Do You Think the Fact That Angelika Kauffman Is a Woman Affects How She Treats the Body in Her Art?

Biography of Angelica Kauffman

Childhood

Angelica Kauffman, christened Maria Anna Angelika Catharina Kauffmann, was born October 30, 1741 in Switzerland. Her parents were painter Johann Josef Kauffman and Cleophea, née Luz, who came from a noble family. Kauffman would inhabit and glean the all-time parts from both of her parents' respective worlds in social club to course her own identity. As such she became both a practising creative person and a charming and highly cultured hostess circulating within the highest echelons of European society. Most of Kauffman's childhood was spent in the Swiss region of Morbegno, Graubünden, and living surrounding Lake Como, depending on where her father was working. Johann decided to exit Switzerland with his family in 1755, when Angelica was aged sixteen, to search for a larger client base in Austria. This early nomadic lifestyle and already being dedicated to moving in the proper noun of fine art, helped to shape Kauffman'due south career as an ''international sensation''.

Kauffman's parents recognised their girl's abilities and talents from an early historic period and the immature girl enjoyed a much fuller and richer education than nigh girls of the menses. Like her female parent, she could speak multiple languages including German language, Italian, English language and French. She besides learnt to play the cello and possessed a strong clear singing voice. Writer, De Rossi in his biography on Kauffman recounts the story of how in her teen years Kauffman chose painting over music as a career. The artist'due south begetter had taken her to visit a local priest as means to make this difficult conclusion given that she had talents to do either and enjoyed both fields. The priest brash that life every bit a performer would give little time for religious observance as a young Catholic woman, and also that although more difficult, painting would ultimately exist a more satisfying career.

Whether De Rossi'southward story was anecdotal or true, it certainly gives evidence that Kauffman was highly advanced; a typical eighteenth-century adult female was not expected to think most or make up one's mind for herself which professional career to pursue. The artist'due south male parent's feet over whether his girl would get regular work, as artists at this fourth dimension e'er operated by obtaining commissions, was unfounded.

Early on Training and Piece of work

Johann Kauffman was instrumental in his daughter's early training. Upon the death of Cleophea in 1757, father and daughter moved to her father's birthplace in Schwarzenberg, Austria. Kauffman assisted her father in completing a fresco painting of the Twelve Apostles for a parish church in Schwarzenberg - a rare and exciting opportunity for a girl her historic period. The two continued thus forth to piece of work on commissions together and by the historic period of twenty information technology was Angelica Kauffman who had become the family's main breadwinner.

In the years after his married woman'due south decease Johann dedicated himself completely to Kauffman'south preparation and the catamenia between 1762 and 1764 was defining in this regard. The father and daughter duo travelled to Naples, Rome, Milan, Florence and other cities in Italia spending hours in galleries copying from the Old Master paintings including Raphael, as well as from plaster casts. Kauffman produced etchings, drawings, and paintings all of which helped to build on her noesis of Renaissance and seventeenth-century painting, every bit well as to practice her own cartoon techniques. The contacts and resource already congenital by her father gave Kauffman unfettered access to what was usually an exclusively male fine art earth.

Fifty-fifty though still young, and effectively at the very starting time of her career, Kauffman showed such unusual talent that by 1762, she was already an honorary member of the Accademia Clementina di Bologna, and given a diploma from the Accademia del Designo in Florence. She also afterwards joined the Academia di San Luca in Rome. Now with several letters of recommendation to her name, Kauffman was admitted to the regal courts of both Parma and Florence, and here she was deputed to produce both portraits and history paintings.

Mature Period

During Kauffman's travels in Italia she made an of import contact. In October 1765 she met Lady Bridget Wentworth Murray, wife of an English envoy, in Venice who persuaded her to travel back to London with her. Kauffman arrived in the upper-case letter in 1766 and was to remain in that location for the adjacent fifteen years of her life. Almost as soon as she had arrived she met the influential painter Joshua Reynolds, and the two became lifelong friends. Augusta Princess of Wales and mother of Rex George Iii too came to her studio, a visit that led to the commission of a portrait of Augusta's eldest daughter, the Duchess of Brunswick. This portrait was widely praised in the newspapers and led to Kauffman receiving fifty-fifty more commissions. A mezzoprint was fifty-fifty made of this painting, and as such past newly established technological means, news of Kauffman'southward skills travelled even farther.

