I decided to start the research by reading The Magdalen in
Modern Times: The Mythology of the Fallen Woman in Pre-Raphaelite Painting, author
Lynn Nead. The papers aim was to
establish the way in which paintings and other forms of cultural representation
participated in the definition of sexual behavior and ‘respectability’ during
the nineteenth century. The paper starts with a background of nineteenth
century society and what was thought to be normal? Using the term “Victorian morality” you start
to learn the certain rules inflicted upon men and women during Victorian England,
such as the different gender roles in society. One of the best ways to describe
the women’s role is the term “women’s mission” or domestic being. Women were
seen to have three roles as a mother, a wife and daughter and that was the women’s
aim in life. Her respectability was based on an appearance of carefully
arranged neat hair and a modest dress. A
woman was to have no sexual desire whilst males sexual urge was seen to be
active and spontaneous. To sum it up males were seen to be strong and women
were seen to be weak. Using a repeated Victorian metaphor, he is the oak and
she is the ivy describes the roles that were acceptable for a man and a women
during the nineteenth century. There
seems to be two lives for a man during the nineteenth century, city and country
life. City life was regarded as impersonal and just a place for a man’s work it
was seen as a dangerous place with displaced people such as the homeless and
prostitutes breeding ground whereas country life was the family home regarded
as safe, permanent and ordered. Going on from city life the paper starts to
discuss the falling women. The falling woman was seen in terms of lost innocence.
The image of a falling woman became a subject of pity with the end of their life
as suicide on the Thames being no other way out.
The Pre-Raphaelites exhibit at Tate Britain describes the
Pre-Raphaelites as the Victorian Avant-Garde at its time overturning current
orthodoxies in art and replacing them with new. The museum discusses the qualities
of the paintings such as a more realistic figure specifically on facial
features rather than the Italian beautified perfect figures. The paintings were
more flattened with crisper features and bolder colors this is partly due to
the new technology of photography meaning people were seeing the world
differently. The PRB made the subject of
the falling women an acceptable subject in art rejecting the Italian tradition
of history and religious paintings they applied these subjects to modern times
one being by John Everett Millais painting ‘Christ In The House of His Parents’
who depicts Jesus in ordinary working people house with the figures depicting
ordinary working people. In the exhibition there was no mention of the subject
of the falling women brought up. In a way the museum uses the Italian
Renaissance of beautifying some of the real subject matter giving the museum
goer a more glamorous version of the era.
