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Melanie Rodriguez

Professor Meyken Barreto

Room CG249

10 December 2022

The Portrayal of Women

     Femininity is something special, well at least to me. The definition of femininity can be altered and perceived another way but as we all know femininity is a set of behavior,action,role,etc.. Mainly played out by women. As we look back into art history we can see how women are perceived by men especially in paintings. This leads us to understand that every other person has a different definition for femininity in terms of paintings but the two artists which I’m going to mention have created their assumption of it. Young Woman at Her Toilette(1515) is an oil painting of a woman created by Giovanni Bellini. The other artwork which i’ll be discussing is Jeune Femme Nue Se Coiffant Dans Un Intérieur(1887) which is an oil painting created by Jean Andre Rixens. These two artists used their great minds to show us what a woman in her own space looks like to them but as we take a deeper look into it we notice the difference between the time period in which both artworks were established. As we move on, I’ll be discussing how these two different artists were able to perceive women similarly yet so different and how the definition might have changed due to the way they portrayed them during their time period.

      Starting off with Bellini this artwork, Young Woman at Her Toilette, shows a woman in a dark green space sitting on her bed. He shows this girl holding up a mirror to look at herself while having a mini mirror behind her as well. She seems to be completely naked but has a little robe-like fabric covering only a little portion of her body. Bellini also had shown us a portion of the landscape outside which also gained the attention of us 

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viewers. Before going into the actual meaning I’d like to express my stance on this artwork and what it means to me. This artwork showcases the girl with more pastel colors on her body as she has pearl white skin,pink lips, and light colored eyes which can tie back to femininity. The reason why this ties back to femininity is because we often view soft-like colors to be associated with women. An article states, “Colors with feminine appeal are often described as sweet, lovely, beautiful and romantic. Although many colors can be described with these words, consider colors such as peach, pink, coral and rose to have feminine influences with varying shades and blush tones. Pastel colors are favored in feminine settings for adding understated color and often provide a backdrop for other feminine touches, such as floral accessories in pastel shades of lavender, peach and pale green.”(Kross, D)1. This quote proves my stance as it’s a research that has been done and an explanation as to why this color is usually associated with women. With this being said, we can say that during 1515 men had also associated women with this and they were more likely to portray women in paintings with pastel like colors. 

   Now moving onto Bellini interpretation on his piece, he created the woman’s body position with the mirror to show us an aspect of “Venus Pudica” which is a body movement created by Venus herself to show a form of privacy on the areas which is gaining most of the attention. This article states, “In her right hand the young woman is holding another mirror, which is a symbol of vanitas on the one hand and an attribute of Venus Pudica on the other. Using the device of two mirrors, Bellini enables the observer to see two views of the woman’s head from a single vantage point, a perspective possible only in painting.”(Bischoff,C)2. As mentioned above there’s some symbolism in terms of this artwork and the artist might’ve used Venus as his inspiration which can also tie back into femininity as venus is associated with beauty and also has the pastel colors hue. With this being said I believe that Bellini’s intentions were to use Venus as his role model but incorporate different stuff such as the setting and appearance. This ties back to my thesis as it shows us what portrayal of the ideal woman was at that time and how the definition of it remained the same with a slight bit of difference. 

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      Moving on, the second art work in which i’m discussing is named Jeune Femme Nue Se Coiffant Dans Un Intérieur by Rixens. This artwork translates to “Young Naken Woman Styling Herself in an Interior ” which looks just like how it’s named. It’s a woman who appears to be styling her hair in front of a mirror with beauty products on her dresser and a fur rug that takes place in more of a pastel colored room. Her walls are painted pink, her skin color appears to be light, her skirt is see-through white, and she’s wearing heels. This shows us that the artist based this artwork on more of a modern woman yet still the usual representation of a woman in artwork as she is nude. As we look deeper into artworks involving “classy” or feminine women, they appear to be nude in the portraits. An author of an article writes, “At the centre, and within art historical discourse, the female nude is seen as the visual culmination of enlightenment aesthetics; at the edge, it risks losing its repeatability and spilling over into the obscene.”(Nead,L)3. The author of this piece explains to us as to why nude is being used in art similar to the one in which Rixens created. It explains to us that nude is a sort of representation of enlightenment which is also aesthetically pleasing. This artwork actually does take place in a time where enlightenment was often still talked about. This artwork, Jeune Femme Nue Se Coiffant Dans Un Intérieur, doesn’t seem to be the usual symbolism type of piece but it does show us more of a focus on a woman who’s just paying attention to herself and her space.

    This artwork by Rixens has little to none information but I was able to gather information on his ideology during the time this artwork was created by him. I’ll be tying his ideology back to the artwork itself and explain from my knowledge and the little details what his attempts were and what might be the actual message behind this artwork. I researched his bibliography and was able to find out more about his life during the time this art piece was created. During the 1880s he traveled around and was inspired when he had arrived in Rome and Florence. During this time he decided to cut back on historical paintings and experimented and concentrated more on naturalistic style. According to his bibliography it states, “Shortly after, he visited Florence and Rome.

During the 1880s, he gained more widespread recognition and his financial situation improved. Many of his works were popularized by major periodicals such as L’Illustration. 

