I just returned from a trip through Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. While in the Netherlands, we took a side trip to Muiderplot, a medieval castle about 20 minutes outside of Amsterdam. In the castle’s meeting hall (where trials were held as well as other more innocuous pursuits like dances and children’s games), I noticed an unusual painting on the wall. I took a picture of it because it was so unexpected.
The audio guide explained that this painting was “something special.” The artist was depicting a group of girls playing a kissing game in which the best kisser will be awarded a wreath of flowers. The girl in the yellow dress is really going to town on the reclined girl whose bodice is open and who appears to be panting with delight as she raises the floral wreath to crown the other girl’s head. But the audio guide noted that the girl in the yellow dress was actually not a girl at all. She’s wearing the boots of a shepherd. The scene is of a shepherd boy masquerading as a girl to steal a kiss and win the contest.
Which obviously brings up the question–who the hell came up with this idea that when girls are alone they play super sexy kissing games with each other? This sounds like some kind of porn script! And whoever came up with this absurd notion also makes sure that the boy ultimately wins.
Comedian Hannah Gadsby did a great show on Netflix called Nanette. I blogged about it here. One of the things that was unique about her comedy show is that she is an art history major who talks extensively about art and artists. She pulls no punches when it comes to Picasso, the famous artist who infamously began a sexual relationship with his 17 year old muse when he was in his 40s. His justification for this was simple:
“It was perfect—I was in my prime, she was in her prime.”
Ouch. So, for Picasso, being 42 and in his prime meant he was at the peak of his career, at his most creative. But for a woman, er, girl, one’s prime is being a teenager, attractive, untouched, biddable. That’s our prime. As Hannah puts it, that’s a grim thought.
I was in Austria last year at the Kuntshistoriches museum in Vienna, and there was a thought-provoking exhibit with a modern painting side-by-side with a historical one. Both were portraits of women. The painting on the left was a portrait from the 19th century of a young woman, maybe late teens, very pretty and slender, looking at the artist with a mixture of innocence and coquettish desire. She looks both unsure of herself and a little teasing. The color palette was all warm tones. The portrait to the right was a middle aged woman, nude, hands on hips, staring frankly at the artist as if to dare anyone to argue with her. Her expression was a mix of confidence and weariness. She’s not unattractive, but she’s not inviting either. She’s a little heavy set, and her boobs are not the same size. Physically, she’s not perfect at all, but she’s clearly much more in control of her situation and life.
The color palette was cool tones.
Which woman is in her prime?
The explanation said that painting on the left was by a male artist. I don’t remember who the girl was in the painting. The painting to the right was by a female artist, and the subject was her neighbor, a divorced waitress in her forties.
This comparison was an interesting study in both male/female perspectives and in modern vs. classical artistic sensibilities. In a way, artists get to have the last word because their work endures longer than they do. They define a thing. We discuss their work, their vision. We don’t know the people they portray as people–we only know what they, the artist, saw and wanted to show us. And what most artists have shown us is women they found desirable, not necessarily honesty. Picasso also had this to say about his muses:
“Each time I leave a woman, I should burn her. Destroy the woman, you destroy the past she represents.”
When I returned from Europe, I was catching up on some movie watching on the long flight. I was noticing that there were several movies with non-white protagonists and supporting casts, homosexuals or women in the juicy lead roles and these movies are finally becoming mainstream. I also noticed that not every woman in these movies had a perfect body or was in her 20s. Maybe we are finally getting to the point where women who are actually in our prime can tell stories and be heroes.
Why did it take us this long to get here?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
Wouldn’t that be a huge step forward, to claim our prime and tell stories of strength, power and passion. I notice that the older I get (a female in her forties) the stronger I get spiritually, cognitively and socially. Truly in my prime. The real prime for women comes after their childbearing years, when they can focus on who they are or what they now want to become. Still half a life in front of me!
There is a turning around of tables going on that is exciting and necessary. Where both men and women can stand in their full length, strength and potential. It will take some adjustments in cultural thinking, but no doubt we will get there pretty soon! I cannot wait!
Sadly, the new “art” of the day is pornography. Film and photos that, almost exclusively portray young, surgically enhanced, totally waxed, young women (key word: young) performing sex acts (often with older men) which, in reality, would be unpleasant and degrading for the woman but they smile and moan in supposed pleasure to entertain men.
