I’m also not an art historian, but I am a systems analyst

Does a painting represent the model, the artist, or the culture?

I was intrigued by a commentary about an 1890 painting by Dennis Miller Bunker (USA, 1861–1890)

No woman has ever loved her mirror like this.

Image from the Terra Foundation for American Art. The article linked above has a better photo. The foundation offers a very different interpretation.

After I read the commentary, I wrote:

Without your description, I would have imagined the painting being of a person practicing facial expressions in a mirror -- trying to perform confidence.

I suspect your interpretation is more accurate.

I felt it might be worth expanding why I believe their interpretation is more accurate.

When I see images like this, I’m not more likely to see myself in the “male” painter than the "female" model. I see what is happening in this painting, and I put myself into the mind of the model/subject. I tried to picture what I might be doing: practicing facial expressions, including what is deemed in this culture to be “gender appropriate” facial expressions.

I believe this way of interpreting the painting is naive on my part.

I was made aware at a young age (pre-teen years in the 1970’s, under the Dominion of Canada as it was still branded) what I was expected to perform. I was told what “boys” and later “men” were supposed to think and be interested in. I was never interested in sports or competition generally, so I never fit in with the “boys”. Some “girls” would allow me to hang around, up until my male presentation became too much of a problem.

In my teenage years I was regularly an emotional support person for female presenting persons who were dealing with traumatic experiences in their lives. I can not share how many of the females I knew had told me stories of rape and other sexual violence committed against them. I was somehow seen as a safe person who listened, and never judged them. It didn’t occur to me to judge them, although I was aware of the culture around me that tried to teach me to do so.

Some people were comforted by my not conforming to a gender binary and not believing in the social hierarchy, but many other people were offended. This wasn’t a gender specific thing, as gender binary roles are strictly policed by what is alleged to be “both” genders, contrary to what I consider to be a myth that Androcentrism/mysogyny/etc are things that “men” do to “women”. I strongly believe that these are systems which, within specific cultures, are enforced across the notion of a gender binary.

I was asked to the Grade 12 graduation “prom”, and I believed it was an honest invitation. I was flattered and excited to have been asked, and looked forward to it. I otherwise would not have signed up, as these types of social gatherings aren’t my style. That person knew full well that they would not be in town and this was a joke with some of her other “female” friends.

What the author of the critique of this painting wrote is more likely accurate, as it matches what a male would paint given what males are taught in this culture about how women think. For many people they don’t feel comfortable enough to ever exit from these social constructs and enforced social lying to express how they actually feel. They will fear being excommunicated from regular society. I understand that fear, being someone who never quite fits in and regularly has to deal with excommunications I can’t understand.

Sometimes I meet someone else who also doesn’t fit in, and we can share how we actually feel. Little of what I hear directly from actually open minded people conforms to the social constructs enforced within this culture (USA, Canada, British North America, Anglosphere, etc).

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See also: