Mary Ann Rebecca Alabaster,
“The Artist’s Painting-Room”
June 12, 1830. Oil on canvas, unframed: 84.5 x 70.4 cm.
Gift of Morton Rapp in memory of Hyman M. Smith, 2008. © 2018 Art Gallery of Ontario.
In her oil painting “The Artist’s Painting-Room”, Mary Ann Alabaster offers a powerful perspective on art through the female lens. By situating her own self portrait within the painting amongst other pieces by celebrated Spanish Baroque painters, so to does she situate herself in the annals of art history. Like prominent writers of her time, such as Helen Maria Williams, she boldly places herself in a conversation which at the time had been reserved for men and offers a specific feminine perspective distinct from the ones of her male contemporaries. Dorothy Wordsworth, another such talented writer who would be overshadowed by her own male compatriots due seemingly to nothing other than their maleness, despite her own experiences and writings often directly influencing and inspiring their own. By considering the theme of memory, both of the self and of the world and its history, each of these women offers a unique perspective on the world at their time, and would influence how their contemporaries and descendants would view the world from the feminine viewpoint.
Keywords: memory, women, feminine, aesthetic