Sofonisba Anguissola
(also spelled Anguisciola; c.
1532
-
1625)
was an
Italian
painter of the Renaissance.
She
was born in
Cremona,
Lombardy
around 1532, the oldest of seven children, six of whom were
daughters. Her father, Amilcare Anguissola, was a member of
the Genoese minor nobility. Sofonisba's mother, Bianca
Ponzone, was also of an affluent family of noble background.
Although Sofonisba enjoyed much more encouragement and
support than the average woman of her day, her social class
did not allow her to transcend the constraints of her sex.
Without the possibility of studying anatomy or drawing from
life (it was considered unacceptable for a lady to view
nudes) she could not undertake the complex multi-figure
compositions required for large-scale religious or history
paintings.
Instead, she searched for
possibilities of a new style of portraiture, with subjects
set in informal ways. Self-portraits and members of her own
family were her most frequent subjects, as seen in such
paintings as Self-Portrait (1554, Kunsthistoriches
Museum,
Vienna),
The Chess Game (1555, Museum Narowe, Poznan), that
depicts three of her sisters Lucia, Minerva and Europa, and
Portrait of Amilcare, Minerva and Asdrubale Anguissola
(c. 1557-1558, Nivaagaards Malerisambling, Niva,
Denmark).
Sofonisba Anguissola's ouvre had a lasting
influence upon subsequent generations of artists. Her
portrait of Queen Elisabeth of Valois with a
zibellino
(the pelt of a marten set with a head and feet of jewelled
gold) was the most widely copied portrait in Spain. Copiers
of this work include many of the finest artists of the time,
such as
Peter Paul Rubens.
Sofonisba is also important to
feminist art historians. Although there has never been a
period in Western history in which women were completely
absent in the visual arts, Anguissola's great success opened
the way for larger numbers of women to pursue serious
careers as artists. Some famous successors to her example
include
Lavinia Fontana,
Barbara Longhi,
Fede Galizia
and
Artemisia Gentileschi.
Sofonisba once said, “Life is full of surprises, I try to
capture these precious moments with wide eyes.”
