Research
Growth
Growth - An increase in the size of an organism or part of an organism, usually as a result of an increase in the number of cells.
A growth of an individual a person a development of self. We as human’s grow and develop creating new life creating a new growth of cells.
Motherhood
“Today’s ideal mother does not exactly resemble the disembodied sentimental mother that emerged in early America (though there are strong similarities), but she does represent a continuing drive to refine the raw physicality of the body.” (Doyle, 2018)
Doyle, further explains how the ideal mother in today's society is youthful, healthy, beautiful, well educated and has a sense of self worth in contrast to how mother were seen in 1800s and 1900s America.
In a new ethical narrative women in the 21st century have children later in life due to education and work prospects. “In the last section, we argue that instead of defining “older” motherhood as an ethical problem, we should problematize the fact that female reproductive ageing is an understudied and ill-sourced topic. We believe that allocating resources to research to better understand female reproductive ageing is not only ethically permissible, but might even be ethically desirable.”(De Clerks, 2023)
Society struggles
Body imaging for women has been seen more wider over the last decade due to the development of social media. Social media has allowed a new form of society where individuals not only compare themselves to other but try to become that influencer. Not only social media has influenced the change in behaviour but celebrities seen on tv and movies losing weight straight after giving birth. “The criticism sparked a debate about dominant attitudes towards motherhood and women in India, as people expected Bachan to embody both the glorified mother figure so common in Bollywood and the thin, toned, and fit idealised woman. This debate also highlighted the circulation and influence of Western beauty standards imposed upon Indian women via celebrities and popular culture.” (DeLuca, 2023)
Nan Goldin
Rebecca at the Russian baths, NYC, (1985). [FIG1]
American photographer and activist Nan Goldin used documentary style photography to photograph people. Her most popular series of work was documenting people during the crisis of HIV and Aids.
Even though Goldin has photographed herself pregnant this image of a mother to be documents a pregnancy of hurt and upset. The image doesn’t show the viewer much detail of where she is lying. However, the subject is laying on what could be a concrete slab. The tiles behind look warn and old and the positioning of the subject’s body looks as if she’s been there for long. Her positioning of her body shows the tiredness and strain on the body in what it entails to be pregnant.
From looking at Goldin’s work I hope to engage with the composition and use of lighting she uses. The composition of the image in my opinion is important as the details of where, when, and who creates the strong narrative. The use of direct light coming from above the subject highlights and creates sharp tones, creating the atmosphere in the Russian baths
Maternal Roles
Barbara Morgan
Pregnant [FIG2]
Barbara Morgan’s black and white photograph pregnant show the body up close to the stomach. Highlighting the changes that the body makes to allow a pregnancy to happen. The stomach and breasts are key parts in what the artist is focusing on, the growth and change to one’s body. The use of lighting and composition of the image creates a dramatic effect on the subject, creating a strong narrative to the empowerment of body. How the light lands and falls of the body creates harsh shadows emphasising the shapes and structure of the body.
Barbara Morgan’s work shows the maternal subjectivity and creates reasoning on why we should be celebrating our bodies and why we should be having conversations to break down the stigma. “Maternity is traditionally an important source for women’s art and yet the relationship between maternal subjectivity and artistic creativity is still very rarely discussed.” (Sieglohr,1998)
This series of work during the 1970’s empowers the women’s movement in the art industry in engaging with the subject matter and creating a woman signifying power and resilience. Ulrike spoke about how women’s history of being under-represented it is now being moulded and changed into a new era of contemporary practice. “Despite women’s history as photographers and their strong presence in contemporary practice, it is significant that they are still widely under-represented in mainstream exhibitions, galleries and publications on the subject.” (Sieglohr,1998)
John Berger investigates the gaze in what he interoperates as the relationship between men and women. “Men look at women. Woman watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed females. Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly an object of vision and sight.” (Wells,2004)
Sally Mann
Jenny and Leslie, 8 Months Pregnant [FIG3]
This image Jenny and Leslie, 8 Months Pregnant by Sally Mann is from an iconic black and white series “Immediate Family” 1984-91. These images created a conversation of the ethics in regards of children in art, many of her work’s consisted of conflicting conversations about innocence and sophistication in portraits of teenage girls. This photograph published in the 80’s 90’s created more conversations leading to women’s rights. Ann Beattie talks about how Mann’s work does not glamorise the life of the individual in the photograph and shows the realistic look of society. “Sally Mann’s photographs don’t glamorize the world, but they don’t make it into something more unpleasant than it is, either.” (Mann,1988) The image also speaks volume of how women should embrace their body and to love all of it.
Mann’s documentary style of working embraces the beauty of pregnancy and the female body. The detailing and focus on the subjects create their own narrative. In what looks to be a hot summers day and 8 weeks pregnant you can see the expression on their faces that the heat could be affecting the pregnancy.
