In our first session, we will set the stage for the course by considering the women sitters in the National Gallery’s collection and beyond. We will study portraits of royalty and aristocracy as well as self portraits and works by female artists. We also will look at the complex political, social, gendered and racial contexts that contribute to these artworks. 

Art historian and curator Amy Mechowski will join us in the second half to discuss feminist theory and notions around the male and female gaze to help steer our understanding of the biased development of art and art history. 

In the second week of the course, we will dive into the complexity, both in art and life, of one of the most famous tropes for women in paintings: the muse. These women were often the depiction of youth, vitality, and sexual desire, from mythological goddesses, to ballerinas, to sex workers. In the first half, we will explore the origin of the muse in antiquity and how it developed over the renaissance and modern periods through works by artists such as Titian, Velazquez, and Manet. 

In the second half we will complicate the portrayal of many of these young muses by looking at known figures who serve as a subject, many of whom were artists or women of social importance such as Vigée Le Brun, Sarah Siddons, Jane Avril, and Camille Claudel. 

The third week will focus on depictions of motherhood. In the first session we are joined by guest speaker, Dr Siobhán Jolley, Lecturer in Christian Studies at the University of Manchester, who will examine images of the Virgin Mary in Madonna and Child scenes and how these images impact the western perception of motherhood. 

In the second half we will explore more secular paintings of motherhood, both by male and female artists. How did gender and class impact how the realities of motherhood, or lack thereof, were depicted for audiences? We will focus on works on a selection of works by artists such as Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt and Alice Neel.