Today I was struck by the conversation about the new Mary Wollstonecraft statue by artist Maggi Hambling, unveiled on 10 November 2020 in Newington Green, North London.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons, (c) Grim23
I am deeply interested in Mary Wollstonecraft - I wrote my honours thesis on her views about the role of women in the domestic sphere, her portrait hangs in my hallway and in 2016 a portrait of her that I painted was included in the Trailblazing Women of Herstory exhibition in Melbourne.
Criticism of the new sculpture has been fast and fierce, perhaps in part because this is the first officially commissioned statue of the pioneering ‘mother of feminism’ and it was made possible through 10 years of dedicated fundraising by the Mary on the Green campaign, but largely because the end result is a tiny, naked silver woman on top of an amorphous, roiling mass which seems to have no connection to Mary Wollstonecraft beyond the name on plinth on which it sits.
And even then the connection is weak - the artist has pointed out that this is not a sculpture of Mary Wollstonecraft but for her, something a little controversial for many of the people who donated to the campaign in the belief they would be getting a statue of the woman herself.
What do we want from our statues of famous people? In this case, the campaign specifically stated that the statue was intended to balance the over-representation of men in public statues (over 90% of London’s monuments celebrate men) and ‘send a powerful message about what matters to us.’
So this statue needed to clearly be a woman and it is - all too clearly, many have argued - but is one teensy tiny woman really tipping the balance against a veritable army of larger-than-life men? And it needed to send a message that what Mary Wollstonecraft fought for matters to us - here, I don’t think it succeeds.
The writing on the plinth, beyond saying ‘for Mary Wollstonecraft’, reads ‘I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves.’ It’s a good quote, but from all the wonderful things she wrote, why choose one that seems designed to cater to the fears of fragile men that feminism is out to take something away from them? (Although to be fair, many of her best quotes are too long to fit on a plinth and should be read in the broader context of her work).
The statue shouts vulnerability - it’s small, naked and in a passive pose. I disagree with critics who argue that it’s sexualised - there is a difference between being naked and being sexualised - but I think there is a point to be made that many of Wollstonecraft’s arguments were about women expanding their minds and their mental faculties rather than believing their value lay only in their bodies and appearance.
The lack of a depiction of Wollstonecraft herself also bother me. We have countless depictions of generic, fictional and mythical naked women; ‘generic naked woman’ feels like a cornerstone of Western art. The chair of the project that commissioned the sculpture, Bee Cowlatt, questioned whether there was a need for lifelike figure statues in our modern world and argued that the sculpture symbolises the birth of a movement. The artist, Maggi Hambling, has argued that the figure represents ‘everywoman’ and that clothes would have limited and defined the figure, preventing others from identifying with her. She additionally argues that women can identify with the figure because ‘as far as I know, she’s more or less the shape we’d all like to be.’
I find this shocking. Wollstonecraft argued strongly against worrying about what shape and size you were supposed to be as a woman. She recognised that we have more important things to value in ourselves. Additionally, such a bland sculpture can still only physically represent a narrow band of conventionally attractive, able-bodied women.
Surely a more important part of appealing to ‘everywoman’ is an appeal to the intellect and rationality of every woman, something Wollstonecraft herself argued for recognition of: ‘let their faculties have room to unfold , and their virtues to gain strength , and then determine where the whole sex must stand in the intellectual scale.’
Why can’t we have a statue that inspires us to believe in ourselves, our minds and our abilities, instead of asking us to once again identify with a nameless, naked female figure and be happy with it?
This thoughtful statement from the Mary on the Green campaign will perhaps alleviate some of the concerns and disappointment about the statue. As a side note, it seems artists just can’t get it right when it comes to pubic hair - this sculpture has been criticised for having too much, another recent sculpture evoking a feminist lens, Medusa with the Head of Perseus, has been criticised for having too little.
If nothing else, it is exciting that more people are talking about Mary Wollstonecraft today than they likely have in years and it is heartening to see how many commenters are acquainted (or quickly acquainting themselves!) with her core arguments and ideas.
If you’ve read this far, thank you! I haven’t kept up with the blog since going back to my full time day job, but I’ve still been practicing away at my digital art! if you’d be interested in the occasional blog post (art I love or don’t love, what I’m drawing, interesting fairy tales I read recently…) please leave me a comment on social media or drop me a quick line at erinclaire@erinclaireillustration.com.
