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Formalism and Contextualism: A Comparison of Prominent Female Portraits
By Kiersten Kerr
History and Criticism of Art (4373)
Due: March 2nd, 2008














Formalism and Contextualism: A Comparison of Prominent Female Portraits
In art theory formalism is the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form--the way it is made, its purely visual aspects and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content. In visual art, formalism is the concept that everything necessary in a work of art is contained within it. The context for the work, including the reason for its creation, the historical background, and the life of the artist, is considered to be of secondary importance. Formalism dominated modern art from the late 1800s through the 1960s.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_%28art%29)
Contextualism describes a collection of views in the philosophy of language which emphasize the context in which an action, utterance, or expression occurs, and argues that, in some important respect, the action, utterance, or expression can only be understood relative to that context. Contextualist views hold that philosophically controversial concepts, such as "meaning P," "knowing that P," "having a reason to A," and possibly even "being true" or "being right" only have meaning relative to a specified context. Some philosophers hold that context-dependence may lead to relativism; nevertheless, contextualist views are increasingly popular within philosophy. In ethics, "contextualist" views are most closely associated with situational ethics, or with moral relativism.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contextualism)
The prior paragraphs are definitions found from Wikipedia. They are the philosophies that are the backbone supporting the following analysis of Portraits accomplished by Artemisia Gentileschi, native of Rome and Caravaggio zealot, and Judith Leyster, Haarlem native and demure painter whose claim to fame is due to her quiet statements portrayed with domestic genre scenes. The times in which these women affected their work the politics, the oppression of their sex, and, of course, the religious environment all were put into their self-portraits. The execution of either piece will be examined in order to validate the form; the context of each piece will reflect their personal morality and their societal impressions.
The allegory of painting was often depicted during the Baroque period as a female figure, Pittura. In 1611 a coin was printed depicting Lavinia Fontana as the famous Pittura. The coin portrays having wild hair and being consumed with her work. The coin had an influential impact on Artemisia Gentileschi. She took that the icon a step further with her Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting. In Allegory, Artemisia depicts herself with disheveled hair and an intense concentration on her artwork. The talisman of a mask worn around her neck signifies imitation. She utilizes a feminist ideology as a painter in the role as Pittura with the portrayal of herself as both the artist and the muse.
The form of Artemisia’s self-portrait differs greatly from her other works, especially because she does not try to portray herself as beautiful, though some may consider her as such. It was her goal to portray the action of artistic creation rather than a decorative exploitation of her outer-aesthetic-beauty. She shows herself studying an unseen model with her hand poised over a blank canvas; this explains her thought process and demonstrates her skill rather. Rather than focus on compensation of her gender she demands the viewers’ attention to be focused on her abilities.
The same base colors are used in the actual painting as the burnt red base color on the blank canvas she is portraying. This reddish-brown is echoed in the bodice of her dress and complimented by the green of her puffed satin sleeves. She intentionally uses the green from the dress and uses it subtly and sparingly in the highlights on her neck and raised hand. This enhances the form. Her use of chiaroscuro is reminiscent of Caravaggio. The dark shades on the back of her dress blend into the reflected light off of her satin sleeves. Her pale flesh punctuates the near-center of the image, catching the eye.
Gentileschi’s self-portrait is very different from that of Judith Leyster in both form and context. Financially Leyster and her family did not enjoy the economic prosperity in the Netherlands that Gentileschi did in Italy. Leyster’s father was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1624 and she began to create paintings to sell on the open market. Between 1624 and 1630, Leyster was a pupil of Franz De Grebbers. It is also suspected that Leyster was an advanced student of Frans Hals, as her style shows his influence heavily.
In the Netherlands at the time, there was an economic boom due to the sale of tulip bulbs and women were allowed a greater independence. Leyster was a member of Haarlem’s Guild of St. Luke and by 1633 she was the only female member of the guild with her own studio.
Leyster showed herself in her c.1630 self-portrait as a well-dressed young woman, relaxed and happy in front of a partially finished painting. In addition to showing herself as a talented painter by holding several brushes, her intention was also to show that she was a competent painter. Her goal with showing competency was to acquire more commissions and thus make a better living for herself as an artist.
Leyster’s self-portrait is similar to those of past masters and is in what is commonly referred to as a “work-in-progress” painting, which was developed by Frans Hals. Her refined clothing is created with thick brushstrokes to create shining purple highlights. Thin layers of white create the illusion of sheer lace with glimpses of purple fabric underneath.
In order to fully understand a piece of art it is important to know what was going on with an artist at the time of creation, as well as to take into consideration the nuances of technique. The self-portraits by Artemisia Gentileschi and Judith Leyster are fairly extreme opposites in both form and context, but both are realistic representations and portrayals of life and art at the time they were created.
