Reply To: Women in Art

[Bob Hook]

I think that it is interesting prior to the Etruscans the depiction of women is as fertility figures, goddesses, servants, and slaves but rarely as equals to men. Women were seemingly cast to a cultural role above or below there male counterparts. but almost never as an equal. The Greeks continued this concept with “symposiums’ a meeting of males and servants to discuss life with the copious consumption of alcohol. Women were excluded from these events. We can only speculate as to what the reasoning was.
At the same time, the Etruscans were developing a more equal and intimate social structure between men and woman. They left only their artwork, retrieved from tombs and did not provide us with a written record of their lives. The terracotta statue, Sarcophagus of the Spouses, from 509BCE depicts this relationship well. The woman is held close in the arms of a man, reclining on a couch while attending a banquet in the afterlife. They are positioned in a manner that there is no bias created because of size or positioning of the man over the woman. It appears they are enjoying their time together in a more equal status