Ebook: Women, Aging, and Art: A Crosscultural Anthology

The dry, wrinkled skin, crow’s feet and rheumy eyes of old women can be seen universally, yet the actual images and their meaning differ widely. And, the very absence of these old women in certain settings also reveals both a discomfort with the aged and an ease in their invisibility. This is true in writing about art and often in the art itself.
The physical markers of aging, even implications of death or the nearness of death, make many of these images of old women, haunting; in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they become emblems of anger and avarice. Yet portraits of known elderly women are often created with a sense of awe, and in some cases, authority. And the old women themselves can serve as models for the young.
Frank examination of the aging by contemporary artists is now the subject of a major exhibition, Aging Pride, at the Belvedere, Vienna. These images confront the viewer with their frankness and can be viewed in comparison with the stereotypes developed in the Early Modern period. Images of old women may be the very opposite of what one considers the ideal, but it is this examination that makes these often overlooked images seem fresh and have even been used for self-branding.