Having parted from her father to come to London, she wrote to him shortly later on arrival and commented on the double-edged sword of public fame; ''I am now known by everyone here and esteemed. Not but must I maintain my grapheme in keeping with my work, everything else must be bundled appropriately - with a certain propriety that is necessary these days - if one would wish to distinguish oneself''. In view of keeping upward with propriety, in Florence she had been given separate rooms to the male artists when copying works. In England, it was revealed, decorum was only as important.

For most of Kauffman's career she lived with her father. However, having come to London lonely, her reputation was almost irrevocably tarred when she married Frederick de Horn in 1767. Rumoured to exist impotent, de Horn was surely a bigamist, and information technology is thought the pseudo-Swedish Count had tricked Kauffman into marrying him so that he could stay in England. The terrible marriage was chop-chop annulled with financial assist from Kaufman'south male parent. Furthermore, Kauffman's connections to the English imperial family unit and even more so, to the dignified and successful Joshua Reynolds all helped to soon alleviate the social stigma of this separation. Kauffman's fame continued to grow unscathed.

Kauffman proposed to Male monarch George III that a Royal University of Painting and Sculpture should be established in London. Her entreaty led to her becoming one of but two female co-founders of the Purple Academy established on December ten^thursday, 1768, alongside Reynolds and around 30 other founders. The only other female person co-founder was flower painter Mary Moser. Feminist art historian Whitney Chadwick suggests that this privilege was awarded because ''both were the daughters of foreigners, and that both were active in the group of male painters instrumental in forming the Regal Academy''. In a well-known painting by Zoffany the male academicians are in discussion effectually male nudes whilst the two pivotal women announced in portraits on the wall, still in some means untouchable and nowadays more in theory than in practice. Even so despite evident inequality, the Academy was supportive and important for Kauffman. She first exhibited at that place in 1769 and continued to practise and so until the belatedly 1790s, an official presence that profoundly assisted in securing important commissions.

Besides as history paintings, Kauffman also painted novelists, playwrights, poets, actors, statesmen, philosophers, and royalty, many of whom were her friends. She had many important patrons including the Austrian Governor, the Grand Duke and Yard Duchess of Russia, Queen Caroline and Rex Ferdinand of Naples, and Prince Poniatowsky of Poland. Gender did yet remain an on-going obstacle in her career. Indeed, information technology was speculated that her concrete charms attracted men - including an appointment to Nathaniel Trip the light fantastic toe in Italy, an apparent wedding proposal from Reynolds, and a flirtation with printmaker William Ryland. Despite such speculation, it was not until the death of her first husband (long after their separation) that she was able to re-marry. In 1781 she wed Venetian painter Antonio Zucchi, who she met in England every bit he had been working on commissions in the land alongside Scottish builder Robert Adam. Overall though, Kauffman did very well to avoid whatsoever scandal, whilst other contemporary female portrait artists, including Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun were not so lucky.

Kauffman also adapted very well to English language tastes. Influenced by Neoclassicist art and English romantic literature, she produced paintings derived from the writings of Alexander Pope and from Homer as well as classical works such as Zeuxis Selecting Models for his Painting of Helen of Troy (1764). In around 1770 she began to focus principally on history paintings, and along with Benjamin West (one of the few successful history painters working in England) she was one of the kickoff Majestic Academy members to exhibit British history paintings and helped to make the genre popular. Kauffman'due south notoriety in this field shows her high ambitions every bit the genre was ranked in a higher place portraiture, still life, and landscape. An engraved print circulated in 1780 shows Kauffman at piece of work and heralds her position as a well-respected and established creative person.

Throughout she enjoyed fiscal independence as a female person painter because her skill was unquestionable. Contemporary diarist Joseph Farington estimated that Kauffman'due south wealth during her fifteen-year career based in England came up to effectually £xiv,000 which was an enormous sum at the time. Whilst almost of her female person contemporaries were already married with children, by age thirty, Kauffman shows in her numerous self-portraits that she was dissimilar from the others, in her dedication to art.

