{"exhibit":{"id":3,"title":"Women of Venice: Makers, Movers & Shakers","description":"

In Renaissance Venice, the woman question \u2013 her virtues, capabilities, and role in society \u2013 was very much up for debate.The women depicted in this exhibition emerge from the darkness. They are independent, alert to the expectations of their audience, often in motion \u2013 activity that was sometimes viewed as unnatural for a sex that was understood by many of their contemporaries to be passive by nature. They are makers, movers and shakers.<\/h3>\n

In 1991, Margaret King\u2019s Women of the Renaissance<\/em> explored a range of women\u2019s lived experiences and perceived roles in Renaissance thought. Through identifying archetypes in early modern writings, King and other scholars have shown how women were cast into roles determined by factors such as their reproductive status, marital status, family background and class. Interpretations of their lives as expressed in images has sometimes conformed too closely to these tropes, presenting a woman as embodying a persona of virtue or vice, nobility or humility, intellectual or worldly. In many ways, the complex identities of the women shown here have paradoxical characteristics as figures who both operated within the confines of and transcended (even transgressed) societal expectations.<\/h3>\n

This exhibition has two aims. First, it celebrates the significance of individual women to cultural production in early modern Venice as artists, poets, philosophers, patrons, and allegorical figures. Second, through the affordance of the digital medium, it draws attention to the multiplicity of their roles and identities. Through three digital galleries, individual works appear several times as illustrations of overlapping themes, allowing for visualization of their diverse roles. This exhibition argues that conflicting interpretations of their images need not be resolved by finding the \u201ccorrect\u201d answer, but rather that simultaneous consideration of their paradoxical features and virtues leads us to a richer understanding of the woman question and its disputants in early modern Italy.<\/h3>","credits":"Dana Hogan","featured":0,"public":1,"theme":"default","theme_options":"a:1:{s:7:\"default\";a:12:{s:10:\"text_color\";s:7:\"#996515\";s:16:\"background_color\";s:7:\"#cde3f8\";s:10:\"link_color\";s:7:\"#002366\";s:12:\"button_color\";s:7:\"#002366\";s:17:\"button_text_color\";s:7:\"#002366\";s:18:\"header_title_color\";s:7:\"#800000\";s:4:\"logo\";N;s:17:\"header_background\";N;s:11:\"footer_text\";s:0:\"\";s:24:\"display_footer_copyright\";s:1:\"0\";s:17:\"item_file_gallery\";s:1:\"1\";s:19:\"use_advanced_search\";s:1:\"1\";}}","slug":"womenofvenice","added":"2020-09-22 15:51:20","modified":"2020-11-17 15:47:08","owner_id":2,"use_summary_page":0,"cover_image_file_id":32},"item":{"id":91,"item_type_id":null,"collection_id":12,"featured":0,"public":1,"added":"2020-09-30 16:10:23","modified":"2020-10-06 16:23:29","owner_id":2}}