{"id":397,"date":"2015-03-05T21:50:25","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T21:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/?p=397"},"modified":"2016-08-24T15:51:12","modified_gmt":"2016-08-24T15:51:12","slug":"the-woman-in-white-in-the-artists-studio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/2015\/03\/05\/the-woman-in-white-in-the-artists-studio\/","title":{"rendered":"The Woman in White In the Artist\u2019s Studio"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christina Rossetti seems to imply in her poem In the Artist\u2019s Studio<\/i>, that women are portrayed in art they are no longer themselves but a projection of the male fantasy that surrounds her. Her accusation of art as a means to deprive women of their individuality will be examined here through the portrayal first of Laura from the Women in White<\/i>, as described through Walter\u2019s painting. <\/span><\/p>\n

Laura is described first through the lens of Walter\u2019s watercolor of her. He asks readers to \u201cThink of her, as you thought of the first women who quickened the pulse within you that the rest of her sex could not stir.\u201d (Collins 52). This description\u00a0is the most potent in demonstrating the uniformity of women through the eyes of male art. Laura is not her own person but rather a conglomeration of all the aspects of a woman that bring out \u201csensations\u201d in men. He describes Laura as \u201cmatchless, music[al], and airy\u201d even going so far as to say, \u201cTake her as the visionary nursling of your own fancy; and she will grow upon you…as the living woman who dwells in mine.\u201d (Collins 52). Christina Rossetti would likely roll her eyes to this romanticization of a woman to the point of potentially falsifying her appearance and almost certainly falsifying who she is as a person. <\/span><\/p>\n

Walter\u2019s initial portrayal of Laura becomes problematic as the story continues. As Laura becomes more ill \u201cwith sorrow dim\u201d rather than shining \u201chope… bright[ly].\u201d (Rossetti 12-13). Walter\u2019s love for her seems to become less certain for her. There seems to be a shift in his unyielding romantic language surrounding Laura at the beginning to an almost piteous treatment of her towards the end of the novel. This shift almost seems to imply that Walter would rather be in love with his own painting of Laura than Laura herself, the thing which Christina Rossetti seems to be critiquing. Christina Rossetti, though critical, does not seem to imply a consequence to standardizing female figures in paintings. Could we, as readers, use the outcome of Laura\u2019s changed relationship with Walter and Walter\u2019s altered perspective of Laura as examples of consequences?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christina Rossetti seems to imply in her poem In the Artist\u2019s Studio, that women are portrayed in art they are no longer themselves but a projection of the male fantasy that surrounds her. Her accusation of art as a means to deprive women of their individuality will be examined here through the portrayal first of … Continue reading The Woman in White In the Artist\u2019s Studio<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2304,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111380,108029],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-360-victorian-sexualities","category-spring-2015"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2304"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/victorianlit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}