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the role the museum plays

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museums display a story, a cultural narrative

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stories of technical, stylistic, and formal development

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from religious art, to secular patronage, to the individualism of modern art

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codified spaces for ritual comparable to churches or cathedrals

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this provides a useful way to think about how we engage with art in such spaces

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in hush tones, treading quietly, looking up to admire worshipfully great works of art

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art works are presented in a different way we engage with visual material in the outside world

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they are isolated and literally held aloft for our admiration and contemplation

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what we are admiring is beauty

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this is due to the fact that museums as a concept, emerge in late 18th century Europe, and are a testament to the aesthetic ideas of the Enlightenment

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grouping artists in a shared space draws out shared qualities

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subject matter

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positioned above our eye level, these women never quite look back at us directly, instead, they look just past us, allowing us to look at them without reproach

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these women are as decorative as the gilded frames in which they are displayed

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John Lavery's painting In Morocco (1913)

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Hazel Lavery

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another face among the multitude

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it is fitting that she is dressed in costume

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she is performing the role of model for her husband

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she looks coyly at the viewer

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there is a sense of the stage about this work

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the wall in the background enclosing the space

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figures deliberately grouped in a triangular shape

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the blue parasol that frames Hazel's head draws our attention

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echos the blue sky around her daughter's head

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creates a connection between the two women which is reaffirmed by the color of their dress

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yet there is a difference between the direct stare of Alice and Hazel's rather sideways glance

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the difference between girl and woman is spelled out

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the lack of sexual awareness vs. seductive femininity

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Hazel's face, half hidden in shadow, reveals little

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she is a symbol of women of beauty in this work

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she's merely a decorative figure

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we can pass over her face without much curiosity, as easily as we look at the decorative embellishments on the horse's saddle

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Hazel Lavery (1880-1935)

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born in America

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painter and the second wife of the celebrated portrait artist Sir John Lavery

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her likeness appeared on Banknotes of Ireland for much of the 20th century

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studied etching in Paris

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1904 met John Lavery

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1909 married

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she was painted differently by John Lavery, with a more direct gaze compared to the gaze in In Morocco

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1921 Hazel painted her husband

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one of her few surviving paintings

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if this hung next to In Morocco, her gaze may be read instead of as a coyful flirtation, an artistic eyeing-up

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however, it was John and not Hazel who became the renowned artist

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Hazel retired from art-making in favor of the role of society hostess, artistic muse, and studio model

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so Hazel's face recurs throughout John's paintings, but always as a sort of distant, seductive beauty

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Hazel's career folded for the reason so many womens' careers folded throughout European art history

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the difficult of facing a system in which women were outsiders in the world of art to be looked at but not expected to do the looking

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it was a structural difficultly women faced in pursuing careers as artists

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Hazel ended up playing the far more acceptable role of model to her artist husband

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this path from artist to model wife was one that other women took as well

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when we know their stories, see their work, and hear their voices, we see them differently than the anonymous beauties that decorate galleries and museums

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the reading of artworks can change, depending on the environment we see them in, and the information we are presented with

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the way we read gender in spaces is a product of the space