Artemisia Gentileschi's Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting is an incredibly bold work for its time. Painted during the Italian Baroque period in approximately 1630, and using elements of the "Allegory of Painting" from author Cesare Ripa's 1611 Iconologia, Gentileschi took an incredibly egotistical stand- to say that she was not only a female painter at a time when women were not even admitted into the artistic academies- but that as a female painter, she is the very embodiment of painting itself. Her posturing in the piece, with her raised chin, and the dynamics of showing herself deeply focused on the act of painting, also convey a sense of pride- and in addition to that, underscore the idea that she is an artist at work, showing herself in the pursuit of the noble goal of fulfillment, of personal achievement and happiness through her own means.
Furthermore, in regards to Artemesia, an interesting addition is that Gentileschi followed the allegorical references for the "Allegory of Painting", according to Ripa, except for one. The symbols of the allegory are: 
- a pendant mask on a gold chain, showing the artist's capability for imitation of what they see in life. 
- A color changing dress (difficult to see in digital representations of this work, but the green dress she has depicted herself in shifts colors in it's folds and highlights very subtly)- another interesting side note here would be that the "Allegory of Art", according to Ripa, is to be depicted in green, thus tying together painting as part of art as a whole. 
- Unruly hair, depicting "the divine frenzy of the artistic temperament", or showing the artistic conveyance of depicting work with emotion and inspiration. 
- The tools of a painter (palette and brush), shown in this piece being used and handled directly by the artist, while in many typical allegorical pictures from the time, they were placed nearby the figure, but not in use. 
- A piece of cloth binding the mouth of the allegory, meant to symbolize the non-verbal means of expression that the painter is limited to. 
This is the part that Gentileschi left out, which leads me to think that this could have been a mark of refusing to be "kept quiet" or "stay in her place" as a woman at the time, but instead to be bold and proud- neither qualities which were particularly promoted in women at the time.
About 1635, Judith Leyster painted this self-portrait. Leyster was born in Haarlem in 1609. She was the eighth child of a brewer and cloth maker. In 1628 her family moved to a town near Utrecht. At that moment, Utrecht was the active center of group of artists working in the tradition of Caravaggio. The work of these artists including Hendrick Terbruggen and Honthorst had a significant impact on Leyster's work. In 1629 Leyster and her family returned to Haarlem. By 1633 she became one of only two women to be granted membership to Haarlem's Guild of St. Luke. Within two years, Leyster had taken on three male apprentices in her shop. There are records of a suit initiated by Leyster claiming that Frans Hals had stolen one of her apprentices. All of this indicates that Leyster during the early 1630's ran an active workshop. It is from this period that the majority of her works are attributed. In 1636, she married a fellow painter, Jan Meinse Molenaer (1610-1668). The couple moved to Amsterdam. Her artistic production drops off dramatically at this point. Is it because she took on the traditional responsibilities of the wife working in the husband's shop and caring for their five children?
The self-portrait now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. places Leyster's work in the dominant currents of Dutch art of the period and constructs Leyster's identity as an artist. The painting was perhaps Leyster's "masterpiece" submitted to support her admission to the Guild of St. Luke. Leyster represents herself in the fashionable dress of the Dutch middle class. This is hardly the simple smock one might expect the artist to wear in the workshop, but rather it is the dress that signifies her social and economic status. The relationship of Leyster's work to that of Frans Hals, the dominant Haarlem artist of the period, has not been fully clarified. It has been suggested that she was an apprentice in Hals' shop, but this is not certain. The similarity of Leyster's work to that of Hals led early scholars to attribute her work to Hals. Leyster's self-portrait unmistakably relates her work to that of Hals. The informality of the pose with her turning away from her easel to look out at the viewer with her right arm resting on a chair back and jutting out towards a viewer is a portrait convention made popular by Frans Hals. The 1626 portrait of Isaac Abrahamsz Massa gives an early example of this portrait type. Spontaneity and informality are characteristics of the convention, which gives the sitter a sense of active engagement with the viewer's world. The web of diagonals that Hals uses to animate the composition is echoed in the Leyster composition. What is significant is that Hals uses this convention in the representation of male figures and notably not in the representation of women. Whereas the men with their jutting elbows actively challenge the boundary between the viewer's world and the pictured world, the women in the Hals' portraits are more contained in the picture space. The women's gestures enclose the figure regularly in Hals' portraits. The 1625 portrait of Anetta Hanemans illustrates this characteristic of the female portraits.
The painting on the easel serves to advertise a particular commodity that Leyster's workshop markets as well as places Leyster's work in the context of Dutch art. The jolly musician was a popular subject among the Utrecht Caravaggisti. Hendrick Terbrughen's painting entitled Duet exemplifies this type of work. Frans Hals who was strongly influenced by Terbrughen painted a number of paintings of this subject matter.