Oh Father Where Art Thou?
Representations of masculinity and fatherhood in modern art and culture. 2013.
This essay was originally published in Collage Magazine (2013).
Parenting, is a position that the majority of the population experience yet the role of parenthood, particularly the role of fatherhood is something that has been vastly underrepresented within modern art and culture. If the vast majority of the population become parents at some point in their lives surely we can assume that this statistic also applies to those working in the field of the arts? As historical definitions of gender roles dictated much of the art and culture pre 1950, few artists in the modern era have created work centred on the experiences of parenting, with fatherhood in particular lacking a subjective viewpoint in modern culture. There have been a minority of female artists over the past fifty years who produced artworks centred on their experiences of motherhood, notably Mary Kelly’s Post- Partum Document (1973-79), Susan Hiller’s Ten Months (1977-9) and much of the work from Mierle Laderman Ukeles and Louise Bourgeois who all examined their maternal position throughout their art practices. These artists recognised their experiences of pregnancy and birth, their relationship with their children and their identity as a mother as worthy subjects for art making, yet to find examples of their male counterparts who tackled the subject of fatherhood and parenting from a male perspective is practically impossible.
This provides us with a number of questions. Is the lack of fatherhood in the arts down to the fact that the most significant male artists of the past sixty years did not in fact become fathers? Has the portrayal of gender roles within historical and contemporary culture provided us with a perception of masculinity that denotes the male role in childcare to a point where it is not deemed worthy subject for art? In the case of the latter, has the historical emphasis of the role of the mother as ultimate caregiver resulted in this devaluing of the role of the father? In raising some of these issues we can also enquire into the concept that perhaps if a more positive and subjective emphasis was placed on the modern father within visual culture this may reinstate value towards this role and our perception of masculinity within our contemporary society.
The idea that in order to become a great artist one must live free of all other responsibilities, focussing all energy and creation toward the act of producing art, is a notion that has been instilled by many of the great creatives of the past century. Marcel Duchamp openly stated his rejection of family life and paternity; ‘A home, a family, these depend on paternity, and they all entail responsibilities, routine, boredom and, inevitably, lies.’ (A Marriage in Check: The Heart of the Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even by Lydie Fischer Sarazin-Levassor) yet many successful male artists were indeed fathers. Picasso, Paolozzi, Richard Hamilton, Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, and Anish Kapoor to name but a few examples, all became fathers at some stage in their career yet the role does not seem to be predominant in the work they have produced. Whether male artists become fathers or not, they have never been acknowledged for their role here but rather referred to as fathers in relation to their work; Marcel Duchamp is commonly known as ‘The Father of Conceptual Art’ and Richard Hamilton as ‘The Father of Pop Art’. Fatherhood within contemporary art has been attributed to the male artist’s creation of work rather than his role within family life.
So what role has art played in shaping our perceptions of gender with regards to parenting?
If we bring our attention back to the origins of the family portrait, we must begin by with the first significant family depicted throughout Western art; Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. The birth of Christ, most commonly symbolised in the image of Madonna and Child, remains one of the most predominant subjects for Christian art. Originally acting as visual narratives to explain the chapters of the bible, these paintings and sculptures have created a positioning of gender within the family which has impacted on generations. From the earliest depictions of the nativity scene back in the 4th Century it is clear that Joseph’s role is secondary to that of Mary’s. Madonna and child are placed at the centre of every painterly depiction, with Joseph often distant from his family and sometimes undistinguishable from the rest of the shepherds. Paintings would scarcely reveal any tenderness or affection between Joseph and baby. Joseph’s role in the story of the birth of Christ was one of protection and provision for his pregnant wife in the lead up to the birth itself, yet his role in the creation of his son, and subsequent upbringing is awarded to the unseen, unheard higher entity thus referred to as ‘The Father’. Christian art has provided us with an unquestionable emphasis placed upon the mother child relationship, paintings and statues of Madonna and Child adorn churches, schools, hospitals and homes around the world acting as the ultimate symbol for love, nurture and protection and its visual stimuli has become ingrained in our psyche. The predominance of ‘the icon’ as the ultimate depiction of the nurturing family has somewhat denoted the role of the father from the immediate family dynamic and created the roots of our perception of fatherhood over the past 2000 years.
