30 Babel Volume XXI
Power and Representation: The Self-Portraits of Sofonisba Anguissola Grace Day
Though most “master” painters in the Early Modern art canon are men, there are some exceptions and I believe that Sofonisba Anguissola is one of them. Her skills matched and even exceeded those of other celebrated Renaissance painters, and the lack of recognition she has received until more recent scholarship shows the prejudice that women artists faced in the Early Modern Period. To combat this prejudice, Sofonisba presents herself as an artist in her self-portraits in order to establish her authority and identity as a painter. Sofonisba adjusts her appearance in her self-portraits in order to critique unfair biases against women artists and the oppressive beauty standards that they were expected to uphold. Sofonisba’s self-portraits serve to establish herself as a serious artist while uplifting other early modern women. Portraits present the sitter in the way they wanted to be seen publicly, and were used to establish one’s power and status. Artists could manipulate the sitter’s appearance, and often did to maintain societal beauty standards. During the Renaissance, beauty ideals were largely derived from the works of the Roman poet, Petrarch. Petrarch described the ideal woman with characteristics such as fair skin, light hair and rosy cheeks. Most portraits of Early Modern women adhere to the Petrarchan ideals, and as an accomplished portrait artist, Sofonisba was well aware of these
