Similarities Between Scholderer And Lesendes Mädchen

Scholderer also paints the object of Wollstonecraft’s gaze, differing from Opie’s portraits and humanizes her by giving her agency in the painting. Nochlin presents her argument against how women are looked at in art stating “the acceptance of woman as object of the desiring male gaze in the visual arts is so universal that for a woman to question, or to draw attention to this fact, is to invite derision,” she reveals the problem of the male dominated world of objectifying women. During Wollstonecraft’s lifetime, feminism and gender equality were radical ideas that were rejected by the public and reflected in Opie’s work. Although a seemingly innocent way of portraying women as staring idly off to the side or at the audience, this actually
Even though Opie’s portrait was for Wollstonecraft’s husband to look at, the pose he paints her makes it so that Wollstonecraft becomes an object for everyone to gaze at. It is as if she sits there only to be looked at by others and has no control over the situation. On the other hand, Scholderer’s Lesendes Mädchen reveals what Wollstonecraft is looking at, her book. By painting her in this manner, Scholderer does not objectify her and gives agency. Although beautiful, Wollstonecraft is not painted solely for viewers to look at her beauty, but rather the viewers are almost interrupting her and taking a peak into her life. In Opie’s work the audience is the one doing the action of looking while in Scholderer’s work Wollstonecraft is the one doing the action of reading. The change of power dynamics in art was a representation of real life changes in men and women relationships. Once looked at only in connection to men, women transformed from a passive state to an independent state where they were treated as a separate entity in the Victorian society. Although Nochlin preaches against how women are viewed in art works, Scholderer responded to the change of the perception of women in society and their interactions with men through his paintings and giving his subjects the power in