If you haven’t yet listened to episode 2 of Pop Culture Sociologist I hope you’ll do so before continuing to read this post!
Here’s the episode for your listening convenience:
(Don’t forget to subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or the app of your choice if you don’t want to miss future episodes!)
So, during this episode I mention that Lyanna Stark’s story illustrates a phenomenon we can see unraveling in pretty much every field – women’s accomplishments being written out of history.
In the episode I mention the 16th century book, still widely available today: “The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects” by Giorgio Vasari.
The four women mentioned in the book are:
- Properzia de’Rossi
- Sister Plautilla Nelli
- Sofonisba Anguissola
- Madonna Lucrezia
Today we only have access to some of the works of the first three. Madonna Lucrezia’s have unfortunately not survived to this day, so all we know about her is what little Vasari mentions in his book.
But of course, there were many more women artists working and excelling during this time period, in Italy and outside of it. For a very partial overview, here’s an article about 8 influential women artists during the renaissance.
As you know if you’ve listened to the episode: I am not an art historian. I don’t know much more about any of the women mentioned by Vasari than their Wikipedia pages (linked above) can tell you.
So, in this post I aim to give you a little bit of everything: a starting point with Wikipedia, some visual references for the most famous works, and some more specific links to various art-focused organizations with information about them.
Properzia de’Rossi (1490–1530)
For more information about de’Rossi’s work you can read about her on artsy.com, and if you’d like you can read Vasari’s original entry about her.
Sister Plautilla Nelli (1524–1588)
Here you can read more about Nelli, this painting, and the art of nuns during the Italian renaissance in general.
And here’s more about Nelli’s art and the project to restore it for modern audiences from Advancing Women Artists.
Sofonisba Anguissola (1532 – 1625)
Here’s a timeline of some of Agnuissola’s most famous paintings, with some interesting info about each of them.
And here are 22 of Agnuissola’s paintings on WikiArt.
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