Mabel Dwight Summer's Night Analysis

Mabel Dwight’s Summer Night 1955 found in Gallery V of the Chazen Museum of Art, is a lithograph on 8 5/8 x 11 1/8 inches. This print represents an idealized representation of the feminist movement in the twentieth century. The shadows in the work are personified by two women like figures undressing and one man like figure standing by an open door. The light shining out of the windows and open door highlight the women’s undergarments which hang loosely in plain view by the man’s shadow. I argue that the chiaroscuro presented in this work creates a visual vocabulary of warmth and invitation which reflects the feminist conversation of the 1950s, and thus, advocates women 's rights of political, social, and economic equality to men. Mabel Dwight’s Summer’s Night evokes emotion by raising consciousness in order to make a political statement through the feminist art movement that sought to reflect women’s lives and experiences by highlighting issues of life around them.Feminism is the the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. In feminist art, the content became a dialogue. In this way feminists can identify issues, raise questions, provide new responses, reveal hidden dilemmas, and offer …show more content…
Mabel Dwight’s Summer’s Night, uses chiaroscuro to define, suggest, and expand the work of art by adding another layer of meaning through the illumination and contrast presented in the work. In addition, when looking through the feminist approach one question that arises is if a woman 's point of view is different than that of a man 's? If there is a difference, how does that difference influence the ways in which the two genders view the artwork? Another eminent question when looking through feminist lens is whether using a women’s autonomy in art is a way of restricting women to a biological identity or a way of releasing women from a man’s negative definitions of a