Paleolithic Women’s Spirituality and its Relevance to us Today

In this paper, I consider Paleolithic women's spirituality as expressed through various aspects of their artwork found in the caves of Spain and the ‘Venus figurines and suggest these icons may be seen as an attempt by some of early these women artists to translate their own inner experiences and insights cataphatically, and thereby reconcile the tension between the image-less I experience ineffable transcendence using didactic expression grounded in images. This method was used later by the Spanish mystic Santa Teresa, who clearly felt the mystery needs to be related to personally; it is not an abstract mystery, but a mystery that is alive, that vibrates through us and is what animates every cell in our body; we are an embodiment of this living mystery. Whereas in the 16 Century it was normal for Teressa to consider the mystery as God, it was most likely customary for Paleolithic women to think of the mystery as the Universal or Great Mother, an insight some of them probably arrived at through analogy with the creative force expressing itself through their pregnant bodies. Whereas Santa Teresa employed images that meant something to the people living during her time, these ancient women probably did the same. From this perspective, their artwork may be seen as pointers to this 'entity' or mystery, which, is both immanent in creation and at the same time is beyond duality and all definitions. Here, I also submit that they probably realized the creative aspect of the enigma through their pregnancies, and, in their death, they recognized it as the destructive or dark phase in the cycle of life that is so necessary for ‘rebirth’ to occur, and, in its expression through celestial events, they probably celebrated it through their rituals and their pilgrimages which took place at specific times of the year.

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Sisterhood as strategy : the collaborations of American women artists in the gilded age

10.32469/10355/66106 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Kelsey Frady Malone

Keyword(s):

Women Artists ◽

Role Models ◽

Decorative Arts ◽

Art World ◽

Women's Labor ◽

Art Exhibitions ◽

Professional Careers ◽

The People ◽

And Gender ◽

Historical Moment

This dissertation employs four case studies--illustrator Alice Barber Stephens in Philadelphia; Louisville-born sculptor Enid Yandell; photographer Frances Benjamin Johnston in Washington, D.C.; and the Newcomb College Pottery in New Orleans--to show how individual women artists from a variety of media utilized collaborative strategies to advance their professional careers. These strategies included mentoring, teaching, and sharing commissions with one another; establishing art organizations; sharing studio and living spaces; organizing and participating in all-female art exhibitions; and starting businesses to market their work. At a historical moment when expectations and ideas towards gender roles and feminine performance were shifting, these women artists negotiated these changes as well as those of a fine art world that was redefining itself in an increasingly consumer-based culture that challenged traditional definitions of the "professional" artist. "Sisterhood as Strategy" intersects with important work in the fields of American History, Women's and Gender Studies, and Art History. It bridges a gap between broad, cultural histories of women's artistic production and more focused scholarly studies on women's labor and organized womanhood. Indeed, this dissertation brings more specificity to these areas by focusing on particular artists who were highly acclaimed during their lifetime but who have since fallen through the cracks of the art historical canon and by attending to the wide array of genres and media that all artists, men and women, worked with during the era: illustration, photography, public sculpture, and the decorative arts. By analyzing the art produced as a result of collaboration; the artists' letters, photographs, and personal papers; and contemporary mass media, particularly art journals and popular ladies' magazines, this dissertation recovers the voices of artists who served as professional role models and creates a far more diverse picture of the people and art forms that constituted early modern American visual culture.

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Vladimir Solovyov. Messianism: idea – model – testament – symbol

Herald of Culturology ◽

10.31249/hoc/2021.01.06 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 140-162

Author(s):

Elena Tverdislowa

Keyword(s):

History Of Ideas ◽

Evolution And Development ◽

Integral Component ◽

The People ◽

Creative Force ◽

History Of ◽

The Church

The problem of messianism is one of the most relevant and confusing. An integral component of Soloviev’s project of unity, messianism is considered as a connecting thread of his religious structures within the framework of the history of ideas: God-manhood as a fact and process of unity, Judaism and Christianity, the Church as a creative force in the reunification of Churches, the construction of a theocratic state, Slavophilism as a way to the interaction of Eastern and Western Christianity, etc. Soloviev’s messianism is a multivariant and polysemantic system, it allows you to classify its components according to the characteristics that the scientist gives, without specifically designating them: idea, model, testament, symbol. The idea implies all systems and subsystems as one. Inside the idea, a model is distinguished (Jewish, Polish, Russian – not according to nationality, but according to the experience of the people), covenant (personal agreement with God: people with God, peoples among themselves), symbol – a creative image of the unity of societies, states, Churches, peoples with God, finally – the Jewish and Christian religions. Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that Soloviev’s messianism is a cross-cutting concept of the doctrine of all-unity, in which the philosopher’s thought found evolution and development.

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All Stalin's Women: Gender and Power in Soviet Art of the 1930s

Slavic Review ◽

10.2307/2502056 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 57 (1) ◽

pp. 133-173 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Susan E. Reid

Keyword(s):

Gender Roles ◽

Women Artists ◽

Female Characters ◽

Female Protagonists ◽

Traditional Gender Roles ◽

Soviet Art ◽

The People ◽

Gender And Power ◽

The Sacrifice ◽

The Ideal

This article will examine how the representation of gender in Soviet art during the second and third Five-Year Plans articulated relationships of domination in Stalinist society. Using female characters to stand for “the people” as a whole, painting and sculpture drew on conventional gender codes and hierarchy to naturalize the subordination of society to the Stalinist state and legitimate the sacrifice of women's needs to those of industrialization. The prevalence of female protagonists was closely connected with the promotion of the Stalin cult: women modeled the ideal attitude of “love, honor, and obedience.” As the triumph of conservative aesthetic hierarchies paralleled the restoration of traditional gender roles, I ask how women artists were to operate in these conditions.

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How Children Invented Humanity

10.1093/oso/9780190066864.001.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

David F. Bjorklund

Keyword(s):

Human Evolution ◽

Developmental Plasticity ◽

Homo Sapiens ◽

Infants And Children ◽

Healthy Children ◽

Mature Adults ◽

Evolution And Development ◽

The People ◽

Creative Force ◽

Species Evolution

Infants and children are the often-ignored heroes when it comes to understanding human evolution. Evolutionary pressures acted upon the young of our ancestors more powerfully than on adults. Changes over the course of development in our ancestors were primarily responsible for the species and the people we have become. This book takes an evolutionary developmental perspective, emphasizing that developmental plasticity—the ability to change our physical and psychological selves early in life—is the creative force in evolution, with natural selection serving primarily as the Grim Reaper, or a filter, eliminating novel developmental outcomes that did not benefit the survival of those individuals who possessed them, while letting the more successful outcomes through. Over generations as embryos, infants, and children continued to change and to produce slightly different adults, a new species was born—Homo sapiens. This book is about becoming—of becoming human and of becoming mature adults. One theme of this book is about how an understanding of our species’ evolution can help us better understand current development and how to better rear successful and emotionally healthy children. The second theme turns the relation between evolution and development on its head: How can an understanding of human development help us better understand human evolution? The short answer to this second question is that children invented humanity, and that human evolution can be seen as children setting the stage and leading the way to species innovation.

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