The Representation of Women in Pre-Raphaelite Art

The paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood presented various representations of womanhood that existed during the Victorian era. Through opposing images of sexuality and virtue, the artists made their female subjects elevated and yet imprisoned. These women are a metaphor for the position and role that the ideal Victorian female was expected to take.

The first prevalent representation of women in the artwork of this period is that of the Holy Virgin. They are the ideal image of piety and virtue. In Rossetti’s “Ecca Ancilla Domini”, the artist attempts to portray the religious significance of the Blessed Virgin. In this scene, the archangel Gabriel comes to Mary, who is fully clothed in a shapeless nightgown, giving no hint of sexuality. And yet “Mary shrinks back against the wall in maiden modesty, as if trying to evade the violation of the archangel’s lily stem, which points directly at her womb” (Marsh, 32). It is significant that Mary was chosen for her maidenhood and spiritual perfection. These are the ideals of femininity in Victorian society.

Another female symbol found in art that best represents the Victorian ideal of womanhood is that of the young wife, often called the “Angel in the House”. These women have “charming modesty” and are “’amiable and innocent’, devoted to connubial and domestic duties, inspiring both husband and children through ‘sense and spirit sweetly mixed’” (Marsh, 61). Their lives are devoted solely to their families, and they are trapped within the walls of their homes, dependent upon their male counterpart and given a submissive and decorative role. Millais’s “Mariana” presents an image of such a woman, solitary and confined. She “rises from her embroidery with a back-stretching gesture of unfulfilment” (Marsh, 68). Mariana is presented by Millais as trapped within the conventions like an enclosed nun, surrounded by stained glass windows and the household altar. Mariana, like the traditional Victorian woman, is imprisoned by the idea of female chastity.

Another common theme in Pre-Raphaelite art is that of the maiden who remains demure with only a hint of an awakening sexuality. Romantic love was a new concept that was beginning to replace marriages based upon parental approval, giving way to a union of passion. Artist Edward Burne-Jones depicts a group of marriageable women in his painting “The Golden Stairs”. As the women move down the stairs, they seem to be approaching the fulfillment of their womanhood. They appear “innocently unconscious of the spectator’s gaze” and their clothing allows a slight glimpse of soft curves, hinting at their sexuality, but ...

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Along with this concentration on Romantic love, various members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood depicted images of Shakespeare's Ophelia, the victim of Hamlet's manic behavior. In Millais’ painting “Ophelia”, she is floating down a stream, surrounded by bright flowers and signs of spring, which strongly contrast the idea of a drowning girl. The flowers “are emblematic of her fate: pansies, signifying thought and vain love; a necklace of violets, symbolizing faithful chastity and the death of the young; a poppy, death’s flower; and forget-me-nots, their meaning contained in their name” (Marsh, 138). This portrayal of a woman in various stages of incurring madness stems from a fascination with the concept of victimized womanhood itself. As Ophelia offers herself to death, she is the ideal image of utter passivity. As a rejected woman, this representation of Ophelia is appropriate, for a jilted girl was expected to remain faithful to her beloved, and death is her only escape.

Like the romantic death of Ophelia, the story of the Lady of Shalott was frequently depicted, and Waterhouse’s painting reinforces that she is a martyr for love. The Lady loosens the chain that binds her to the island, symbolically freeing herself from her self-imposed imprisonment. Waterhouse places a crucifix and three candles in the boat, emphasizing the funereal tone of her embarkation. She takes with her the tapestry representing her prior life, which she has surrendered for love. The single leaf that has fallen into her lap emphasizes that her life is over. For love of Lancelot, she has renounced her life, and become a martyr and a fallen woman. The muted earth tones and the gray sky that create a melancholy background contrast with the richness of color in the tapestry, which depicts the colorful life she had seen in her magic mirror.

Fallen women are another representation of women frequently seen in art in the forms of an adulterous wife, a mistress, or a prostitute. “She stood for illicit sexuality, immorality, vice and lust – the opposite of pure, idealized, romantic love sanctioned by church, state and family” (Marsh, 77). William Holman Hunt’s “Awakening Conscience” depicts the fate of such a woman. In the painting, the girl is sitting with her seducer, and represents the woman’s remorse and hopes for redemption, giving moral warnings to women that could find themselves in similar situations. The most symbolic aspects of the painting are objects around the domestic space. In the wallpaper, the corn is left unguarded by the watchers, and thus it is not protected from birds. Like the corn, a woman’s chastity needs to be strongly shielded. The song on the piano, “Oft in the Stilly Night”, has a woman reflecting on her childhood innocence. The cat and the bird on the floor parallel the positions of the man and woman, with both the bird and the woman looking for escape. By looking at the woman’s hands, one can see that she is not married, and thus is fully dependent on the support of the man. And if she stays with him, her fate will be the same as the glove on the floor, soiled and discarded. At this moment in the scene, the woman has found her conscience, and she is staring into the garden outside the window. This garden is her salvation, and the white roses represent purity. Rather than focusing on the punishment of a woman who strays, this painting gives hope that a once sinful live can be saved.

The fallen woman receives less sympathy in Augustus Egg’s “Past and Present”. Female adultery stood out in Victorian society as a deviation from ideal femininity, which was seen as chaste and lacking in any sexual drive. It is “thus represented as a consequence of abnormal and excessive sexual feelings; desires which as defined as commonplace in man are treated as a form of madness in woman” (Nead, 50). And for a woman, “a fall from virtue was final” (Nead, 49). In the painting, the children are building a house of cards on a French novel. As French society was considered corrupt and dangerous, the woman has been influenced by these immoral thoughts. The collapsing cards also emphasize the far-reaching ramifications of the wife’s infidelity. In the scene there is a picture of the myth of the Fall, with Eve representing female weakness and natural inferiority. This relates to the Victorian idea that a woman needs protection from a man, the superior being. The apple beside the wife on the floor also symbolizes the Fall. The fate of the wife is depicted in the final scene chronologically. Having caused the destruction of her family, she has been exiled from her domestic sphere, and is left to face the outside world alone. The focus of the eye in this painting is on the Thames, and emphasizes the fallen woman’s usual suicide by drowning. The two scenes, that of her at home, and now on the street, “represent a shift between two different representations of femininity: firstly, the image of the middle-class fallen woman, and secondly, the image of the working class prostitute” (Nead, 76).

Through the above-mentioned works, one can image the confined and restricted world of the Victorian woman. They are enclosed in the domestic sphere, staring out into the world in which they are forbidden to participate, and imprisoned by a societal-imposed passivity and submission. And through the Pre-Raphaelite artwork, the fate of these women becomes clear: they cannot break free from these binds, and if they do attempt such defiance, they can only hope for exile or death.