Essay by Kate Felde, Class of 2006 and Catherine Carter Goebel, Editor

Two Women Painting from Plaster Models is unsigned, making it difficult to pin down specific information for research. This challenge, however, encourages us to look deeper into the painting itself, in order to discern clues in its subject and style which can reveal a great deal about its context.

The first immediate clue lies in the subject. Since two women are painting in an academic environment, it seems reasonable to conclude that this painting was completed in the second half of the nineteenth century. By the 1870s in Paris, there were separate alternative classes where women could work from the model. Even the conservative academic École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) finally admitted women by 1896 (Slatkin 110). In America, artistic opportunities opened sooner for women. Throughout the nineteenth century, girls were increasingly better educated through public schooling and in terms of artistic training, women such as the two pictured here, could study from plaster casts as early as 1844 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Anatomy classes opened to women in 1860, and by 1868, women could participate in separate life drawing classes (Slatkin 96).

The painting's style provides the second clue for analysis. The artist's brushstrokes are loose and the application fairly broad which suggests Impressionism, likely dating it somewhere between the mid 1870s to the early 1900s. The broken brushstrokes capture the immediacy of the moment as well as the subtleties of color and light. The walls are cropped, as in a photograph, typical of Impressionist viewpoints. The painting still follows traditional Renaissance linear perspective principles, which academic artists were reluctant to abandon.

Along with subject and style, a comparison of contemporary fashion and furnishings can help date the painting. The women's dresses are typical turn-of-the-century design. Their hairstyles confirm this dating. To further the argument, the chair on which the woman on the left is seated is known as Bentwood. The bentwood chair was invented in the late nineteenth century, and its back, consisting of curved (bent) wood, repeats the curvilinear line that is a hallmark of the Art Nouveau style

It seems logical to date this painting to around 1900. The artist accurately depicted women within the modern art world, where they could now gain the formal education they needed to become professional artists. Considering the evidence, it also seems likely it was painted by an American artist, since Impressionism was passé in Paris at this time but was beginning to blossom in America. Within the context of modernity, this painting records and celebrates the fact that women could now be involved in the arts, not only as models, but as accomplished professional artists as well (web gallery 93 and 99).