The Mirror and the Palette
Rebellion, Revolution and Resilience: 500 Years of Women's Self-Portraits
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
'Reveals an until-now hidden history of women's self-portraiture. A gift that keeps on giving' ALI SMITH, NEW STATESMAN, Books of the Year
'A fascinating survey . . . Extraordinary' DAILY MAIL
'A bewitching, invigorating history' OLIVIA LAING
'Grips from the opening pages' FINANCIAL TIMES
'Important and brilliantly accessible' VOGUE
Until the twentieth century, art history was, in the main, written by white men who tended to write about other white men. The idea that women in the West have always made art was rarely cited as a possibility. Yet they have - and, of course, continue to do so - often against tremendous odds, from laws and religion to the pressures of family and public disapproval.
In THE MIRROR AND THE PALETTE, Jennifer Higgie introduces us to a cross-section of women artists who embody the fact that there is more than one way to understand our planet, more than one way to live in it and more than one way to make art about it. Spanning 500 years, biography and cultural history intertwine in a narrative packed with tales of rebellion, adventure, revolution, travel and tragedy enacted by women who turned their back on convention and lived lives of great resilience, creativity and bravery. This is a dazzlingly original and ambitious book by one of the most well-respected art critics at work today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this idiosyncratic and fascinating primer, critic and artist Higgie (There's Not One) skillfully restores marginalized women self-portraitists to their rightful place in the art pantheon. Interweaving biographical profiles and pointed cultural commentary, she charges through 500 years of art history to reveal her trailblazing subjects' "shared desire to try to make sense of the world with a paintbrush." Noting that "a self-portrait is not only a description of concrete reality, it's also an expression of an inner world," Higgie brings to light the lives of a number of women artists whose creations were a way to assert their existence in a milieu that often overlooked them. Italian artist Sofonisba Anguissola's subversive painting The Chess Game (1555) rendered her the "first artist to portray her family as a primary subject," while Mary Beale's double portrait of her and her husband in 1675 flipped "traditional marriage roles." For Frida Kahlo, art became "a form of catharsis" mentally and physically (after surviving a bus accident at 18, she underwent 32 operations before dying of complications related to her injuries almost 30 years later). Meanwhile, German artist Paula Modersohn-Becker's 1906 self-portrait was "a defiant... acknowledgment of the energy and ambition that consumed her." Full of edgy insights, this engrossing survey will delight art connoisseurs and general readers alike.
