Graduation Year
2016
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Art History
Reader 1
Mary MacNaughton
Reader 2
George Gorse
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2016 Caitlyn D. Marianacci
Abstract
This thesis examines a selection of eight photographs in the History Portraits series by American photographer, Cindy Sherman, produced from 1989 to 1990. The photographs are based on Renaissance paintings of biblical and secular women painted by old master artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, and Raphael. Sherman focused on the female types of Biblical mother and femme fatale, as well as wives and models. These types are defined in their relation to men and are depicted by men. In Sherman’s reinterpretations of their portraits, she retells the stories of these women in ways that reaffirm their independence and power that have been shrouded in a history told and controlled by men. With herself as her model, she altered aspects of the images, using the technique of caricature for humor as well as critique. Sherman subverts the idealization of the Renaissance portraits of women by exaggerating features and eliminating aspects of the original portraits to reassert the women’s individuality.
Recommended Citation
Marianacci, Caitlyn D., "Old Masterpieces, New Mistress-pieces: Cindy Sherman's Reinterpretations of Renaissance Portraits of Women" (2016). Scripps Senior Theses. 840.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/840
Included in
American Art and Architecture Commons, Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Art and Architecture Commons, Contemporary Art Commons, Theory and Criticism Commons
