This page is referenced by:

• 1 2020-10-14T21:49:21+00:00 Sofonisba Anguissola: The World's "First" Female Artist 15 By: Caroline Gardner plain 2021-01-01T03:12:24+00:00

  Sofonisba Anguissola's The Chess Game, 1555 is filled with symbols- producing commentary on her relationship with her sisters, “the new chess,” and female intelligence. To most viewers, this work appears to display a casual image of young girls enjoying a game of chess together. But with the knowledge of Sofonisba’s background, along with the analysis of the game of chess and its relevance, it is apparent this piece is full of intention. During the Renaissance Period, in which this painting was created, women were not yet accepted as professional artists. Sofonisba Anguissola is believed to be one of  the first female artists with a prominent international reputation. Receiving a lesser education than that of training male artists, along with other discouraging barriers against female artists of the time limited women’s access to creating such works as Sofonisba Anguissola’s The Chess Game, 1555. 

  The main subject of this piece is subjectively the chess board itself. Sofonisbia’s three sisters- Europa, Minerva, and Lucia, are pictured playing a game of “new chess.” In the early 16th century, chess underwent changes in the rules of the game which allowed for a faster pace. Pieces were not allotted two spaces of movement rather than one. But most importantly, “the queen became the most powerful piece on the board, not capable of moving not just one space but an unlimited number of spaces in any direction, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally” Meaning that the queen now held more  power than the king piece, this rule greatly contrasted the gender expectations of the time- making the inclusion of a chess game in Sofonisba’s artwork an intentional feminist statement. Besides the change in rules, women’s access to playing the game was chess was also not widely accepted at this time. Chess was viewed as an extremely intellectual activity, not suitable for young women during the Renaissance period. Sofonisba is claiming the power of female intelligence by both representing women playing chess within the painting, and the talent that went into the painting itself. The intense gaze offered by the winner of said game: Lucia, alerts the viewer that she is claiming her power as a female artist, forcing the onlookers to accept her sister’s artistry. Her facial expression appears strong and smug, making direct eye contact with her admirers. 

  Relationships between Sofonisba and her younger sisters are also considered her The Chess Game, 1555. Sofonisba paints her three sisters- Europa, Minerva, and Lucia, who would all go one to occupy their own careers as artists. Each of the sisters look upon one another with scholarly admiration as they each were employed as students and teachers to one another. Minerva, the youngest, looks towards Europa as her possible role model. Europa looks towards Lucia, and lastly Lucia is staring into the eyes of the painter, Sofonisba, and or the other viewers. Lucia Anguissola most likely served as an apprentice underneath her older sister. Once Lucia became a more established artist herself, she challenged Sofonisbia and believed that her work was of equal talent and prestige. Her smiling gaze seems to be searching for approval, and possibly looking for a challenge from her master that would soon become her competitor. 

  The style and elements found in Sofonisba’s The Chess Game, 1555 equally contribute to the narrative being told. Her use of landscape, portrait, and linear perspective all within one piece make a statement in regards to Sofonisba’s artistic ability as a woman. By applying these skills to her artwork, she is determining that she is equally as capable as Renaissance male artists. Linear perspective is a painting technique that was developed during the Renaissance period. This technique uses mathematics to give depth to a two dimensional image, i.e. the contrast between the landscape and portraits in The Chess Game, 1555. The background shows a mountainous coast with castle-like buildings tucked into the crests of the earth; framing foliage shows that the coast is far beyond the setting of their chess game. Closest to the viewer are the portraits of the piece, showing intricate detail in each of their expressions, clothing, and interaction. The skill applied to detailing the women’s faces is very important to conveying the story of their sisterhood. Each of the sisters gaze upon one another, with Lucia sharing eye contact with the painter- Sofonisba. Her ability to express emotion in this painting allows the viewer to understand the dynamics of the sister’s relationships with one another- student and teacher. 

  Limitations placed on women during the Renaissance period contribute to the vigor of Sofonisba’s success as a recognized female artist. Women have been left out of intellectual pursuits since the beginning of time, more specifically so, women have not been granted the same education privileges as men. For example, drawing nudes has been at the center of artistic education since the Renaissance period, an endeavor that women had been left out of up until the 19th century. Women were not allowed to attend live drawing classes, ensuring that their only access to creating art was that of recreations of other people’s work. In most cases they were not granted the chance to be original, leaving no room for women to establish themselves as unique artists. Education would also require women to travel, leaving them susceptible to danger in regards to protecting their sexual purity. This prohibited many women from having access to education that would be necessary to their artistic ability.Further, Her sex prohibited her from subscribing to the desired artistic aesthetics of beauty throughout the Renaissance. As the female nude became more prominent in sixteenth century painting, Sofonisba could not contribute to this style because of her sex and marital status. She was an unmarried young woman, presumably a virgin, therefore her painting a female nude would have been considered outrageously inappropriate. Staying within the realm of her social status is what allowed Sofonisba to make a career of her artistry. 

