John Opie (1761-1807)’s portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft, circa 1797
Let us recall that 5% of the modern artists in the Art section of the Metropolitan museum are women, but 85% of the nudes are female … (See protest at Tate museum)
Friends,
It seems that any remembrance of Mary Wollstonecraft since her tragic early death from childbirth is destined to do her a disservice, e.g., how William Godwin’s loving memoir of her full reality in life became the basis of centuries of castigating disdain and rejection. But Joan Smith is spot on to say of the perhaps well-meant monument to her by Maggi Hambling, placed in Newington Green, London, it is “exceptionally obtuse:” “she was vilified for having sex outside marriage, causing her enormous anguish. The decision to portray her in an ahistorical & heavily sexualised way feels like adding insult to injury.”
Here is an enlarged photo. Click on the image and it’ll fill your screen.
It looks like a super-gilded ornament for the hood of a super-expensive automobile. Why this tiny toy-like object on top of a distorted plinth? The silver puts me in mind of the second suitor for the hand of Portia in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. It could also be a trophy, it’s the right size and feel for an Oscar given out at extravaganzas. Woman as trophy. An action figure. Have we not yet moved beyond an idea that the way to present a woman as woman is a sexualized body? No idealization or remoteness here: closely presented nipples on realistic breasts (of course high ones — hanging breasts have long been a no-no in men’s imaginary) — and thick pubic hair.
Mary Wollstonecraft herself would been mortified, felt deeply humiliated. At no point did she come out for anything like promiscuous behavior. She was badly hurt by a partner, Imlay’s sexual treachery towards her. She loved the domestic life with her baby daughter, Fanny. Pride, self-esteem, dignity, education were what she was after for women. Is that no consideration? I grant many women have been renamed since the 1970s but I am among those who feel uncomfortable at the re-naming of someone who in her life was Ann Kingsmill Finch, Countess of or Lady Winchilsea to Anne Finch (the “e” was added by Myra Reynolds; Ann’s signature shows she spelt her name “Ann”). This is to change their identity.
A silver toy does not reflect Wollstonecraft’s identity. It is regrettable that Wollstonecraft should be so misremembered or misconstrued. She could have at least been granted the accoutrements of her trade: we see these generals on horses, in their uniforms complete with guns and horses. So why not a desk, pens, bronze depictions of paper? There are appealing depictions of dozens of women writers in drawings, paintings: one of my favorites is a photograph of Edith Wharton.
How unfortunate there was a campaign, and the result something so unlike the above. Now we could say the absurdity of monuments and lack of a dignified vocabulary for women is exposed, but I suggest better to pull it down, replace it or say she does not need to be Peter Panned. To my mind the tradition of turning people into statues is immediately susceptible to unexamined admiration, mockery (in this case), and use in ideological promotions.
People have spoken of mythic statues of heroes (Michelangelo’s David) but the giant David is not a real person in recent history, not a specific woman who really lived. He’s a Biblical figure about whom we know nothing for real. Mary Wollstonecraft left letters, journals, and is admired and is important for what she wrote out of her inner life and published especially her feminist tract vindicating the rights of woman. Michelangelo’s statue is also thoroughly idealized.
The context for Wollstonecraft is that of a real woman seeking to be respected as an independent person and that includes decades and hundreds of years of the kind of hypocrisy underlying Kenneth Clarke’s famous book on nudes (I’m with Mary Beard in her program about the “nude”), of the valuing of women as sex objects for men to enjoy, have babies from, be nurses for them.
I have more than once presented a statue of Jane Austen by Adam Roud found today in by Nicholas Church in the Chawton House Library grounds.
For me her love of walking, the rich vivacity of her imagination, the strength of her body, an independence of mind are all caught up in this attempt at semi-realism
By way of contrast, I add to that a recent life-size statue of Virginia Woolf by Laury Dizengremel, which was having trouble finding a place, has now received thousands of pounds, a reaction of members of the public to the Wollstonecraft monstrosity.
Dare I suggest that Hambling made a naked silver representation of a woman because it would catch attention; Dizengremel’s subdued tasteful depiction of Woolf in reverie, contemplative, relaxed, smiling (the way she is sometimes seen in photographs) was getting nowhere.
Perhaps I should file this under perverse sexual politics.