With the exception of Christian art, depictions of family life were not common place in historical Western art yet after many centuries of paintings centred on the masculine role in war and conflict, artists began to look at family life as subject for their paintings. The 18th C family was painted with a common aesthetic and placement within the home to emphasise status and wealth and during the Enlightenment. Goya’s Family of the Duke and Duchess of Osuna (1787-88) was a fairly typical family portrait of its time, the father stands at the head of the family, one hand on the shoulder of the seated mother whom the children are centred around. We can already see the beginnings of gender roles being reinforced in both parents and their offspring. Although the subject of mothers and children were much more common family portraits, it was rare to see any real tenderness or affection between parents and their children and few depictions of father and child were ever seen. The father child relationship may be rarely depicted within painting, and rarely displaying tenderness but in fact was portrayed as a far more distant and often brutal relationship. From Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel (1510), William Blake’s God Judging Adam to Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring his Son (1823) we can see that the father has been portrayed as both the creator of man as well as the deliverer of punishment, who’s distant authority commands respect and feels no remorse. This view on the role of the father has stayed with us right up until the 20th C where family life has been centred on the woman as ultimate caregiver to the children, and the man as provider of authority and protector for his family.
This strict position on gender roles was one that did not easily shift until the onset of the Second World War forced both sexes to assume new responsibilities. The post war family was one that projected a view ‘togetherness’ between the sexes, both men and women returned home after the war which had seen the father further distanced from family life and women acquiring new responsibilities within the workplace as they took over from their male counterparts. This return to domesticity for both sexes was an image projected in media, politics and visual culture in the post war era as a means to mend the fractures to society and family life that had been experienced during the previous decade. Although the family unit had been brought back together, mothers and fathers still lived in separate spheres when it came to family life. While media advertising and visual culture emphasised the importance of the woman’s role within the home, the father was seen as a representation of the outside world remaining distanced from the family dynamic and bond. Psychoanalytic literature of the time stressed that the father should remain the distant and remote visitor from the outside world, standing for law and order. The father’s role was excluded from much of the parenting manuals and he was neither present at the birth of his children nor was he expected to participate in any childcare or housework, his role was as provider of a wage and the authority to administer punishment when required. Much like the paintings of the Christian era, representations of fatherhood were just as distant from the visual arts in the fifties as it was after the birth of Christ. Artists of the post war era were experimenting with ways to move beyond the representation and confines of the canvas, they were pushing boundaries and stepping into new territory in the form of sculpture, performance and installation. While America saw the birth of Abstract Expressionism in painters including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, British artists such as Richard Hamilton and Andy Warhol were drawing upon the rise of consumerist culture and media which rose to prominence with the media’s portrayal of a New Britain which promised ‘opportunity for all’, yet art of the time still had not brought attention to this growing distance between fathers and their children.
Men and women both rebelled against the confines of 1950’s domestic life, and filmmakers began to reflect this growing dissatisfaction with family life, especially with young men. Men began to rebel against the pressures to settle down to married life which was seen as a trap aimed to tame and emasculate them. Films such as Rebel Without a Cause (1955), The Tender Trap (1955) and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) portrayed a return to the aggressive, rebellious and unattached idea of masculinity that has previously been prominent during times of war and conflict. Men no longer had anything to fight for, their purpose had been directed back towards the home, yet even in the home it was the woman’s ultimate purpose to create and care for their children so where did this leave men?
Feminist Artists of the seventies had begun to interrogate the question of gender roles within the domestic sphere, women were unhappy in their position as ultimate caregiver for their children and demanded more freedom out with the confines of the home and family life. This rejection of the woman’s role as wife and mother begun to open up new possibilities for our perception of fathers and their role within the family. The media in the late seventies and early eighties portrayed an image of a new, modern father who was much more involved in the daily activities and chores of childcare and housework as women enjoyed the new found freedom of their working lives and visual culture began to reflect this changing role of fatherhood. Hollywood films such as Three Men and a Baby (1987), Tootsie (1982) and Kramer VS Kramer (1979) showed us a much more sensitive man who could be affectionate and nurturing, and just as good at ‘mothering’. Images of father and child began to circulate in the media and although the subject of fatherhood had been absent from art practices, the 70’s and 80’s saw the representation of fatherhood begin to trickle in to contemporary arts. In Michael Rothenstein’s Fathers (1970) the two suited and seated men in his screen-print are blocked in by areas of industrial looking pattern and colour, oversized glasses and moustaches are drawn on giving an almost comical yet unapproachable feel which comments on the perception and portrayal of men as fathers. Roberto Barni’s Fatherhood (1982) comes from a more subjective and expressionistic place from his own experiences of the role. Although both works took fatherhood as their subject telling us that the importance of the role at that time was changing, these works are far lessen known than the rest of the bodies of work both artists produced.
Although the roles of mothers and fathers were becoming freed from the confines of the 1950’s structure, and both women and men had begun to experience a new freedom of choice in terms of marriage, career and children, this new freedom brought about a rise in the number of single parents, divorces and one parent families. Although the media had portrayed a vision of a new father model, the realities were that men and women were becoming distanced from one another and more children were being brought up by lone parents the majority of whom were women. It seemed the father was remaining distant and remote from family life, the difference now that it was not always by choice.
