To Comfort or Flee: The Recurring Idea of Women in the City

Women depicted in art is far from a new idea. Earlier in art history, when we might think of classical art and the Renaissance, they were not typically read to be actual women but rather a symbol, idea or a goddess meant to capture classical values. Ideas behind the representation of women began to change in the mid 19th century toward representing less classical ideas and more literal representations of women. As art became more accessible to all it began to communicate different ideas. During the late 19th and early 20th century in Europe and America urbanization and industrialization were highly influential on people and culture. Embracing the new and rejecting the old started to become a common theme among important artists. Artists began to paint cities and the people who occupied them. Women in the city are depicted widely and communicate a range of ideas. The main ideas portrayed in artworks focusing on women in the city depict them with more freedom, as a threat or more vulnerable. Some of the works present these ideas through women who are in public and expect to be looked at, but others invite the viewer into a behind the scenes space. This curation focuses on those ideas and how artists rendered women in the city differently in form and content. It is designed to present women in the city and different portrayals of them.

Large Boston Public Garden Sketchbook: The Huntington Avenue Streetcar

Maurice Brazil Prendergrast

1895-97

Watercolor over pencil

1975.1.940 

Taken from Prendergrast’s “Large Boston Public Garden Sketchbook” is an elegant painting of a well dressed woman walking away from a trolly which is driving off into the distance. The primary contents of the paintings from Prendergrast’s sketchbook are the leisurely activities of dainty women going about their day in the city. The observer is given a delightful view at the newfound freedom and leisure of women no longer restricted to the country or individual home but capable of city life.

The Dance Class

Edgar Degas

1874

Oil on canvas

1987.47.1

The Dance Class is one of Degas’ more famous pieces. It depicts a ballet studio in the city, full of young ladies prepping and practicing. The teacher and main dancer are pushed to the background and the behind the scenes of a music stand and a distracted girl are what our gaze is immediately drawn to. Ballet dancers during that time were the working class and typically consisted of women with more sexual freedom. Here the viewer is presented with a sort of behind the scenes look at ballet dancers that gives the viewer a glimpse into the secret or unseen of what appears beautiful and effortless. This communicates the new freedom, found in the city, for women to work and live outside of domestic and chaste life.

The Englishman (William Tom Warrener, 1861–1934) at the Moulin Rouge

Henri de Toulous-Lautrec

1892

Oil on cardboard

67.187.108 

This painting presents a well dressed, wealthy man chatting with two women. The viewer can tell from the setting of the Moulin Rouge and the red ear of the man that their conversation is one that is less than respectable. Toulous-Lautrec is an artist who was transfixed by the Montmatre which was a neighborhood known for its raucous and indecent nightlife. This provided a place for the mixing of upper class men and working-class women. Many artists were attracted by this place’s reputation of sexual freedom, diversity and amusement. Through the use of bright colors and space and the context of the work, Toulous-Lautrec gives a revealing presentation of the freedom which was provided by cities and places like the Moulin Rouge.

Shop Girls

William James Glackens

1900

pastel and watercolor on illustration board

23.230.1 

This dark and cool image consists of a jumble of people dressed in cool, almost monochromatic colors who fill the page. Glackens was part of the Ashcan school and depicted the day to day life of the working-class American and the energy and dangers of the city. The dirty confusion and chaos is meant to show the diverse, cramped streets of the city. Here we see the idea of working class women who are free to intermingle the other classes, gender and races.

Gray and Brass

John Sloan

1907

Oil on canvas

2018. 649 

A shiny gray and brass car is being driven by some tired looking men with smug looking upper class ladies and a gentleman in the back. Behind the car, a less well clothed crowd watches as the car creeps past. John Sloan was another member of the Ashcan school and typically depicted a compelling juxtaposition between classes in New York City. In this image the women are not being presented as more free or inviting but rather as threatening or discomforting. The apparent smug attitudes of the women in the car prove to be unwelcoming and uptight. They know that they are a spectacle, being looked at and they stick their noses in the air.

Street, Dresden

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

1908

Oil on canvas

12.1951 (MoMa) 

Street, Dresden is a bright, high contrast image featuring a crowd in the city. Some eerie looking women and a child face toward the audience with dark, almost lifeless eyes and faces. Like other works featuring women in the city, here we see the bustle of city life. Kirchner is communicating a sense of discomfort with the color contrast and space that makes the image feel almost claustrophobic. These disturbing city women are supposed to communicate a sense of threat and uptightness, the formal elements, like color help to communicate this.

Table for Ladies

Edward Hopper

1930

Oil on canvas

31.62

In a dimly lit dining room, we see two working women lost in thought. The front of the image looks like a neatly arranged shop window. A couple sits and dines in the back. Hopper is known for his gentle scenes featuring people lost in thought or distanced from one another. In his presentation of women in the city he strays from proving them to be threatening or promiscuous but instead shows them as lonely and possibly even vulnerable. Here, we are looking into a window, a place we are supposed to see into. The women seem lost and to be inviting and almost in want of comfort. 

Mme Vuillard in a Set Designer’s Studio

Edouard Vuillard

1893-94

Oil on canvas

1975.1.223 

In a studio, we see a woman, peacefully, working away, hunched over a railing or some type of support beam. Behind her is a door, staircase and fireplace. Vuillard was part of a group called the Nabis who wanted to embrace real spaces and objects instead of the symbols in many works from the past. Many Nabis paintings served to rescue the viewer from the pains of modern life and give them a place of rest. Here, Vuillard presents an older woman who, outside of the space, might appear vulnerable but because she is enclosed in a comfortable studio allows the viewer to be at peace in the domestic, personal and comforting setting of a set designer's studio.