Late years

Following her 2d marriage Kauffman returned to Italia, settling in Rome with Zucchi in 1782. Although she had enjoyed her 15-year stay in United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, Kauffman felt that history painting was held in much better esteem on the continent and equally such it was easier for her to build a skillful customer base of operations and receive regular commissions if she moved in that location. Every bit in London, her studio and company quickly became well known and she was considered to be ''1 of the most cultivated women in Europe''. In 1786 Kauffman attended starting time meetings of University of Arcadians, a Roman gild of poets. Through the Academy she met and befriended German language poets Johann Wolfgang Goethe and Johann Gottfried von Herder. The former affectionately wrote of her ''immense talent'' and said further of his painter friend, that "she was sensitive to all that is true and beautiful, and she is incredibly minor". In 1790 she also painted A Scene in Arcady later on a verse form by friend George Keate. She had a personal letter-writing correspondence with Keate as well as with many other poets and writers, including the impressive Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock.

Kauffman continued to paint and socialise until the early on 1800s. Sculptor Antonia Canova was among those who frequented her abode in Rome and became another great friend. Meanwhile, in England Kauffman'south fame lived on. Publishers and printmakers became very interested in her work, especially the line engraver William Wynne Ryland who reproduced and spread Kauffman's images widely. Indeed, her paintings even inspired a new type of decorative printing process - the stipple engraving whereby etched or engraved dots were used to build up tone. Copies of Kauffman'south paintings were often found hanging in the most fashionable places in London.

Kauffman died on Nov 5, 1807. Her friend, the reputable sculptor, Canova, prepared her funeral and it was considered to be the greatest and most elaborate organised for a painter passing in Rome since the decease of Raphael. The entire Accademia di San Luca comprised the mournful procession along with various other important ecclesiastics and virtuosi. As a mark of keen respect, ii of her paintings were fifty-fifty carried alongside the procession. Interestingly, Kauffman spent both the defining early years of her training, and the last office of her career, in Rome.

The Legacy of Angelica Kauffman

Often described as ''a pioneer'' Angelica Kauffman took everywhere that she went by tempest and has a long-lasting legacy. During her lifetime she was one of the highest paid and well-nigh sought later portrait artists, second simply to her neat friend and colleague, Sir Joshua Reynolds. Her skill and dedication to painting was astounding and unfailing and as such a vast variety of autobiographies and articles have been written on her career.

Kauffman challenged contemporary perspectives on gender from the very centre of the art world, cleverly using the well-nigh elite and respected form of art at the time, history painting. She was charming, financially contained, and internationally acclaimed and as such society had little choice just to take her very seriously. A contemporary at the time described the sheer number of prints of her work in circulation around the world as proof that everyone had gone "Angelicamad". Indeed, it was every bit though the painter had glory status in the eighteenth century something akin to a film star following today.

Although an undoubtedly skilled painter and an excellent businesswoman, future centuries did not take Kauffman equally readily every bit her own. Romantic and idyllic landscape painters including John Constable held the belief that the English Schoolhouse would not be able to make progress until Kauffman's influence had macerated (singling her out in this style), and the Victorian period did not pay attention to her work. Kauffman's friend Goethe was a defended supporter Kauffman's talents, simply he also comments that her real skill was somewhat diminished past cheap reproductions and the effect that over-commercialisation had on her career.

Despite the pitfalls of fame however, Kauffman remains a highly impressive and hugely of import female person artist. Whilst she used mythology, female muses, and apologue to illustrate the equal strength and status between men and women, it was not until the 20^thursday century that artists started to portray active and empowered female mystics and goddesses more widely. When depicted earlier past male artists, female figures were more often than not passive and used to illuminate an idea of some sort. Kauffman'south is a very long-standing influence that continues to grow through the lineage and progression of cocky-portraiture.

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Source: https://www.theartstory.org/artist/kauffman-angelica/life-and-legacy/