Challenging Our Own Biased Minds About Art
Back in November, a statue of the pioneering feminist and writer Mary Wollstonecraft by the artist Maggi Hambling CBE was revealed in North London. This statue came to fruition after a decade of fundraising for it by a small group of volunteers named Mary on the Green. This society wanted to honour the writer’s legacy both as a writer and a feminist in London’s Newington Green, close to the location where Wollstonecraft lived and worked.
The artist Hambling was chosen to produce the sculpture even though she already caused some controversy previously with her other public sculpture works. The problem with this public sculpture is that as soon as it was revealed it caused a massive controversy; everyone had strong opinions about it. The opinion that stood out the loudest by many women is the physical appearance of the sculpture, the fact that the writer is depicted as a small, naked woman. For example, the Guardian’s Rachel Cooke wrote an article with the title “Poor Mary Wollstonecraft – reduced to a Pippa doll with pubic hair”. I myself was at first baffled when I saw the sculpture and even more having read all the negative reviews, but then I decided to give the sculpture a bit more respect, to start responding to it with understanding and compassion first and then making my judgement.
In order to give my full review of the piece, firstly I want to go back to the history of sculptures, nudes and the women’s nude depiction as such. So, the purpose of a public sculpture in the words of the 18th-century sculptor Etienne-Maurice Falconet is, ‘to perpetuate the memory of illustrious men and to give us models of virtue’. The message here is that the representations of those being cast in silver or bronze should be worthy of praise and admiration. Britain’s public spaces are filled with statuary and monuments of accomplished males. However, most of them were erected during Victorian times, and they represent what the elites who controlled these spaces considered important as statements of the society at the time.
These statues and figures of the past keep on shaping the public realm, that currently belongs to everyone, especially to the communities in which the statue is erected. I believe that in the current climate in which everyone equally has a voice that they can share though social media, public statues should be constructed though the opinions and beliefs of that particular community, narrow and wider. It is their public space which is for their use and therefore the voices of these people should be reflected in a statue that is public.
It is time that communities are involved in the process of creating a piece of art that serves everyone. Especially a statue of a woman that stood for equal rights of everyone having written the Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) that called for gender equality a century ahead of the suffragettes. Another important information to consider is the fact that the database of the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association suggests that only 2.7 per cent of the civic statues in Britain are of non-royal women. For this reason, this statue was supposed to be more carefully crafted with the consideration that it will not be just one of many because they are so little women statues compared to those of men.
Secondly, when considering nude sculptures, the Greek’s were the pioneers for this. This concept of depicting a nude male statue is called Heroic nudity or ideal nudity. It is a concept that explains the depiction of un-realistic use of nudity in service of depicting heroic and divine or semi-divine beings. So, for Greeks, the concept of using nudity was simply a way of addressing the idea of power and liberty through a sculptural depiction. Maybe with this concept in mind we can think of this statue of Mary Wollstonecraft as a depiction of a powerful woman that challenged tradition and oppression of women. However, the history of a nude women statues has a bit more complex history. As Kenneth Clark notes:
“The female nude marks both the internal limit of art and the external limit of obscenity… It is the internal structural link that holds art and obscenity and an entire system of meaning together. And whilst the female nude can behave well, it involves a risk and threatens to destabilize the very foundations of our sense of order.”
This means that the depiction of the female form holds a duality that is not as simple as male nudity. It holds the potential for artistic depiction, but at the same time the erotic and physical element risks the subversion of the artistic purposes, such as a depiction of power and authority. This is why the nude depiction of Wollstonecraft is met with harsh and strong criticism. Depicting an accomplished woman as a nude has the power to subvert her accomplishments and undermine them as unimportant and put into second plan.
Considering all of this information that still serves as a negative and a criticism for the sculpture, I am now going back to the original source of the idea of the statue, the society Mary on the Green. I discovered the document where they explained the purpose and use of the statue and to me it all fell into place. Here is one passage that explains the purpose of the statue: “She is Everywoman, her own person, ready to confront the world. As opposed to traditional male heroic statuary, the free-standing woman has evolved organically from, is supported by, and does not forget, all her predecessors who advocated, campaigned and sacrificed themselves for women’s emancipation”.
Considering that the goal is to create a visual representation of Everywoman, a woman that Wollstonecraft pioneered for and advocated for, that this depiction is not of Mary Wollstonecraft as herself, but as all women united respecting the legacy before them and uniting into a better future, for me it makes sense. She is presented in nude because clothes define us all, and without it she is timeless but heroic. After reading the document which explains the goals and vision, I can now fully understand the intent and the artistic idea behind it. I can now relate to the idea of this woman and come from a place of understanding and appreciation for the artistic vision as well.
Even though this does not make things right and will not change the minds of people about the sculpture and its depiction as a nude, I believe there to be a valuable lesson about art and artistic creation. Before judging on solely what we see before we try to understand the intent behind it, can we just come from a place of more compassion and willingness to understand why and for what reason was this depicted the way it was? And after coming from the source itself we can then make our own judgement. If it is still the same as it was before, it can then be viewed as rightful. This does not mean changing the views of every single person to be the same, it is about respecting the intention. I believe that each opinion holds a value that is true in its own right and should be expressed as we live in a democratic society and the need for debate is healthy and supports diversity.
To conclude this thought, in the official document for this memorial, it says: “The memorial to Mary Wollstonecraft will be a source of debate and stimulus for events, as well as a visual celebration of diversity and inclusion in a place that needs it more than ever.” I believe that this sculpture has done its goal a justice and fulfilled the goal to be a source of debate and clash of many different opinions, celebration and diversity all at the same time.
After all the research about the sculpture, the most important lesson that I will be taking with me from this is that I should not be hasty in my judgement, to realise my own biased mind and give the artists and creators enough credit to respect their vision even though it does not align with my own.
Written By Hana Kohout
Hana is a social media manager who focuses on contemporary visual arts. She enjoys working on artistic projects and her dream job would be as a project manager in an arts institution. When she’s not glued to her laptop, she loves listening to music while sipping her favourite cup of coffee.