A Companion to Spanish Women's Studies by Xon de Ros Geraldine Hazbun

Author:Xon de Ros, Geraldine Hazbun [Xon de Ros, Geraldine Hazbun]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781855662865
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer, Limited
Published: 2014-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

A careful study of nineteenth-century graphic images should convince us of David Freedberg’s argument that ‘the power of images is much greater than is generally admitted’ (1989: 419). Images need to be taken seriously not just as cultural forms, but as cultural forces. From literature come stunning examples of how important the visual image was for nearly all the characters in Galdós’s Novelas contemporáneas: for Isidora Rufete who misrecognizes herself in the portrait of the daughter of the Marquesa de Aransis in La desheredada, for Amparo in Tormento (Torment) (1884) who is tormented by the photograph of her father, which seems to accuse her of her great sin every time she glances at it, and for Frasquito Ponte in Misericordia (Compassion) (1897), who sacrifices his last pennies to buy Obdulia a print of Napoleon’s wife.

To gauge the power of images like the ones studied here in the lives of real women is more difficult. Nevertheless, from the ubiquity of certain types of images we know that they were circulating everywhere as part of urban life, and from their popularity the following conclusions may be drawn. Small decorated objects and ephemera seem especially important for their keepsake value at a time when the vast majority of women could not boast a ‘room of their own’ (Folguera Crespo 1997b: 458) but were nevertheless encouraged to admire beauty in its most conventional forms. Women’s exposure to visual graphics was equal to or exceeded that of men, but their aesthetic experiences differed to the degree they could afford some types of visual culture and not others. Many graphic objects that women saw daily were explicitly linked to commercial interests that used the power of beauty, color, and refinement to persuade women to purchase objects that held out the illusory promise of being something beyond what they really were. Illustrations that accompanied women’s reading material tended to be infused with moralistic or religious overtones, exhorting women to be nurturing, forbearing, dutiful, and hardworking. The cloying sentimentality of many images often appealed to women’s desire for refined courtship rituals or invited them to see the beauty of tremendous sacrifices made in the name of love or duty. Women’s role as educators of young children exposed them to visual experiences that encouraged a childlike regard for the simplistic and unchallenging representations of family life. Even in the most trivial or simplistic cultural forms social and moral authority exerted itself. As such, the images of popular culture directed toward women were not only constitutive of culture, they mediated pre-existing ideological and social formations, serving the interests of those in positions of privilege and power, both secular and religious. While exhortations from the pulpit and conduct manuals warned women to be concerned with the wealth of their soul rather than their personal adornments and beauty, the well financed secular publishing industry sent the opposite message about the importance of physical beauty and elegance.16 Thus the visual culture daily available to women shows evidence of an epic ideological battle for

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