During the Baroque Era, artists depicted women in their accepted social roles The artists displayed the emotions and inferiority of the female by showing paintings of a woman in the role of homemaker or mother. This standard of representation of the woman defined the woman’s place in society. The Baroque artists depicted women in both positive and negative scenes. These positive and negative portrayals of women were shown to demonstrate the consequences of their actions depending on whether or not they followed their social roles. One artist of this time,

Jean-Baptiste Simeon Chardin, portrays a scene of a mother and her two daughters in the home, in his painting called Benediction (1740). http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?aid=85097&item=126293 In this painting, it shows a mother who has just prepared a meal and her two young daughters are sitting at the table, waiting. The older daughter watches as her younger sister pray. The mother looks very content. The scene demonstrates that women will find pleasure in simple everyday events. It strengthens the assumption that a woman’s source of happiness is in the performance household duties, raising children, and through her devotion to religion. From a negative angle of representing women, artists would create scenes that showed the deadly consequences of a woman betraying her accepted social role. Some of these scenes showed reversed gender roles, men displaying their superiority, women suffering for betraying their defined social roles. These scenes illustrated how the success of the community as a whole relied on the commitment to proper gender roles. In regards to women defying their role, the artists would show scenes of the women suffering to reaffirm that negative results come from straying from their correct gender roles. In Benvenuto Cellini’s bronze sculpture, Perseus Holding the Head of Medusa (1545 - 1554) http://www.glbtq.com/arts/cellini_b,zoom.html, Perseus is displaying superiority over Medusa, who had, in a sense, betrayed her correct gender/social role. This sculpture reiterates the message that women are to be submissive and are inferior to men and their consequences if they are not. Symbolism was also used in Baroque art to portray women in both positive and negative situations. Most of the symbolism was in reference to an historical event that led to a lesson in acceptable behavior. Another important element in a women’s representation is her appearance. Nudity in women symbolized weakness, immorality, and impending death. Hair and clothing of a woman are important because they may represent a significant event in her life and her resulting emotions. One artist who focused heavily on symbolism in the female’s appearance was Bernini Gian Lorenzo. In his s

Some topics in this essay:
Simeon Chardin, Honore Daumier, Edouard Manet, Industrial Revolution, Art Women, Courbet Courbet’s, Baroque Era, Symbolism Baroque, Gabriel Rossetti, Sir Lancelot, romantic period, gender roles, positive negative, social roles, women positive negative, displaying superiority, romantic art, message women, art movement, artist associated, artists depicted women, depicted women,