Anne Bradstreet
Anne Bradstreet, talks in her poetry about the female role of being a parent, in the love that she carries for her children.
Great was my pain when I you bred,
Great was my care, when I you fed,
Long did I keep you soft and warm,
And with my wings kept off all harm,
My cares are more, and fears than ever,
My throbs such now, as ‘fore were never:
Also my birds, you wisdom want,
Of perils you are ignorant.
By Anne Bradstreet, 2016.
Her poems emphasise her role in her children’s survival in the world and how to help her children socialise within society. Other poems of Bradstreet suggest the birthing a child was a sacrifice in which the child now owns the mother respect and gratitude.
Mamma Mia -
MOVIE - SLIPING THROUGH MY FINGERS
From the movie Mamma Mia the song sliping through my finger sings about the bond between mother and daughter, of the daughter growing into the new chapter of her. How the mother Donna played by actress Mary Streep has brought up her daughter Sophie played by Amanda Seyfried all by herself and is reminiscing on the memories they created.
HUMANITY - CARE
The desire to care for a child is of humanities nature to help, protect and love that individual. Mother’s have an instinct to help one another especially young people in caring and developing a bond.
Motherhood and Art TATE
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/family-and-art/motherhood-art
Artist have represented the subject of motherhood, of it’s joys and challenges, and articulating the unspoken aspects.
Pre-Raphaelite
Paintings during the pre-raphaelite have captured the relationships of mother and child one example of this is Self-Portrait with her daughter, Julie. This photograph of herself with child allows viewers to witness the relationship between them both. The way that the child is sat cradled in her mother’s arms shows warmth and love.
ELISABETH LOUISE VIGEE-LE BRUN.
Self-Portrait with her daughter, Julie, 1786. [FIG 4]
More examples of work during the Pre-raphaelite by European artist is the artwork of Virgin Mary.
European Art - Virgin Mary
The figure of the mother carries extraordinary cultural weight, in European art as elsewhere, from the shifting maternal ideals represented by the Virgin Mary across centuries to the iconography of working women raising children in urban poverty in the modern era.
How women artist are shaping the way we see motherhood. - Salome Gomez-Upegui
Motherhood has been reflected in the art for centuries. The Virgin Mary archetype, which historically took the form of Madonna and Child, was the focus of iconic pieces by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Duccio. Other greats of Western art history, including Rembrandt van Rijn and Salvador Dalí, used their own mothers as muses for some of their works. Though some notable women artists were shaping this narrative, too—such as Élisabeth Louise Vigée-Le Brun and Mary Cassatt, who are known for their depictions of mothers and children, and Leonora Carrington, who dared to touch upon then-taboo subjects of pregnancy and fertility—the vast majority of Western art history’s early representations of mothers were heavily influenced by the male perspective. As a result, images of motherhood were often one-sided, reflecting expectations rather than realities, and disregarding the complexities of what it means to be a mother. (Salome Gomez-Upegui, 2021)
Over time, with the growing presence, recognition, and support for women in the arts, authentic and diverse representations of motherhood—including depictions of pregnancy, birth, mothers with their children, and family portraits—have become exponentially more expansive. (Salome Gomez-Upegui, 2021)
Angela Chamlers
‘To gather orange blossoms’ [FIG5]
This series of cyanotypes took from a phase “to gather orange blossoms” from the wreath of Queen Victoria on her wedding day to Prince Albert in 1840 the phrase also takes reference and meaning to seek a wife. The images show the delicate items of a wedding including the dress and the vale.
Something About Mary [FIG6]
The work Something About Mary responds to the history of Miss Mary Craven of St Martin-on-the-Hill, Scarborough.
“The cyanotype dress is layered with a design connected to the medievalism of Pre-Raphaelite art and an unexpected story about Mary. The blue of the dress is specific to the photographic chemicals related to the cyanotype process. Blue is symbolic of heaven and is traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary.” (Chamlers, 2015)
This evening dress of about 1850, with its bodice deeply pointed at the waist, pleated sleeves trimmed with fringe and figured ribbons, and full, bell-shaped skirt, exemplifies the opulence of Second Empire France (1852-70). The fabric itself, a Jacquard-woven silk produced in Lyons, reveals the derivative nature of mid-nineteenth-century textile design , which often used elements copied directly from prints of the work of well-known artists . In this case the images were adapted from two engravings by the eighteenth-century artist Jean Antoine Watteau, who was the object of renewed interest in France during the late l840s. The choice of the swing theme, which was used to symbolize lovemaking during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was especially appropriate for an evening dress, in which the wearer would want to appear demure yet flirtatious. (Artist/maker unknown, F. 1850).
A Philosophy of Textile : Between Practice and Theory
Dormor quotes Bourgeois in Soonenberg 2006, that fabric undamaged by unstitching.
