Madonna vs. Eve A portrait of the Renaissance Woman

Madonna vs. Eve A portrait of the Renaissance Woman The role of women has been portrayed through art since prehistoric times. Women have been a sign of hope, downfall, and power. This image of women was most powerful during the Renaissance. A cultural revival or rebirth occurred during the 15th and 16th century in Europe. The economic growth of the 14th century created a prosperous middle class. This allowed more of the mass to invest their income. Patronage of the arts soon became very fashionable as did religious faith1. As a result, women were portrayed as the Madonna, Eve or a saint. This was much more than an the art genre but an actual notion of womens role in society. This inaccurate portrayal of women created a variety of†¦show more content†¦. .Woman may not posses rational powers as great as those of man, grudgingly, woman is given some sort of precarious place in the moral universe.3 Even those women who chose to marry were not soothed by love. Marriage in the Renaissance was not to be confused with love. It was mu ch more like a business partnership in which the husband made the money and the wife distributed it into the proper household funds. Love matches were frowned down upon as much as arranged marriages. Van Eyck also portrays this situation quite clearly in the wedding portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife Giovanna Cenami. Here Giovanna Cenami gazes through the open window where the world awaits her husband knowing that she will experience very little of it. Her husband looks past her to something more interesting in the room. In response to this hideous attitude towards women, females with some whit fought back in their own way. A mother and daughter, Madeline and Catherine des Roches, protested against what they felt to be an injustice, and an act of violence, inflicted upon women by a male-dominated culture. In the happy time of my past season My wings were firmly attached to my sides: But, in losing my young freedom, Before flight my feather (that is my pen) was clipped. Id love to sit over my books, And, sighing, confide my sorrows to the paper, But some occupation always comes to pull me away, Telling me that I must