Women in art have always been a source of inspiration for various artists, as well as for many writers who, over the centuries, have immortalized them in memorable verses or splendid works of art.
We at PuzzleArte have searched for the most famous female portraits , starting from Renaissance art and arriving at contemporary art.
In ancient civilizations, women embodied various virtues: grace, beauty, or fertility. The entire feminine universe was represented by sacred and religious icons such as Mary , mother of Jesus in Christianity, or Greek deities, symbols of virtue such as Venus .
Entering the Renaissance period, women became real in their appearance and in their humanity, becoming a source of inspiration for many artists following the numerous requests from women of the court or the upper middle class.
Let’s begin by citing Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine , actually painted by Cecilia Gallarani. The portrait depicts a young woman, probably “immature,” but with a noble and intelligent appearance. The woman in the painting is delicately caressing the ermine. This animal symbolized purity and incorruptibility in the Middle Ages.
The work is one of the paintings that symbolizes the extraordinary artistic level achieved by Leonardo during his first stay in Milan, between 1482 and 1499.
Since 2017 the original painting has been moved to the National Museum in Krakow .
A faint smile plays across his lips to express a feeling, a typical trait of Leonardo, who preferred to hint at emotions rather than make them explicit.
A hint of a smile can also be found in the painting of La Gioconda by Leonardo da Vinci , Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo.
The Mona Lisa, probably the most famous painting in the Western world, is considered the pinnacle of Renaissance art .
It is believed that Leonardo was commissioned by Francesco del Giocondo, a wealthy merchant, to paint a portrait of his wife (his lady). Hence the title La Gioconda.
Leonardo da Vinci ‘s oil painting dates back to around 1503-1514. Today it is housed in the Louvre Museum in Paris . It is one of the most famous and controversial portraits of women in art, and one of the most well-known works of art in the world.
Looking for female faces and depictions, one of the most fascinating paintings of women in art is Vemeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring .
Also known as the woman with the turban , she is the woman of mystery, who has raised many questions and curiosities in many art historians.
In fact, little information is available on this oil painting on canvas, as well as on the Dutch artist.
This woman is depicted half-length, as with the other two historical Renaissance icons. But while the other two figures likely represented court ladies, in this case, the girl, whose name is unknown, depicts a delicate young woman, like the accessories she wears: a silk turban and pearl earrings. Probably commissioned by a wealthy European merchant, or perhaps painted by her artist father himself, the painting still raises many questions.
The Dutch-Flemish influence is evident, with careful attention to the play of light. Indeed, the light illuminates the turban with bright touches of yellow and blue, the opaque pearl contrasting with the lively and natural sparkle of the eyes. Here too, the mouth, with its thin but delicately full lips, opens in a hint of a smile, giving us one of the most intense and intimately authentic portraits in all of 17th-century Dutch painting.
The painting is now located in The Hague at the Mauritshuis Museum.
Undoubtedly among the most famous portraits of Romantic Baroque art, and indeed of Spanish art, is Francisco Goya ‘s Nude Maja . A scandal in the 19th century, its provocative nude depiction was commissioned by the powerful minister Manuel Godoy, deliberately to contravene the rules of the Spanish Inquisition, which prohibited the depiction of the female nude.
Unlike portraits commissioned by courtiers, the woman depicted here is neither a goddess nor an idealized figure. She is a simple commoner who acquires aristocratic dignity. With a provocative pose and mischievous gaze, she causes a certain uneasiness in the viewer.
The work became part of the Prado Museum in 1901.
We have the revenge of women, now freer to assert themselves and express themselves beyond the canons imposed by the time. Gustav Klimt pays homage to women in all their aspects and conditions. We are talking about the creator of a more conscious and realistic representation of the feminine world, powerful and disturbing. Strength, boldness, and awareness are the elements that characterize women in art.
Among the paintings of the Viennese painter, we list the Waiting : symbol of fertility, protection, care, love that a woman is capable of.
And the woman with the fan , which instead symbolizes the beauty and elegance of women in all their human and earthly forms.
The two paintings are in Vienna. The first is at the Museum of Applied Arts and the second at the Leopold Museum.
Another example of modern art is Matisse’s painting Purple Robe and Anemones , created in 1937. It depicts a woman, the painter’s assistant Lydia Delectorskaya , wearing a purple coat. Her dress is reminiscent of typical Moroccan clothing, reflecting the painter’s great passion for North African culture.
Here the woman conveys self-confidence and exercises mastery of the home through her comfortable and relaxed position.
The oil painting on canvas is located at the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Impressionism was born around 1870, the first of the revolutionary avant-garde movements of twentieth-century art.
Like all artists, Monet stood out for being against a single way and a single path of seeing art and painting in particular.
The female model played a very important role in the paintings of the Impressionists, and in particular in the paintings of Monet.
In fact, in many of his paintings we find female figures surrounded by large gardens, on which the full skirts fashionable at the time stand out, or refined parasols.
For Claude Monet, woman symbolizes the breath of life, the one who welcomes and regenerates the strength of existence. Delicate and sensual, she appears on the hilltop like perfection.
Since the first graphic representations in the history of human civilization, the female body has been depicted in sculptures, paintings and so on.
Artists have depicted the female body as a fertility charm, as a goddess, as a muse, but also as a mother, as a warrior, but also as a seductive wife or companion.
Paintings and sculptures sought as gifts or hymns of secret love, commissioned to soothe the souls of young courtesans or to enrich the bridal trousseau. In any case, these were emblematic and mysterious figures who played a decisive role in art.
When we arrive at contemporary art, women effectively become the subject of the work, and no longer the object.
Modigliani portrays women trying to define their forms so that they speak of their soul, as in the portrait of Madame Van Muyden .
And just as Modigliani sought to convey to the viewer something that spoke of the soul of the painted subject, so it was for Frida Kahlo, who painted almost exclusively self-portraits aimed at describing her state of physical and mental suffering.
The framed Frida Kahlo self-portrait is the most concrete testimony of a woman in contemporary art. Fragile, suffering, yet capable of dignifiedly concealing her state of mind and her anguish.
The painting is now on display at the Musée National d’ Art Moderne at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
