Genre and Gender

In late 19th-century Spain, history painting’s stronghold on the state’s interest was supplanted by paintings of social denunciation and the so-called “subjects of the day.” These works both reflected societal mores and created a heightened, clichéd version of them. As such, their portrayals of women were an outgrowth of how a patriarchal society expected them to behave—or not behave. And as painting moved away from religious or mythic allegorical subjects and instead dramatized moral “everyday” quandaries, the behaviors and predicaments of women in paint reached a level of unprecedented histrionics and implied judgement. As these works were rewarded by Spain’s official exhibitions, a cyclical relationship between life and art developed, as did a host of pictorial stereotypes.

For instance, the National Exhibition of 1895 saw the beginnings of a bizarre subgenre in Spanish painting, in which prodigal daughters were depicted begging forgiveness of their fathers, the implication being that they’d left their homes after being seduced by unpictured, probably no-good men. Artists rendered the young