The Art of Girlhood: Marchesa Luisa Casati
I remember looking up at Laura Muntz Lyall’s painting Interesting Story with my big sister; it always brought her to tears. She said it felt like it captured the way she loved me. I remember feeling this same way looking at the girls playing in Dorothea Sharp’s work. There’s an almost indescribable element of girlhood that comes through certain artworks and reaches deep into my chest. Claire Marie Healy’s thoughts in her collaboration video with Tate on girlhood in art got me pondering this idea more deeply. Exploring the complexity of this kind of female representation has transformed the way I experience and relate to art completely. Girlhood has been captured in forms ranging from renaissance portraits of wealthy aristocrats’ daughters to current projects like the photography of Mary Ellen Mark or Rene Matic, or even paintings like those of Sari Shryack. As Healy describes it, girlhood transcends a length of time in a woman’s life. The term is inclusive and encompasses complex
