Gender: How much does it influence art?

Loosely defined, art is a communication of thoughts, experiences and emotions. Art is therefore, very personal. Two artists will never be able to truly paint two pictures that are identical in everyway. Each person’s existence is just so different and unique from the next person that their artwork can’t help but be affected. That said, one could argue that gender does in fact determine art. The two different renditions of Judith Beheading Holofernes by artists Artemesia Gentileschi and Caravaggio support this. However, as we all saw in the play The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstein, gender doesn’t necessarily determine everything.

You don’t need to be an expert to see the stark differences in Gentileschi’s and Caravaggio’s versions of Judith Beheading Holofernes. Caravaggio, a male artist, painted a very timid and weak Judith. She appears out of place and very unskilled with a blade. She seems unsure of herself and her actions. Gentileschi, a female artist, decided to go with a very different direction with her Judith. Her Judith has a much more powerful appearance and appears to be fairly familiar with a blade. She certainly knows what she’s doing and has no misgivings about getting the job done. More importantly, her female companion plays a much more active role in the murder (compared to Caravaggio’s more passive onlooker), possibly suggesting the necessity for women to stick together. The thoughts, experiences and emotions of these artists were certainly influenced by their genders. However, gender may not have acted alone in this situation; something else might have ultimately led to the differences in the paintings. Wasserstein portrays this in her play.

Heidi and her various female companions from the play The Heidi Chronicles were originally defined by their gender. At first, they felt the social pressures to conform based on being female. Women were supposed to marry, have kids, and be the homemakers. Unsatisfied with this, they joined the feminist movement, but even then, it seemed that gender differences were the focal point of everything; both society’s norms and the norms of the feminist movement were centered around gender differences. She wasn’t expected to be a homemaker anymore but now she was suppose to be a single business women without children. Heidi’s other friends however, become less influenced by gender as the play goes on. Susan, for instance, comes to define herself by materialism more than anything else; wealth and power become central to all of her thoughts, experiences and emotions. In other words, if Susan had been a painter her paintings would have stopped being quite as influenced by her gender. The different personality traits of Heidi and Susan are what ultimately led the two women to go different directions. Heidi was much more independent (and stubborn) than Susan throughout the play, and consequently felt more comfortable defining herself based on differences. Susan simply followed the crowd. As soon as feminism was no longer popular, she moved on to materialism.

This difference in the characters is relevant to art as well. Each and every one of us is a human first and everything else second. Yes, an artist’s gender can affect their work. But it doesn’t necessarily have to. A person’s personality characteristics are what really determine his or her thoughts, experiences, and emotions.