Pregnancy in art

A portrait of a pregnant woman by the Russian artist Leontiy Semeonovich Miropolskiy

Pregnancy in art covers any artistic work that portrays pregnancy and fertility in women. It may include drawings, engravings, paintings, portraits, photographs, sculptures and figurines. It is often unclear whether an actual state of pregnancy is intended to be shown.

Historical

Venus of Willendorf, an ancient figurine

Among the oldest surviving examples of the possible depiction of pregnancy are prehistoric figurines found across much of Eurasia and collectively known as Venus figurines. The best known is the Venus of Willendorf, an oolitic limestone figurine of a woman whose breasts and hips have been exaggerated to emphasise her fertility. These figurines exaggerate the abdomen, hips, breasts, thighs, or vulva of the subject, but it is uncertain whether they are meant to show pregnancy.

Titian's Diana and Callisto, 1559, shows the moment when Callisto's pregnancy is discovered

In Europe, depictions of pregnancy were largely avoided in classical art. In Greek mythology the nymph Callisto became pregnant by Zeus (Jupiter to the Romans) in disguise. Her pregnancy was spotted when she was bathing, and her furious mistress Artemis (Diana) turned her into a bear. The moment of discovery is sometimes shown in art, as in Titian's Diana and Callisto (1559), and often Callisto's abdomen is exposed as Artemis and her other followers look at the evidence of her early pregnancy.

In Christian art, the Visitation, a meeting between two pregnant women, Mary and Elizabeth, was very often depicted, but their pregnancy usually not emphasized; the loose full clothes used in religious art as in normal medieval life make it hard to detect in any case.

Portraits of pregnant women began to appear in the late medieval period. Many new portraits of pregnant women or women posing as pregnant were created, such as the Arnolfini portrait, which is not clear whether the woman in the portrait was pregnant or not while posing for this painting. La Donna Gravida by Raphael is a portrait that depicts an apparently pregnant woman sitting with her left hand over her stomach, but such depictions remained unusual in Renaissance art. Infra-red scans of Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa suggests that Mona Lisa was pregnant or just had a baby when she was painted. This corresponds with the historical account provided by the Louvre Museum that Mona Lisa gave birth to a son in 1502.

Modern

Hope II, a painting by Gustave Klimt

In the Modern era, pregnancy came to be portrayed in art without any restrictions or taboos.

The Hope II by Gustav Klimt was perhaps the first modern painting depicting pregnancy in art. It is painted in the Byzantine style and shows a woman looking down her belly, while three women rest at her feet, praying.

The Pregnant Woman by Pablo Picasso was a sculpture dedicated to his then partner Francoise Gilot and was made out of plaster, metal armature, wood, ceramic vessels and jars. Picasso wanted to inspire Gilot to have a third child with him by making this sculpture.

Pregnant woman was the most famous painting in a series of paintings of seven pregnant nude women painted by the American artist Alice Neel. Her work fueled the Women's liberation movement as it drew attention to the fact that pregnancy was a necessary part of life that was impossible without women.

Pregnant girl was a painting by Lucian Freud that portrayed his then girlfriend Bernadine Coverley, when she was pregnant with their daughter Bella.

See also

• Madonna del Parto
• Visual arts

References

• Roberts, Helene E., "Pregnancy" in Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography: Themes Depicted in Works of Art, 2013, Routledge, ISBN 1136787933, 9781136787935, google books