Evolution = change over time
Carrie, there’s so much good stuff out there right now, I suggest you broaden your horizons.
I like how Target now has mannequins representing larger body proportions as well.
But I think we still have a long way to go…..
especially in the church….
Lois: I LOVE that Target is doing that. Every time I see those mannequins I think “Finally, a store that doesn’t hate women’s bodies if they aren’t the exact same size.”
Carrie: I agree with Dot. There’s a huge improvement right now in how women are portrayed. Yes, pornography exists, but as the post points out, we are finally hearing from women about women, not just the male gaze. There’s more to do, but it’s starting to finally get better for women and minorities, not worse. And it’s about time. Also, the way women have been portrayed isn’t universal. I also noted that Van Gogh attempted to portray women as he saw them. He painted men, women, and children working in the fields and eating potatoes–the mundane elevated to art. He wasn’t just fulfilling some gross male fantasy.
I second Dot’s comment. And there’s no short answer to the question about why it took us so long. And we have a long way to go. Fear and power have a lot to do with it. I think there are a lot of narratives (I just taught Ovid’s Metamorphoses, so that’s in my head at the moment) where particularly feminine beauty (and the feminine in general) is seen to arouse in men not an aesthetic appreciation or a simple erotic desire, but rather a desire to possess and control. The patriarchal impulse involves controlling feminine power and subverting it for the patriarchy’s own purposes. This means that the fundamental essence of the patriarchy is about not only “keeping women down/in their place”, i.e., preventing equal opportunity for wages, controlling access to political or religious power and authority, etc., but is also about appropriating (and constructing) images of femaleness that serve its purposes. That’s why we have, in the LDS Church, all of that language about women being “more spiritual” than men and about holding the keys to child bearing and therefore not needing the keys to the priesthood. When those kinds of words are thrown around, you can be sure that it’s much less about “praising” women or putting them on a pedestal and much more about controlling them. This is really the main purpose of, say, epideictic rhetoric in Elizabethan sonnets. On the surface, sonnets appear to be quite flattering, but underneath, that amorous rhetoric is a way for the desiring male speaker to control the erotic script and appropriate the desired, objectified female in order to talk more about himself and his desires. I do agree that there is progress, though. May it continue, despite the organizations (churches, corporations, etc.) that are trying to stifle it.
Which woman is in her prime?
Why not both? Both men and women are in their prime for different aspects of life at different ages. I am probably in the middle of my professional prime right now, but am well past my physical prime, (my slam dunking days are, alas, behind me.) My social prime is yet to come. We all have a “prime age” for different aspects of life.
Looking specifically at sexual primes, I’m not convinced it is just age thing. For reproduction, men and women tend to be in their prime in their late teens to early 30’s. Yet, for confidence, experience and enjoyment, I believe the prime age is mid 30’s through early 60’s or even longer.
So I’ll argue that both paintings depicted women in their prime, since we are all at our prime in some capacity or another.
“who the hell came up with this idea that when girls are alone they play super sexy kissing games with each other?”
My guess is Susan. But it could easily have been my daughter taking selfies of that very thing.
“why it took us so long. And we have a long way to go”
An assumption seems to exist that everyone is on the same road going to the same place, a town called “Woke” whose location changes somewhat unpredictably.
“Maybe we are finally getting to the point where women who are actually in our prime can tell stories and be heroes.”
There is no “we”. You have always been free to tell stories and be heroes, just as others are free to watch/listen/read (or not) those same stories and, for that matter, decide what constitutes heroism in the first place.
JLM, the thing is that the question is not about these two women in a vacuum, but it is a question that is deeply contextually embedded. It is not about which woman is better, but about how women are viewed and evaluated through different lenses and the way the male gaze (one that often sees women as a commodity to be consumed) has dominated throughout our history. Nobody is saying that there is something objectively wrong or worse about a young woman, and by trying to pivot to that, you are helping to smokescreen the issue that hawkgrrrl is trying to address.