  Her ability to succeed as a female artist was also sustained by her privilege and accessibility given to her by her father, Amilcare Anguissola. Amilcare, “a widower and nobleman who apparently decided to educate his seven children according to the humanist ideals of the Renaissance in the belief that they would bring honor to their city” This decision made by Sofonisba’s father was the first step taken that would allow her to overcome the constraints placed on female artists. She was privately trained for three years by Bernardino Campi and Bernardino Gatti. Although this would not compare to the lengthier education expected in training men, her time as a student would remain a privilege. Her career was also elevated by her recognition within the Spanish Court. In 1559 Sofonisba Anguissola became the Court painter and lady-in-waiting to Isabel of Valois and Anne of Austria. This position entailed her receiving a salary and resulted in the arrangement of her marriage to Fabrizio de Mancada. Her position within the court allowed her to make a career of her artwork, but simultaneously took away many of her own rights to her work. Sofonisba would not be able to personally profit from her portraits, and they would be subject to recreation by other artists.

   It is evident that Sofonisba Anguissola’s success came at a price. Her talent was confined by her age, gender, and social status- forced to maintain her image of a pure, respectable woman in order to be recognized. Sofonisba’s The Chess Game, 1555 exhibits her proficiency in portrait, landscape, and linear perspective- an establishment of her extraordinary talent. The game of chess, along with the queen’s new importance to the game, makes a statement on female intelligence. By showing young women engaged in a game of chess, Sofonisba successfully shows her audience that females are equally as capable as males.

• 1 media/Sofonisba_Anguissola_-_Bernardino_Campi_Painting_Sofonisba_Anguissola_-_WGA00696.jpg 2020-10-14T21:51:24+00:00 Sofonisba Anguissola & Bernardino Campi 12 Kailie Michalak plain 2020-10-19T05:31:17+00:00
  As seen through Sofonisba Anguissola’s, Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola, late 1550s, Anguissola utilized the restrictions placed onto women artists within the Italian Renaissance society todisguise her recognition of those restraints and the rebellious nature of the message she aimed to convey to the viewer. Anguissola created this piece as a means to communicate to the viewer that she, as opposed to Bernardino Campi, was the superior artist. We are able to denote this message through the biological and socio-economic context in which Sofonisba was brought up, her eventual reputation as a product of Campi’s work, and through visual cues present within the painting. While on the outside this piece may look like a typical piece in which a women is objectified at the hands of a male artist, Sofonisba uses tactics to convey to the viewer that she is aware of the scenario she is confined to, and through this, is able to make a meta double portrait, exhibiting Sofonisba’s deliberate and obvious self-awareness of the disparity and objectification women fell victim to during her time period. 
  
  Sofonisba Anguissola was born in Cremona, Italy to a rather poor, but noble family. Her, along with her six siblings, five of which were girls, were privileged to receive a well-rounded education. Her father subscribed to humanist values, meaning that he believed in possessing knowledge from that of human achievement, steering further away from theological ideologies. One of the subjects taught to the Anguissola children was fine art, a subject that which Sofonisba and her sister Elena took a particular interest and talent in. Subsequently, their father sent them to study under Bernardino Campi, a respected portrait artist. Elena eventually ended up leaving her study to become a nun, but Sofonisba stayed to study further with Bernardino. This in itself was a rare experience for women to have as many artists did not undertake women to teach. Sofonisba was privileged in the sense that she had the opportunity to study art rather seriously in the first place. Having a humanist father worked in her benefit as it led to the general acceptance of allowing his children, six of them being girls, to undertake a wholistic course of study. However, Sofonisba was perceived to be inferior to other male artists of her time. She lacked in technical skill where men excelled because she only was allotted three years of private instruction under Bernardino Campi as well as Bernardino Gatti, while men typically had a minimum of formal workshop training. So, while she had the privilege to receive an education as a woman during the Italian Renaissance, her technical knowledge and skill did not have as thorough of breadth as the average man had during her time. Additionally, she was not sent to study under Campi for the sake of advancing her career as an artist, but to build up skills that would make her a better wife and mother. Like most women, historically, she was also denied any access to nude models, being stripped of the opportunity to tailor her technical skills in that area. From the lack of technical skills and her restraints as a woman artist during the Italian Renaissance she was restricted into a particular style of portraiture and painting. This led her to think of creative and innovative ways to communicate her desired message to the viewer, within the constraints of art in which she was limited to. These were the restrictions that encouraged Sofonisba to create the kind of work that she did. From what may seem like a double portrait of herself and her teacher on the surface, hides a powerful and witty proto-feminist message that amplifies the constraints in which women were placed during her time. That even among these constraints, Sofonisba was still entirely capable of producing an image that was done well in a technical sense, while communicating her message within the confines of what was expected of her. 
  
