Blog Post #5 - An Article, Useful?

     This week I decided to analyze another one of my secondary sources, although I chose an article. The article Miranda El-Rayess wrote discussed the connection between women in art and the violent painting slashing that members of the WSPU perpetrated. The beginning of this article showed a lot of promise discussing how the women managed such a feat as to enter a museum and proceed to desecrate a painting. El-Rayess includes direct quotes from the women who destroyed the paintings, and includes background information on the painting chosen and the reaction to the attack. This source could be particularly helpful in the description of painting desecration since none of my other sources directly relate to it. Instead, the sources mention it in passing, if they refer to it at all.

     Sadly, after the first four pages of detailed information concerning one specific instance of destruction by Mary Aldham, the article delves into the rather useless discussion of art. Yet it does have a strong quote from Aldham, “I have tried to destroy a valuable picture because I wish to show the public that they have no security,” (El-Rayess 30). This would have been useful if it centered on women in art, or even art during the period of my study, the early twentieth century. Instead, the article relates how Henry James sought to connect the idea of violence with portraiture in his own stories. While his extensive usage of paintings and analysis in his work, this does not relate to my topic at all, especially when one considers that James’ writings are all works of fiction.

Source:

El-Rayess, Miranda. “The Violence of Representation: James, Sargent and the Suffragette.” Critical Quarterly 53, no. 2 (2011): 30-45. Academic Search Elite, EBSCOhost (accessed September 18, 2013).