Women Reading

Some art for you

At a Book, Marie Bashkirtseva, ca. 1882.

Dear reader,

Sometime in the past – during lockdown – I collected a number of pictures of paintings featuring women reading.

I’m not sure why I did this. I’m in the habit of squirreling away interesting or lovely images I come across during my digital travels and I think that I suddenly realised that a number of these were depictions of women reading. So, I popped them away in a folder of their own.

Woman Reading, Sara Svensson, 1883.

I’m wonder what the allure of these images is. I think it’s something to do with the utter absorption that many of the figures in these paintings convey. There’s something arresting about that.

And why does there seem to be so much art made about women reading letters, journals, and books?

Maybe it was because, in times of yore, reading was seen as refined and therefore a suitable activity to feature in a painting with a genteel lady as its subject. And certainly, these paintings do seem to suggest privileged or even just comfortable lives are being led.

That’s why I love this painting:

Bibliotheksinterieur mit lesender Magd, Eduoard Mentha, 1915.

This maid’s reading could be seen as an act of quiet rebellion. I find myself hoping that her employers left her alone in this room often. It is a poignant reminder that an activity that I take for granted was perhaps something subversive for many women in the era in which this painting was made.

I also love this depiction of an elegantly dressed woman poring over a newspaper, riveted by current affairs in a broader world beyond her own chintzy room.

At Breakfast, Laurits Andersen Ring, 1898

Regardless of class, women throughout the ages have been supposed to make themselves available – for parenting, housekeeping, sex, caring, and generally supporting the lives of others. These images depict moments when these women are not available to anything but their book and the demands of their own imagination, their own inner worlds.

Most of the images I have collected show women with gazes fixed on their books and away from the painting’s viewers; a number of them show women in profile or even with their backs turned towards us. This reinforces that we are looking at a private and solitary moment. We can only guess at what is being read; what the reader makes of it is not available to us. It’s none of our business.

Maria, Helene Schjerbeck, 1909.

In a couple of images our view is returned by a reader, but the reader’s gaze is not warm or welcoming.

I love this painting by Jane Peterson, where our intrusion into a private party for one - replete with book, coffee, and (perhaps) a glass of absinthe – is greeted by a cold stare. We are not needed here.

Reading at a Cafe, Jane Peterson, ca. 1920s.

I wrote something recently about the privacy of our own heads maybe being the last place of agency for many of us. Perhaps that’s what I like about these images – they convey a moment of quiet but complete retreat from the demands of the world.

When did this last happen for you? Were you reading or doing something else?

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Thanks for reading!

More creative or reflective prompts soon.

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