What do your children see at Art Galleries?

[ArtforallbyallwithArtActivistBarbie]

When my daughter was eight, as part of her education on Greek Mythology, she was taken with her class to the National Gallery to see The Judgement of Paris. When I tried to upload it here, it was deemed 'sensitive' and so would be masked for viewers. Some of your children are probably looking at that painting right now, in the hallowed atmosphere of our National Gallery. In case you have trouble viewing it on here, here is a link https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/peter-paul-rubens-the-judgement-of-paris
What messages do you think they're getting about men and women's place in the world?

That we are but the playthings of the gods, even kings dependant on their fickle whims?

The message is probably that the world was a very sexist place in the past and that women are all too often depicted in sexualised contexts because they are painted by men. And that in some aspects, not much has changed. Look at the sexualisation of girls and women today. It is important to acknowledge it and to understand that while there is still sexism in various degrees in the world, that hopefully your daughter will still thrive. And that there is no one way to be a woman or a man.

Alternative answers:
-Paris is an idiot who given a choice between wisdom, strength or having the prettiest wife chose the latter. Thus causing no end of trouble for everyone
-Eris would probably start angry threads about weddings on AIBU if she was around now
-beauty standards/the ideal body change a lot with time

rubens was a wonderful painter. I don't agree with censoring the past. Even if it contained some dodgy attitudes

You could balance it if you wanted by looking at how some of the female painters from the Renaissance etc depicted famous scenes and how that differed to the male gaze. You could also talk about why there were less female painters than men and how they were obscurified over time. There's lots of lessons you could give without blocking access to art.

I have no issue at all with my children looking at art which reflects the underlying sexism of the society in which it was created (although I think the particular picture OP has picked is much more complex than that and as much to do with gods and mortals and the the whole chain of events set off by this choice- valuing beauty above all turned out to be disastrous, but that's another thread) provided they can learn to engage intelligently and think about what the picture means.

I'd be thrilled if they were currently in the National Gallery looking at Rubens rather than in an exam hall.

While I agree that considering messaging in art is important, 8 year old me would have given it about 5 seconds worth of my time and had a laugh at the bottoms.

Actually that's a very good point!

This. I don't think I would have got any message at all from the painting at age 8.

It would not have been lost on me how most "great" artists are men, however, and I would have wondered about that.

My art-loving daughter likes to comment on whether male artists have made a decent fist of painting women's bodies. Rubens wasn't bad I think (there are hips, waists and cellulite) but lots of artists don't seem to have ever seen a naked woman and get the proportions all wrong. Which tells you a lot too about how clueless some men are.

Are you actual Art Activist Barbie? Love your work!

😍

1. I thought Paris was an idiot
2. I giggled at the bums

The National Gallery Children's Book when I was a child was well aware of this as it's first image was a Bronzino where they explained the Victorians had painted out the bums and nipples. I thought this was awesome and it was this book that got me in to art.

Oh interesting, I've just done a search and found her Twitter and have followed!

Also that wobbles and blobbles are the standard of female beauty, not stick insect bones.

Lol, yyy to that.

Sniggering aside, if your 8 year old child is being taken to the gallery to look at this style of painting, she has a teacher who doesn't know a lot about art education for 8 year olds.

I have no idea what my children would have made of that picture, probably laughed at the bare bums before cringeing themselves inside out.

I feel seen when I look at that image in a way that I don’t when I am bombarded by airbrushed, idealised images of modern women. I think seeing a wider range of women’s bodies would probably be helpful to many of today’s adolescent girls.

Thanks for all your interesting responses! Artforallbyall.org and Art Activist Barbie have common interests and aims and we work closely together.

We're not trying to get paintings taken down but to start a conversation. It's so normal for us to see art in which women are objectified and abused that i think we don't really clock it consciously. But as advertisers know, it takes less than a second for messages to reach our subconscious...

What do you all think of this one?

This is interesting, I actually had a conversation with DS and DD about this very painting when they were small - 8 and 9 I think?! They were quite focused on body image and how different these women looked from modern day women you see being portrayed as very desirable. Also the men peeping at them and whether the baby with wings was pooing.

Beauty does not have one standard, thank goodness.

@ArtforallbyallwithArtActivistBarbie Its deeply unsettling. But I was HORRIFIED when I learnt that story at school (from Latin teacher) anyway. brrhhh Romans. But, what's more disturbing is that, despite the nakedness etc, it still feels less deliberately titillating than lots of modern media (game of thrones etc)

That is an 'unusual' choice for yr4's?

DD's school always participates in the "Take One Picture" project (and are dead chuffed to go to look at their creations in the exhibition). This coming year seems to be based around this: https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/henri-rousseau-surprised

DD's year was this one:
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/thomas-gainsborough-mr-and-mrs-andrews

Totally agree with you. The Judgement of Paris is a wonderful painting, showing the idiocy of Paris (and his sense of entitlement) and the causes of the Trojan war - he ran off with someone else's wife with disastrous consequences esp. for his much better brother, Hector. I also do not agree with censoring the past and I have happily taken my daughter (now in her 40s) to art galleries and shown her such pictures (and sculptures), ditto of men, naturally. I have no idea why the painting is too sensitive to show - and I can find it anywhere on the internet and in any art book about the late Renaissance anyway. I would be happy to hang a copy in my sitting room - though I actually have the three graces from La Primavera (Botticelli's anatomy is poor btw but his treatment of diaphanous material is excellent).
To answer the OP, children viewing it would learn that Rubens is a wonderful painter, able to paint flesh with sensitivity and beauty; that women can be powerful for these are three immortal goddesses with untrammeled power using it to force a man to tell them which is the most beautiful. They will also learn that you don't have to be stick thin to be beautiful, for these are all beautiful women. What's not to like? I don't understand the question.

It's the Rape of the Sabine Women - the Romans stole the wives and daughters of a neighbouring city because they were short of potential wives. I don't know why the Romans in particular have to be uniquely villified. War includes rape as a weapon and always has - it's now a war crime, but ancient and less ancient people have thought much the same about it as we do now e.g. Wellington hanged rapists among his soldiers. Hiding the past is no good way to go and the attitude that what is depicted is uniquely horrible (rather than horrible anyway) has whiffs of the idea that the Atlantic Slave trade is the only slave trade ever to have existed. And why should this picture not be in the National Gallery btw? It is a very graphic reminder of what war usually means for women and girls - something we need reminding of all the time. NB we went through this art is soft (or hard) porn in the 70s, I wrote an article about the Rokeby Venus (also in the NG along with a version of Susannah and the Elders which is deeply creepy) and I thought we had come to the point of accepting that art is not something one can reinterpret according to current morality/politics or have imposed on it modern ideas of what is going on. It looks like Bowdler lives on (Bowdler cut out the 'unacceptable' bits of Shakespeare's plays for Victorian readers).

Posted too soon. Agree, that painting is much less titilating than some modern depictions.

My favourite painting aged 5 was the Resurrection by Stanley Spencer….went to see paintings a lot.

Nowadays I prefer some of Artemesia Gentileschis paintings ….