{"id":275114,"date":"2020-11-12T07:34:23","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:34:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=275114"},"modified":"2020-11-12T07:34:23","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:34:23","slug":"mary-wollstonecraft-statue-a-provocative-tribute-for-a-radical-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/11\/12\/mary-wollstonecraft-statue-a-provocative-tribute-for-a-radical-woman\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary Wollstonecraft statue: a provocative tribute for a radical woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

A small naked female figure in silvered bronze emerges out of a swirling mass of organic matter. There is something excitingly unexpected about it all. Although not everyone shares this opinion of the recently unveiled memorial<\/a> in north London to the feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) by the artist Maggi Hambling CBE.<\/p>\n

The statue is a project ten years in the making \u2013 but centuries overdue. Wollstonecraft was one of the most defiant and intelligent voices in the period of our nation\u2019s history which is often termed the Enlightenment (1715 \u2013 1789). The arguments she advanced for women\u2019s equality feel familiar today, but they were radical in her age.<\/p>\n

Wollstonecraft paid a high personal cost for making her voice heard. Vilified<\/a> in society as an adulteress and for conceiving a child out of wedlock, her unorthodoxy was condemned by the very society she worked to improve. But her political writings are extraordinary documents, including letters in close dialogue with the leading thinkers and events of the day.<\/p>\n

Everywoman?<\/h2>\n

In her new monument, Hambling does not give us a figure of Wollstonecraft, but a vision of \u201ceverywoman\u201d. The work feels more of an intervention in debates about monuments<\/a>, than a monument for a specific person. The sculpture rejects a male tradition of public sculpture, in which the likeness of celebrated men is cast in bronze or carved in marble.<\/p>\n

A statement on behalf of the campaign to raise the statue, which took a decade to source the necessary \u00a3143,300, described the work\u2019s design<\/a>:<\/p>\n

As opposed to traditional male heroic statuary, the freestanding woman has evolved organically from, is supported by, and does not forget, all her predecessors who advocated, campaigned and sacrificed themselves for women\u2019s emancipation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Hambling should be praised for her attempt to break with this tradition but whether this statue is a fitting tribute to Wollstonecraft can be questioned.<\/p>\n

\"Black
The sculpture\u2019s creator Maggi Hambling.<\/span>
\nStOuen\/Wikimedia<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ultimately, statues don\u2019t represent people, they represent ideas. Ideas of how we choose to see the world. Hambling\u2019s more abstract and representative form perhaps tries to do too much: to celebrate the life and contribution of one woman, whilst celebrating the life and possibilities of all women.<\/p>\n

Is such a feat even possible? In attempting to represent every woman, perhaps the statue stands testament to the impossibility of such a task.<\/p>\n

The statue\u2019s unveiling saw a swift response of female commentators who question the decision<\/a> to present womankind, and Wollstonecraft\u2019s contribution to our history, through an idealised naked form. Novelist Jojo Moyes<\/a> said:<\/p>\n

I think it would have been nice to commemorate Mary Wollstonecraft with her clothes on [\u2026] You don\u2019t see a lot of statues commemorating male political figures without their pants on.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fellow writer Imogen Hermes Gowar<\/a> also rejected the \u201csexy toned female\u201d figure, saying:<\/p>\n

Nameless, nude and conventionally attractive is the only way women have ever been acceptable in public sculpture.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While such assessments misconstrue Hambling\u2019s intention for her design, the statue is \u2013 in this early moment of its life \u2013 too provocative to please every woman. But then again, the same was true of Wollstonecraft\u2019s own reception with her contemporaries.<\/p>\n

Wollstonecraft\u2019s portrait<\/h2>\n

It is impossible to know what Wollstonecraft would have made of the statue. She might have experienced sheer shock, perhaps, that the establishment would view her as a fitting subject for such a thing.<\/p>\n

Hambling\u2019s silvery creation is certainly a far cry from John Opie\u2019s portrait of Wollstonecraft<\/a> that hangs on the walls of the National Portrait Gallery in London.<\/p>\n

A woman of elegant simplicity, you would barely believe you were looking at one of Britain\u2019s most radical writers. Painted when Wollstonecraft was pregnant with her second daughter, Mary, the portrait is a poignant reminder of tragedy around the corner. Wollstonecraft died of septicaemia following the birth. Her daughter would grow up to become a formidable figure<\/a> in her own right, writing her own monumental work, Frankenstein.<\/p>\n

Wollstonecraft was not \u201cevery woman\u201d. She was far more outspoken, more rebellious and braver than the average woman of her day. Upon her death, Wollstonecraft\u2019s grieving husband, the author William Godwin<\/a>, wrote to his friend, the writer Thomas Holcroft, that \u201cthere does not exist her equal in the world\u201d. Hugely individual and brilliantly intellectual, Wollstonecraft was a rarity. It could be fair to say, then, that we are still in need of a statue to capture this.<\/p>\n

Statues as history<\/h2>\n

Critics of Hambling\u2019s monument should be reminded that this does not need to be our only statue for Wollstonecraft. True, it has been a long time coming. But Wollstonecraft is a shining beacon in British women\u2019s history \u2013 a figure due many statues and acts of remembrance.<\/p>\n

Hambling\u2019s statue should remind us rather than distract from the fact that Wollstonecraft made her own final monument in the form of her writings<\/a>. They are well worth reading.<\/p>\n

So, too, are new statistics emerging from the nation\u2019s newfound interest in its public sculpture. Women make up more than 50% of the UK\u2019s population but are the subject of only 10% of the statues<\/a> on London\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n

Whatever we may make of Hambling\u2019s statue, today we have one more statue of, and for, women. It is a fact well worth celebrating.\"The<\/p>\n

Claudine van Hensbergen<\/a>, Associate Professor, Eighteenth-Century English Literature, Northumbria University, Newcastle<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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