanie Dnakbar, Michel

Ignacio Navasqes Cobin

Draguet, Susan Dunne, Danilo Eccher, Andrea Emiliani,

Jess Pedroche Nieto

gueda Beatriz Esteban, Gerhard Finckh, Nancy Floyd,

Jos Mara de la Riva Amez

Susan Fuld, Julia Fullerton-Batten, Adam Geary, Steven

Estanislao Rodrguez-Ponga y Salamanca

L. Grafe, Deborah Gribbon, Stphanie Guex, Andrew

Miguel ngel Recio Crespo

Mercedes Rojo Izquierdo

J. Hall, Hilary Harkness, Mona Hatoum, Wolfgang

Ricardo Romero de Tejada y Picatoste

Heilmann, Regina Heilmann-Thon, Elena Hernando

Virgilio Zapatero Gmez (Vicepresidente)

Gonzalo, Meredith Hilferty, Paula Hornbostel, Mark

Antin, Anton Kern Gallery, Janine Antoni, Christopher

Hughes, Jenkins Johnson Gallery NY, Sarah Jones,

Rosala Serrano Velasco

Adilman, Juana de Aizpuru, Mara Alonso, Eleanor

Roswitha Jufnger, Peggy Kaplan, Samuel Keller,

Miguel Crespo Rodrguez

Isabelle Klinka, Johann Krftner, Irina Lebedeva,

Lippincott, Cristina Lucas, Luhring Augustine Gallery,