Baillie Maternity

Baillie, (2011) argues that, it is possible to discuss the terms melancholy and maternity not only alongside psychoanalysis and feminism but also scrutinize the visual aspect. Melancholic female artist can be used to address the issues that affect women using their paintings. Most of them are inspired by the life experiences that they went through. Majority of them are haunted by the past unsustainable relationship and lost ideal where they lost the connection with their mother. Baillie completely disagrees with Robert Burton who was a scholar in the seventeenth century where he chose to discuss melancholy in the context of medicine, history and philosophy. Robert Burton on his works did not emphasize on the use of images to address the melancholy, …show more content…
Tracey Emin one of the re-known melancholy artist used her ideas on maternity as the main theme on many of her drawings. In one of her artworks she uses 24 blue line drawings which shows her body in an imaginary state of being pregnant. One images shows the mother wondering if she is the one who is pregnant and goes ahead to ask herself if she would be able to live with the thought of being pregnant. She exploits art to show how the women in the society handle pregnancy issues. It should be noted that, Tracey is inspired by her own childless state which has made her to express her ideas about pregnancy. More importantly, she shows how a mother prepares herself before finally giving birth. In one of paintings titled “feeling pregnant”, she shows a mother with crocheted clothes that she had saw as she was waiting to give birth. It should be noted that, all these are just imagination which are referred to as maternal fantasy. Artist have the power and influence to communicate about the maternal issues without prejudice. Fantasy pregnancy is one particular way that the pregnancy issues have been addressed by artists. In this case, the mother to child relationship becomes the final determinant factor in …show more content…
27) considers motherhood as a state of being in physical absorption coupled by psychic possession. This state can disturb the preconception of the mother in relation to the body. On the one hand, the artworks on pregnancy usually instill feelings of comfort as the person viewing the art is reminded of the times when there was high co-dependency. On the other hand, they bring feelings that there was loss during birth such that the original state of being pregnant cannot be reversed. Therefore, this implies that the portrait of Modersohn on her wedding day showed the circular cycle of life and the longing union of a mother who would wish to have the past experience of being pregnant. This is one effect that art has contributed to the maternal issues about the mothers. Many artworks on maternal issues have showed many sides of being pregnant. Expectedly, this has increased the awareness on some sections of women in the society. The result is that many people have been attracted to this because of the artistic nature. In the process of getting entertained mothers get a feeling of what being pregnant would mean to them. This is a very important step to a mother who is about conceiving