If we project our attention towards contemporary family life, the breakdown and restructuring of the 50’s nuclear family has had both positive and negative effects on the contemporary mother and father model. Woman may have far greater freedom and choice than fifty years ago with regards to when, how and if she chooses to bring up children, yet some argue that the increased availability of medical procedures such as IVF and sperm donation has further isolated and denoted the father’s role. Single parenting and parenting by same sex couples has ensured that the modern family structure reflects the changing nature of our culture and society, and many different approaches and viewpoints with regards to how we bring up children are reflected in the media, advertising and television however, the visual arts still remains adverse from the role of parenting, especially by fathers. When examining modern culture, it seems that the position of ultimate responsibility for children is still appropriated to the mother, so where does this leave the modern father?
The role that fathers play in family life has changed dramatically over the last fifty years. Men have taken on more housework and childcare, and the number of stay at home dads who take on the role as main carer for their children has dramatically increased over the past twenty years. Today’s fathers are not the all-business provider who is distant and less emotionally engaged than the mother and according to some, never have been. Steve Humphries, producer of BBC Four’s 2010 documentary; A Century of Fatherhood, states that fathers have always been close to their families when they could be, and the portrayal of men as emotionally cold, distant and often cruel, was simply wrong.
After WWII, some argued that the impact of the new freedoms of post war Britain such as the sexual revolution and divorce was destroying the institution of marriage, and of fatherhood. The problem was that a new parenting model wasn’t created to deal with the realities of divorce and the dad’s role became undermined after a break up resulting in many losing touch with their children.
Although subjective representations of the father’s role are absent from visual culture; film, media and popular culture of recent generations has instead focussed its lens towards the absence of fathers further distancing the relationship between mothers and fathers, and fathers with their children. The portrayal of the helpless single mother is commonplace in film and television, as they play on the absent, or often violent father to create a narrative based around female vulnerability, single dads are rarely seen in the same light. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) remains a popular yet rare example of the display of a loving relationship between a father and his son. The film’s popularity it seems is largely due to its portrayal of a true representation of the experience of fatherhood based on real life events rather than a fictional representation of our perceived view of who fathers are. This remains an uncommon occurrence within popular culture of recent generations, which has provided us with a father figure whom is represented as useless, lazy, disconnected and often as the butt of the joke. Homer Simpson (The Simpsons), Peter Griffin (Family Guy), Frank Gallagher (Shameless) and Ben Harper (My Family) to name a few examples, all provide a father model who is represented as being vastly inferior to the mother. To take Frank Gallagher’s character in Shameless as a prime example, we can also see the rise of the so called ‘Feckless Father’ who has been a predominant focus of attention from the media and politics of the past decade, sparking further contempt for the lower class male stereotype and his role as a father. The dad’s role in family life has been greatly undermined over the past fifty years, and as the women’s liberation of the 70’s provided females with legitimacy and progress in the work place, men have not received similar legitimacy in the home.
The portrayal of fatherhood over the past century has led to both a subtle contempt and a disrespect for the critical role the father plays within the family. One of the problems that has arisen from the lack of subjectivity of fatherhood in visual culture, and consequent misrepresentation of masculinity is that this view of the useless, distant and absent father has become normalised. New fathers, especially those who are young parents have become so used to the negative portrayal of the feckless father that many young men reject any form of parental responsibility with the knowledge that expectations of their parental role is limited and the assumption that the mother will accept full responsibility for their child.
We have discovered that the historical depictions of masculinity as well as those in visual culture over the past fifty years have not provided us with an accurate representation of fatherhood from the perspective of fathers themselves. If the majority of men do not relate to the distant and emotionally cold or the clueless selfish father figure that has been projected over the past century then where are all the true representations of this critical role? The past twenty years has seen significant progress in terms of family life yet we have not seen a similar progress within our modern culture.
The arts have promoted and pioneered change in many aspects of life, and artists have sparked debate and highlighted issues around aspects of contemporary life including women’s rights, homosexuality, race, religion, war, life and death. If this is the case, then why have artists not been able to spark change in our value of parenthood and fathers? If one of the purposes of art in modern times is to inspire discussion, to reflect the changing nature of our society and act as ‘an organ of human life’ (Tolstoy) then our contemporary culture must reflect this need for discussion of our roles as parents. For a true representation of contemporary life, and for the purpose of inspiring change, the crucial role that both mothers and fathers play in shaping the future generations must be depicted through the lens of subjective experience for our perceptions on gender roles to change and to inspire the next generation of men to become loving, nurturing fathers.