DOI Heft:
Nr. 2
DOI Artikel:Henshaw, Julia Plummer: Images of Women in Polish Symbolist Art
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18901#0061
22. Edward Okuń, We and War, 1917—1923, Warsaw, Muzeum Narodowe
The images of women perpetuated by these male artists reinforce the denial of power to women
in real life through their intellectual capacity, emotional sensitivity, or physical strenght. In
the late nineteenth century, when women were seriously engaged in a struggle to gain more
control over their own lives and to function in roles other than those in the service of the patriar-
chal institution of the family, male artists seemed ever more concerned with limiting women’s
potential. They resorted to the oldest trick in the book and invoked the memory of Eve, „the
devil’s gateway”, the tempted and the temptress, whose gullibility and weakness caused man
to fall from the lofty state of spiritual grace originally offered him by the all-powerful male God.
And apparently this dangerous woman remains eternally attractive to men and their resistance
to her temptation remains weak. It has only been eighty four years since Weiss painted Obsession:
is it any wonder that so little real progress has been made towards granting women an equal
place in a world still dominated by men?
51
The images of women perpetuated by these male artists reinforce the denial of power to women
in real life through their intellectual capacity, emotional sensitivity, or physical strenght. In
the late nineteenth century, when women were seriously engaged in a struggle to gain more
control over their own lives and to function in roles other than those in the service of the patriar-
chal institution of the family, male artists seemed ever more concerned with limiting women’s
potential. They resorted to the oldest trick in the book and invoked the memory of Eve, „the
devil’s gateway”, the tempted and the temptress, whose gullibility and weakness caused man
to fall from the lofty state of spiritual grace originally offered him by the all-powerful male God.
And apparently this dangerous woman remains eternally attractive to men and their resistance
to her temptation remains weak. It has only been eighty four years since Weiss painted Obsession:
is it any wonder that so little real progress has been made towards granting women an equal
place in a world still dominated by men?
51