Spring Break
Historian to speak on anarchism and laundresses in French art
Heather Holm / Activities Editor
Issue date: 3/30/09 Section: News
The power of the working-class woman in Paris has always interested art historian Robyn Roslak.
Roslak will present "The Laundress in Nineteenth-Century French Art: Representing the Working-Class Body" at 7 p.m. today in the Lecture Hall of the Doudna Fine Arts Center.
The speech will focus on Roslak's latest research project on images of laundresses in art and literature from around 1850 to 1900 in France.
"I'm especially interested in how male artists and writers pictured or described laundresses' bodies, and why they made laundresses appear dirty and repulsive, yet also sexually desirable," Roslak said.
She said her interests in 19th century working-class women are focused on those who did the "dirty work," like laundresses, garbage collectors and maids.
"It turns out that these women who managed dirt actually had quite a bit of power in the households where they worked and in the city at large to the point that their clients or employers were often afraid of them."
Roslak said the power of these women was limited because most of them were poor, uneducated and had difficult lives.
Roslak teaches art history at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. She also wrote the book "Neo-Impressionism and Anarchism in Fin-de-Siècle France" along with a number of other articles on French art in the late 19th century.
"My book on neo-impressionism and anarchism has to do with a group of six French painters who were supporters of anarchism during the 1880s and 1890s, not the gun-slinging variety of anarchism, but an anarchism that was more pacifist and intellectual," Roslak said.
She will also address the themes of adultery and unhappy marriage in late 19th century French art.
History professor Janet Marquardt invited Roslak to speak at Eastern.
"She does wonderful research on images of women in French painting," Marquardt said.
Admission to the speech is free and open to the public.
Heather Holm can be reached at 581-7942 or haholm@eiu.edu.
Roslak will present "The Laundress in Nineteenth-Century French Art: Representing the Working-Class Body" at 7 p.m. today in the Lecture Hall of the Doudna Fine Arts Center.
The speech will focus on Roslak's latest research project on images of laundresses in art and literature from around 1850 to 1900 in France.
"I'm especially interested in how male artists and writers pictured or described laundresses' bodies, and why they made laundresses appear dirty and repulsive, yet also sexually desirable," Roslak said.
She said her interests in 19th century working-class women are focused on those who did the "dirty work," like laundresses, garbage collectors and maids.
"It turns out that these women who managed dirt actually had quite a bit of power in the households where they worked and in the city at large to the point that their clients or employers were often afraid of them."
Roslak said the power of these women was limited because most of them were poor, uneducated and had difficult lives.
Roslak teaches art history at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. She also wrote the book "Neo-Impressionism and Anarchism in Fin-de-Siècle France" along with a number of other articles on French art in the late 19th century.
"My book on neo-impressionism and anarchism has to do with a group of six French painters who were supporters of anarchism during the 1880s and 1890s, not the gun-slinging variety of anarchism, but an anarchism that was more pacifist and intellectual," Roslak said.
She will also address the themes of adultery and unhappy marriage in late 19th century French art.
History professor Janet Marquardt invited Roslak to speak at Eastern.
"She does wonderful research on images of women in French painting," Marquardt said.
Admission to the speech is free and open to the public.
Heather Holm can be reached at 581-7942 or haholm@eiu.edu.
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