Knowledge Box

William Wetmore Story’s Medea, 1866: the Representation of Dominant Women and the Rise of Feminism in Art in the Nineteenth Century

HSB 211

William Wetmore Story’s Medea, 1866: the Representation of Dominant Women and the Rise of Feminism in Art in the Nineteenth Century The late-nineteenth century in America signified the Gilded Age, characterized by economic prosperity and industrial growth. Sculpture developed in America into representations of highly realistic neoclassical figures, heavily influenced from the Bible or Greco-Roman mythology. American artist William Wetmore Story’s 1866 marble sculpture Medea presents a six-foot five-inch, brooding woman with crossed arms and a furrowed brow. In Greek mythology, Medea was a merciless sorcerer and priestess who sought vengeance on her unfaithful husband by murdering their own children. Medea is not only sculpted in the complex Greek style, but also presents the growing America to the idea of representing dominant women in art. Many of Story’s contemporaries produced similar marble sculptures of women emphasizing a strong feminist statement. In this paper, I will argue how Medea connects themes of economic and industrial expansion to cultural and artistic revolution through the representation of women. This paper will explore how Story was able to model his female figure after the expertise of the Greek and Roman eras, while presenting a feminist theme to the art world in which the portrayal of dominant women broke traditional female roles as mothers or housewives to become independent delegates of their own destinies. Previous scholarship has neglected the connection of feminism as a movement to Story’s sculptures.