Ellen
Reveries Under the Sign of Austen, Two 
Kathryn Temple: “That’s a wonderfully written critique, Ellen. I especially like the comparisons to Wharton and Woolf and Austen. Thank you for writing it.”
Someone on twitter pointed to this article as “balanced” and therefore not rushing to judgement:
https://theconversation.com/mary-wollstonecraft-statue-a-provocative-tribute-for-a-radical-woman-149888
Summarizing the piece as “balanced” you misrepresent: the argument suggests this isn’t appropriate statue for MW, & questions the idea of Everywoman. This photo makes the figurine an athlete as if athletics (male-centered) are more universal than pregnancy
IN reponse to someone who suggested the statue is appropriate because Wollstonecraft wanted to free women from marriage, which she regarded as a form of enslavement. She and Godwin didn’t marry at first and intended not to, until she became pregnant — the child grew up to become Mary Shelley.
I answered: Finding much fault in the way marriage was practised is part of Wollstonecraft’s legacy; she is stronger (or spends much more time) on the way motherhood is a trap: woman is told that this is a glorious wonderful role and then not only given nothing to help her support that but is treated in a way that makes her control of the situation nothing whenever the father intervenes. Motherhood is used as a weapon. Women are victimized by their need (for respect, to function as someone who matters) to keep and take care of their children. This was taken advantage of in the 18th century courts. The criticism of Wollstonecraft, in fact, far from accusing or praising her for flexible attitudes towards heterosexuality as romance or fulfillment has accused her again and again of being a prig prudish, hostile to men (oh dear oh dear). To say you don’t want to marry is not so say you are there now liberated from all sexual mores and free for all.
The prime target of the treatise is to expose the false education of women. In its bulk, Wollstonecraft analyses four famous educators and finds they are eager to turn out obedient submissive dependent ignorant women who are sexually compliant to the husband.
As Joan Smith wrote, this conception is “exceptionally obtuse.” Smith’s most recent book is How Domestic Violence turns Men into Terrorists; she wrote a feminist study some years ago. She also writes mysteries, e.g, A Masculine Ending; our detective-sleuth is a feminist academic. The recent book is being written about as if Smith were the first to make this connection. Decades ago Judith Lewis Herman’s Trauma and Recovery: The aftermath of violence, from domestic abuse to political terrorism was published – and has had little effect apparently on police practices or how women are judged in courts for having protected themselves if the man ends up hurt or killed.
Ellen
To comments about how the statue has attracted attention and that is good for Mary Wollstonecraft as a figure, and these conversations fruitful, I answered:
Is any publicity good? any kind of celebrity? Our small part of cyberspace may have postings for a few days but it will not reach the numbers of people who might gaze at the statue in a newspaper or on the Internet.
E.M.
Dorothy Gannon:
“Well said, Ellen.
I love the statue of Austen by Adam Roud. I also like the mockup drawings he made for the statue – all are dynamic, unprettified.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-38668736
Whatever she may have really looked like, he certainly captures what could be a real woman.
Dorothy”
“That statue does give an impression of a real person full of vitality. Nancy”
“Ellen
Thank you for calling our attention to this indeed monstrosity! I looked at the picture of the silver statue & it looks like a disembodied section of an injured woman. A piece of corpse … abstract, distorted. It is humiliating & I agree would have been horrifying to Mary Wollstonecraft. Who suffered so much in life — why now in representation?
Thank you for your scholarship and research allowing us to focus on this
matter.
Patricia Brody”
“While praising Wollstonecraft as an early feminist, we should also remember her great predecessors Mary Astell and Sarah Chapone, who so far have been lucky enough to escape statues.
JAD”
Ellen, I have been immersed in your blog since googling Poldark meets Outlander last night and lucking upon your treasure trove of Romance-centric associations, cultural-historic synthesis, feminist insight, open hearted yearning and, of course, literary erudition. I’ve not much to add to the Wollstonecraft monument controversy except to say that I find the abstractish silver part of it a potentially intriguing approach to commemorating the essence of a person/their life’s work.The pert breasted action figure atop, alas, decapitates this promise of non-figurative homage. In other news, might there be a way to correspond with you or to virtually sit in on any of your classes or literary gatherings online? I am a fan, perhaps as big a fan as Claire would need to cover the ravine of décolletage her red dress exposes in Season Two, on the way to the Court of Versailles. ByJamie’s estimation that would be a fan that covers everything down to the navel. You offer here eloquent home truths that resonate from from head to heart to gut. Thank you.