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He also produced fewer historical paintings and concentrated on portraits in a Naturalistic style.”(Unknown)4. The above quote shows us that Rixen obviously wanted to expand his knowledge on art pieces and decided to stop with historical portraits and focus more on naturalism art. Naturalism art revolves around the idea of keeping things as natural as they are and paint it in a realistic way. With this we are able to recognize that this art piece has no symbolism in terms of Greek mythology or the Romans or even the Greeks in general. This piece was just to show us what his interpretation was at that time revolving around Women. In terms of my thesis this shows us that during his time period,1887, Rixen was able to show us his take on what femininity is and how the meaning has changed overall as time passes by.    

     Now that we’re presented with Bellini and Rixens I’m able to compare and contrast both artworks while including my thesis statement. Young Woman at Her Toilette(1515) and Jeune Femme Nue Se Coiffant Dans Un Intérieur(1887) can be compared as there are some aspects that are very similar. What I’ll first compare are the pastel colors. Both Bellini and Rixens were able to associate women with more pastel colors in terms of their features and objects. (1515) and Jeune Femme Nue Se Coiffant Dans Un Intérieur(1887) can be compared as there are some aspects that are very similar. What I’ll first compare are the pastel colors. Both Bellini and Rixens were able to associate women with more pastel colors in terms of their features and objects. Both women are also showcased to be nude with some sort of fabric on their body. This tells me that even with the year gaps in which these pieces were created they were able to keep this sort of femenine type painting similar when they incorporate nude bodies. What can also be compared are mirrors. We notice that both women seem to be staring at themselves in the mirror which can tell us that this is some sort of symbolism revolving around women. Although the interpretation of both are not the same we can create an assumption that when mirrors are incorporated in pieces like these, it can also add into the details of femininity as some may say women take care of themselves more and put their focus more on appearance. And lastly, we can compare the fact that both artists decided to create these pieces with oil painting.

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        Although there were similarities, I believe there’s more differences than similarities in terms of the time period of the artworks and also what has been incorporated into paintings. As I’ve mentioned earlier, There’s a big year difference between when these two art works were released. Bellini had released his artwork around the 1515’s which was when High Renaissance was introduced and his artwork, Young Woman at Her Toilette, is in fact under the category of Italian Renaissance. During this time it was pretty normal to see artists incorporate religious figures in their paintings or even symbolize them. With this being said we’re able to contrast this because Rixens did not involve religious symbolism in his piece as his paintings revolve more around the nature of human beings. During the 1800’s, naturalism was at its highest and I understand why because art has been evolving more due to the enlightenment being a popular subject during that time. 

     Moving on from time period, I’d also like to point out the exterior differences, Bellini incorporated landscape on his piece while also putting the woman in a dark setting, Maybe it had some sort of symbolism but it also takes away the viewers attention from the girl as the details were eye catching due to the hue being used and the pastel colors that were incorporated outside. You may also notice that the green being used in the room in which the woman is sitting is pretty dark which also sparks some confusion to us viewers. With Rixens it’s pretty simple. There were no landscapes at all and there were no bold colors that were able to distract us just like in Bellini’s piece. This shows us the difference between how the artist incorporated women during this time. Bellini was more focused on tying women with religious symbolism while Rixens was more focused on femininity and showing us how it has changed during the time in which enlightenment became popular. With this being said we also notice how different women are viewed around the 1500s and the 1800s. In the 1500’s venus or mary were the popular idealism in which men incorporate in their painting for women and it makes sense as it was during the high renaissance time. But we are able to see that in the 1800s women were not tied to religions as much and it was just an act of natural behavior because the main art style 

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being used was naturalism. This shows us just how the definition of femininity has changed throughout history and that Bellini and Rixens were able to showcase it right since both were able to give us a look on how women were incorporated especially in art during their time periods. 

  In conclusion, the meaning of femininity changes over time no matter what. We were presented with two different art works and I was able to realize what was so different yet so similar about them and I believe that now in modern days we can say the same. The meaning of femininity is changing overtime and artworks are able to show us the process of it. Both Bellini and Rixens had their different ideology but were able to associate them with pastel colors and femenine objects which shows us that even when time periods are changing, the idea still lives on.

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Works Cited 

1 Kross, D Ann, “Masculine and Feminine Colors.” Home Guides | SF Gate, 17 Nov. 2020, https://homeguides.sfgate.com/masculine-feminine-colors-77994.html. 

2 Bischoff, Cäcilia. “Young Woman at Her Toilette – Giovanni Bellini – Google Arts & Culture.” Google, Google, https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/young-woman-at-her-toilette/dQE6qBYljWU39A?hl=en. 

3 Nead, L. (1992). The Female Nude: Art, Obscenity and Sexuality (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203135471

4 (unkown author and year)https://artvee.com/dl/jeune-femme-nue-se-coiffant-dans-un-interieur/

Walkiewicz , Alice. “Gender in Nineteenth-Century Art.” Art History Teaching Resources, 23 Dec. 2016, https://arthistoryteachingresources.org/lessons/gender-in-nineteenth-century-art/. 

List of Illustrations

Young Woman at Her Toilette(1515) by Giovanni Bellini (figure1)

Juene Femme Nue Se Coiffnt Dans Un Interieur by Jean Andre Rixens (figure 2)