The Profile
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2020-10-19T03:54:37+00:00
In addition to the iconography, what pushes forward the argument that Anguissola’s work renders a protofeminist stance is the way in which Anguissola has seated and positioned herself: facing the viewer. Throughout the 16th century, portraits of women only painted the woman’s profile. By framing women in profile, they are cleaved in half and have their autonomy removed by said fragmentation. They are not whole beings. The women stare forward, having limited if any interaction with the viewer, thus transforming the women into an object for the voyeur. University of Michigan professor and art historian, Patricia Simons affirms this idea, stating “they [women] are inactive objects gazing elsewhere, decorously averting their eyes. In this sense, they are chaste, if not virginal, framed if not (quite) cloistered. However, unlike nuns, these idealized women are very much not “beyond the gaze of men””. Anguissola in her 1561 self-portrait (and many prior) breaks the profile-confinement by just turning her head slightly. By doing this, she is no longer bisected by the male gaze (primarily because she is the painter) and becomes a full and developed artistic subject.