“The beauty of sewing is precisely in the fact that things can be done and undone without damaging the fabric… [It] has to do with binding and stitching things together. It is a prevention against things being separated. The form and the process must always be connected to the psychological. (Dormor, 2020)
Aspiration
PREGNANCY - BIRTH - CHILD
Awkwardness, body image issues, stigma, fear, and lack of confidence
Awkwardness, body image issues, stigma, fear, and lack of confidence are words to describe the stigma around breast feeding in public. The breasts are seen as sexual and for that many women reduce their time of breastfeeding in public or to not breastfeed all together. “In particular, the sexualisation of breasts, disgust narratives and lack of exposure among observers to baby-led infant feeding patterns resulted in beliefs which created a stigmatising environment. In this context, many mothers felt unable to breastfeed in public; those who breastfed outside the home were usually highly self-aware, attempting to reduce their exposure to conflict.”(Grant, 2022) The sexualisation of breastfeeding is seen throughout society mainly in people of the same gender. “The researchers concluded that those who were uncomfortable with public breastfeeding were more likely to be unfamiliar with breastfeeding, to hold sexist views, or to have an association with breasts as hypersexual organs”(Grant,2016)
Memory
“An understanding of memory has often been curiously neglected by philosophers… even though it is so important in making sense of the continuity of the self, of the relation between mind and body, and of our experience of time.” (Sutton,2010)
Researching on the theme of memory we as humans play with the motion of truth through our self-conscious. “The ways in which time is organized are disabled, or more precisely, memory and imagination begin to reflect or refract each other in a manner that creates a disorienting self-consciousness.” (Sutton, 2009)
“Perception is never a mere contact of the mind with the object present ; it is impregnated with memory-images which complete it as they interpret it” (Bergson,2012)
Carrie Mae Weems
Untitled (Woman and daughter with makeup) from Kitchen Table Series, 1990 [FIG7]
Carrie Mae Weems once spoke and said to her close friend. “I’m determined to find new models to live by. Aren’t you?” Hoping to break tradition of expectations of others her work in all medias photography, video and performing all questions the past events into the future.
In her previous work Roaming Carrie Mae Weems looks at the theme of memory, and women capturing black and white photographing absences o black women. “Nothing and contesting inequities or absences, Weems thus establishes a presence and place for black women throughout the word and throughout history.”(Altınay, 2019) Her work Woman and daughter with makeup also plays on the theme of memory, by photographing mother and daughter.
References
Articles
Artist/maker unknown, F. (1850). Evening Dress: Bodice and Skirt.
De Clercq, E., Martani, A., Vulliemoz, N., Elger, B. S., & Wangmo, T. (2023). Rethinking advanced motherhood: a new ethical narrative. Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-023-10172-w
DeLuca, J. R., Maddox, C. B., & Bustad, J. J. (2023). Fit for Motherhood: The Glocalization of Maternal Physical Activity in Mother and Baby Magazine. Journal of Popular Culture, 56(1), 127–149. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpcu.13185
Grant, Pell, B., Copeland, L., Brown, A., Ellis, R., Morris, D., Williams, D., & Phillips, R. (2022). Views and experience of breastfeeding in public: A qualitative systematic review. Maternal and Child Nutrition, 18(4), e13407–n/a. https://doi.org/10.1111/mcn.13407
Gomez-Upegui, Salome. (2021) How women artist are shaping the way we see motherhood. https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-global-diversity-shines-west-bund-art-designs-largest-edition
Books
Altınay, A. G., Contreras, M. J., Hirsch, M., Howard, J., Karaca, B., Solomon, A., Altınay, A. G., Contreras, M. J., Hirsch, M., Howard, J., Karaca, B., & Solomon, A. (2019). Women Mobilizing Memory (A. G. Altınay, M. J. Contreras, M. Hirsch, J. Howard, B. Karaca, & A. Solomon, Eds.). Columbia University Press,. https://doi.org/10.7312/alti19184
Chapman, C. R. (2016). The House of the Mother : The Social Roles of Maternal Kin in Biblical Hebrew Narrative and Poetry. Yale University Press,. https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300224801
Doyle, N. (2018). Maternal Bodies Redefining Motherhood in Early America. The University of North Carolina Press.
Website
Chalmers, Angela (2015) Something about Mary, https://www.angelachalmers.com/artist-in-residence/something-about-mary/
Images
FIG1 https://www.artsy.net/artwork/nan-goldin-rebecca-at-the-russian-bath
FIG2 https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/150276
FIG3 https://www.artsy.net/artwork/sally-mann-jenny-and-leslie-8-months-pregnant
FIG4 https://www.artsy.net/artwork/elisabeth-louise-vigee-le-brun-self-portrait-with-her-daughter-julie
FIG5 https://www.angelachalmers.com/portfolio/antique-brides/
FIG 6 https://www.angelachalmers.com/artist-in-residence/something-about-mary/
FIG 7 https://www.artsy.net/artwork/carrie-mae-weems-untitled-woman-and-daughter-with-makeup-from-kitchen-table-series