  During Sofonisba’s early success, her skill and natural ability to paint was diminished by the Pygmalion effect. A phenomenon that originates for the Greek myth of a sculptor who had fallen in love with a statue he created. To Bernardino Campi’s luck, Sofonisba’s success was one of the first internationally known women artists brought Campi a significant amount of praise. Sofonisba was boiled down to simply the creation of Bernardino Campi. The painter Francesco Salviati described Sofonisba in a letter to Campi as “the beautiful Cremonese painter” and the creation of Campi. Sofonisba clearly had enough talent and developed skill to become one the most notable artists as a woman during her time, especially consider the fact that she had a lesser degree of formal training than most men of her time. Yet, still, a significant chunk of her work and artistic genius was credited to a teacher with equal or even lesser skill compared to Sofonisba as she matured. Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola depicts Campi painting a portrait of Sofonisba. While the initial perception of this work may lead one to think that Sofonisba was perpetuating this train of thought, she was actually working against the Pygmalion framework that she found herself stuck in. Sofonisba was actually quite witty in this piece particularly because she framed Campi as a pseudo-Pygmalion element. This can be deduced from the following assumptions; that the portrait of Anguissola was not actually a live painting, but a portrait that was painted by Sofonisba herself, and that Campi was not actually physically near Sofonisba in a sense that it was not likely to have been a live painting of Campi either. Here Sofonisba creates an example of female ‘mimicry’, defined as an instance in which a woman artist mimics or acts out the roles of femininity, in order to expose, subversively, the thing that she mimics. From what may seem like a typical piece coming from a woman of the time, we know that Sofonisba was deliberate in the communication of her message because she constructed the entirety of the painting herself. Both in the literal sense that she painted a self-portrait within a double portrait, but she created the entire setting and exposition of the piece herself. We see both Sofonisba’s portrait and Campi making eye contact with the implied viewer. Upon initial assumption we assume that Campi and the portrait of Sofonisba are looking at Sofonisba herself, as the creator of this piece. This further solidifies the idea that this could not have been a live painting of Sofonisba as the subject of the portrait.  Upon deeper thought however, we come to understand that there are two potential subjects that are being looked upon, Sofonisba herself and the audience as a complicit viewer. Here, she is directly communicating to us the disparity between men and women, but instead of words, she uses this piece. She says to us within the methods of communication she is limited to, here being female mimicry, that she is the superior artist between herself and Bernardino Campi, even given the confines women are restricted within. 

  Female Mimicry: Where a woman artist mimics or acts out the roles of femininity, in order to expose, subversively, the thing that she mimics.

  
  There are many visual cues that support the idea that Sofonisba was actually dismissing the skills of her teacher. The portrait of herself her acts as a proxy to her physical self: she asserts her dominance through the scale and positioning of her portrait within the piece. She stands taller than him, and her portrait is larger than it would have been had it been drawn to real life scale. Her clothing is also much more ornate the Campi’s in this depiction. Campi is depicted with dark clothes with no noticeable embellishments, nearly blending in with the background color. You can just barely distinguish Campi’s figure from the background, further diminishing his presence within the painting. With a bright red dress, gold embellishments and decorative collar, Sofonisba is able to establish her dominant presence. She asserts her skill through the depiction of both of their facial expressions. Sofonisba appears to be washed out, her expression showing very little emotion, and lacking in detail. While Campi’s face is reproduced with much higher level of skill and thought, outlining subtle details, in turn depicting his expression to be less stoic and much more lifelike. One of the clearest jabs made at Campi is through the fact that he is shown carrying a mahlstick. During the Renaissance, the mahlstick was commonly associated with those who may have been timid or even novices, some even claimed for it to be quite shameful. Sofonisba may have depicted Campi with a mahlstick to suggest that he was an uncreative imitator, furthering her superiority over him in artistic skill and overall worth. Sofonsiba has portrayed herself with a mahlstick before, but only when she was a young artist. This is further emphasized through the concept that the portrait of Sofonisba pictured in the piece was not even created by Campi in the first place. Under the assumption that Sofonisba was the actual creator of the portrait, this makes Campi’s presence in the painting entirely obsolete, typing back to the concept that Campi is a pseudo-Pygmalion element within the piece. 
  
  Sofonisba does an incredible thing by using the limited confines of her position as a woman artist in the Renaissance to her advantage to convey a clever and witty message to the viewer of her self-awareness in her piece, Bernardino Campi Painting Sofonisba Anguissola. The piece in itself is quite meta, depicting the painting of a portrait of herself, by Campi, while truly embodying a self-portrait within a self-portrait, both of which were actually painted by Sofonisba herself. She plays with the role of the viewer and her own positioning both physically in the work and cognitively as the painter of the piece and a subject of the portrait. Through visual cues and her overt awareness of her positioning within and outside of the piece, she was able to subtly place elements that could be pieced together by the viewer to create the overall message that though her teacher Campi could be credited for some of her success as his pupil, she indeed, even as a woman in the Renaissance, was a superior artist to him.