It’s a harsh reality from a biological perspective that life is largely about the perpetuation of life, that which improves reproductive health gets enforced and persists, which is to say valuing sex and sexual health is going to be pretty deeply hardwired. You put that in a modern world where many of the other immediate and important concerns that we needed to survive on a daily basis have been greatly reduced or totally eliminated altogether – it is totally unsurprising that as a species we are left with an unbalanced drive and perhaps even obsession toward sex (seemingly to our detriment). And in a world obsessed with sex, sexual prime is going to come out on top. Which can really hurt when we see how much value we have to offer outside of this single thing, but at the same time that seems to be where we really are. And this is not a male or female thing, I don’t buy the idea that women are so weak that they haven’t participated in the overall narrative of what we value, we have always been joint participants in that narrative, and men are just as much sex objects in today’s society as women — it simply differs by what men and women find sexually attractive/valuable/desirable.
You would hope we continue to grow and find the appropriate balance and place for our biological impulses, and start appreciating and placing greater emphasis and value on the higher values of life. I do think we are on that path, I have that hope in my more immediate community I choose to associate with, but for the broader society progression is on a much slower scale and I’m not holding my breath. It turns out men and women are both animals, but we are also children of God, and the hope is that we can be refined so that the nature of the latter stands at the helm.
Great post, would have loved to see the ‘ woman in her prime’.
I spoke to my daughter about a film we’d both seen recently, ‘Molly’s Game’. I said it was interesting that the father/therapist character had characterised her as a woman who had a problem with powerful men. My daughter observed immediately that it wasn’t powerful men she had a problem with, but controlling men, and then further noticed that these men were actually fundamentally weak and threatened by women. Yay for her.
I’ve had the very great privilege in later life of living and socialising with men who have no misoginy, men who will happily support the work and personal life of the women in their lives as they would also expect to be supported. It’s been a revelation as unfortunately I met none of those in my earlier life, but I do think the world is also full of them, quietly getting on with being kind and decent and male. Leading their brothers from the front. Interestingly, a lot of them are second husbands, men my friends wouldn’t have been attracted to first time around.
Picasso, huh?
Picasso’s approach contrasts with that of another 20th century artist, Edward Hopper, who almost exclusively used his wife as a model for the female figures in his paintings. He often rendered the female figures as youthful and attractive, even as the model (Mrs. Hopper) was in her 60s and 70s. Some interpret these as gestures of kindness from a husband who continued to find his wife physically attractive as they both aged. Of course, this could also be interpreted as its own kind of misogyny (projecting idealized youth and beauty on a naturally aging woman); their marriage was filled with hostility and abuse as well.
Hopper’s marriage was “filled with hostility and abuse”” (one assumes aimed at his wife) and yet we should interpret his rendering her as a younger woman as kindness and flatters?
From hawkgrrrl’s post:
“The audio guide explained that this painting was “something special.” The artist was depicting a group of girls playing a kissing game in which the best kisser will be awarded a wreath of flowers. The girl in the yellow dress is really going to town on the reclined girl whose bodice is open and who appears to be panting with delight as she raises the floral wreath to crown the other girl’s head. But the audio guide noted that the girl in the yellow dress was actually not a girl at all. She’s wearing the boots of a shepherd. The scene is of a shepherd boy masquerading as a girl to steal a kiss and win the contest.
Which obviously brings up the question–who the hell came up with this idea that when girls are alone they play super sexy kissing games with each other? This sounds like some kind of porn script! And whoever came up with this absurd notion also makes sure that the boy ultimately wins.”
The answer to the questions is that the painting is based off of a ones famous “story”, turned into an opera, from 1590’s about a group of group of young people and nymphs, some of whom are fated to marry but fall in love with someone else and how it all works out, an example of a romance/comedy novel of the middle ages. Author is Giovanni Battista Guarini the story is called Il Pastor Filo or The Faithful shepherd. So I guess you could say that an Italian poet from the 1500’s writing about a time in ancient Greece used to “kissing game” for a little romance/comedy scene in his play. And who is to say that such games did not exist in the Middle Ages, it was not scandalous for the times it would appear and may have been culturally normal for the time.
As for the ultimate “winner” well… in the end they fall in love and are married, live happily ever after, like all good romance stories.
Things are generally a lot more… “deep” than first appears, specially things in the past.