The idea of feminist artwork has become a generally accepted notion within the last several decades due to the uprising of feminist artists and their refusal to be cast aside. The relationship that the visual and performance arts has to the art of literature is an obvious one and just like with all other creative fields, they feed off of one another. What is not so often thought of, however, is the relationship of contemporary feminist art and more historical literature. Looking at texts like Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and even Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly’s Vindication for the Rights of Man, one is able to draw direct parallels between those subtly feminist works and the pieces of early feminist art. Obviously, Virginia Woolf’s
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Thus, women had to create their own church; they had to create a room of their own. Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro created the Womanhouse for the purpose of worshipping the female mystique and the capabilities of females to contribute to the furthering of art and literature. The female artists were a congregation, living and worshipping the idea of the female in the holy church of the Womanhouse. They had paid their tithes to society by being marginalized and seen as less than and yet were still not allowed into the inner sanctum of validity as artists and contributors to their fields; “I had no wish to enter had I the right, and this time the verger might have stopped me, demanding perhaps my baptismal certificate, or a letter of introduction from the Dean…” …show more content…
Even the vessel in which Womanhouse was held required a certain level of forwardness and provided commentary on feminism. A house, where many women were still sequestered to do what a good woman should do and care for the home was, fittingly, the site of a shining moment in early feminist art. Womanhouse took a classic symbol of womanliness and allowed it to be filled with the true reality of being a female and the added struggles of being a female artist. Betty Friedan wrote in her now-famous work, The Feminine Mystique that, “No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor,” and Womanhouse explored just why that is. Womanhouse explored the societal expectations of females along with the freedom that women so desperately
Thus, women had to create their own church; they had to create a room of their own. Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro created the Womanhouse for the purpose of worshipping the female mystique and the capabilities of females to contribute to the furthering of art and literature. The female artists were a congregation, living and worshipping the idea of the female in the holy church of the Womanhouse. They had paid their tithes to society by being marginalized and seen as less than and yet were still not allowed into the inner sanctum of validity as artists and contributors to their fields; “I had no wish to enter had I the right, and this time the verger might have stopped me, demanding perhaps my baptismal certificate, or a letter of introduction from the Dean…” …show more content…
Even the vessel in which Womanhouse was held required a certain level of forwardness and provided commentary on feminism. A house, where many women were still sequestered to do what a good woman should do and care for the home was, fittingly, the site of a shining moment in early feminist art. Womanhouse took a classic symbol of womanliness and allowed it to be filled with the true reality of being a female and the added struggles of being a female artist. Betty Friedan wrote in her now-famous work, The Feminine Mystique that, “No woman gets an orgasm from shining the kitchen floor,” and Womanhouse explored just why that is. Womanhouse explored the societal expectations of females along with the freedom that women so desperately