Why thank you. I like the idea that this monument might be more acceptable if we didn’t have the sexualized trophy figure on top.
My classes are at the two OLLIs (Oscher Institutes of Lifelong Learning), one in DC, and the other Fairfax county, Va. But I do run two
listservs: one, the more active, is a Trollope and 19th century text centered list, the other feminist and women’s texts centered. Alas the latter has basically died because there was never a center woman figure to attract fans, and women as a subject just doesn’t cut it unless there is something else to bring women in (few men will join such a list). You are very welcome to join either:
https://groups.io/g/TrollopeAndHisContemporaries
https://groups.io/g/WomenWriters
I am just now beginning a feminist women’s book reading group with a friend who has built what looks like a community digest (I don’t understand it very well as yet); if it goes well, I’ll post about it on WomenWriters and maybe one of my blogs.
I’m on face-book. Are you? we could keep in contact that way:
https://www.facebook.com/ellen.moody.58/
If you are there, just friend me and I’ll friend you back.
Ellen
David Latane:
“I don’t think it’s all that bad, and it never occurred to me that it was an image of MW herself—an image instead of “woman.” Everyman, I believe, is sometimes pictured without clothes. At least everygunner is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Gun_Corps_Memorial”
Rick Brenner:
“One might also ask why the gun corps one is nude. I’m not against nudity per se, but I wonder the purpose in these cases. ”
“Yikes! Having a very posed naked boy holding a sword to represent the Machine Gun Corps seems a bit weird, too.
Kim”
Creeping fascism?
“Doesn’t it bother anyone that MW’s forceful polemic was about regarding women as beings of mind, and not body? That men can be sculpted as heroic bodies is one thing … that’s their quasi-deification. But to make MW into this body, even with the allowance of possible androgyny and heroic posture, as a tribute to her is beyond depresssing, at least for this Wollstonecrafted feminist
SW”
“It seems to me that the artist who made this sculpture did not really understand her subject.
David”
Agreed, David!. It looks like a project of self-promotion on the wings of planned controversy. SW”
Hello Ellen, Thanks for writing back. I am new to blogs and missed your reply until now. I’m sorry I took so long. Too bad about the 2nd listserv group, although I suppose you have found your “central woman” in Ms. Beauchamp-Fraser; she seems to turn all women into writers, or into writing and musing about how and why women write/read/watch/see/imagine. Thanks for the listserv invitation. I am intrigued by your ouevre, 18th century literature, feminist writing and proto-feminist, i.e. Anne Finch and then of course, Trollope is another weaver-of-worlds for whom I harbor a surpassing weakness. I’ve read all of the Palliser series and was on the brink of searching for oblivion from the GOP- induced cascade of catastrophe via the Barchester Chronicles when I decided to rewatch Outlander ( I’d already rewatched NUMBERS of times, Poldark) and, lo, my fixation grew to ambient, life-shifting proportions. But it got me through to Biden-as-elect times, and here I still am. Here we all continue to bide despite these criminals-against-humanity and their wanton, horrendous denialism.
I ‘ll stop rattling on now and join the listserv. And I’ll look for you on facebook. And of course, at OLLI. Many thanks.
Wonderful. I’ll look for your subscription. I went from Poldark to Outlander too. Trollope has the same depth of characterization as Gabaldon and her film-makers and Winston Graham and his. I’ve watched the Barchester Chronicles in a row to keep anxiety at bay: when my husband had a serious operation, I waited outside watching BC episode after episode for hours Ellen
Oh dear. I hadn’t realized Barchester was WATCHable. I’d better read it first. Of course it would be. The first Trollope I read was actually the final in the BC and I thought I’ve been a Masterpiece addict since age seven. First it was Tom Brown’s Schooldays, then Upstairs Downstairs. Gateway drug! And the true medicine for your anxious soul Trollope offered when you were in dire need speaks volumes (pardon silly pun) for the sublime properties of art, perhaps entertaining art in particular. Entertain, after all at its French root, entretenir, means to hold together, stick together, support, and to entertain an idea is to hold something aloft in the mind, to consider it and be a-mused, surely a salve if not salvation in savage times.
Whups, something got left out. I thought: “Oh, so this is where masterpiece theatre comes from!”