Written by Chloé Cerisier
A muse, in the most basic sense, is someone serving as an inspiration to an artist, through posing as their model, or simply offering advice and support during the creative process. The term dates back to ancient Greek mythology, where Zeus’ daughters formed the nine Muses who inspired the creation of arts, literature, music, and sciences, taking the roles of active creators.
There is a paradox at the heart of the concept of the muse. Whilst it used to enable female creativity, today, we often envision a passive, reclining female model, often nude, powerless, and posing silently in front of a man. As male writers and artists began shaping their own creations, they shaped the muse herself. She became an aspect of their art, appropriated as an emblem of idealised and unreachable female beauty, rather than an active creator in her own right.
For many women, being a muse originated as an attempt to reach the art world of their time. As the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood leaned into romanticising their models and shaping their work around them, the women posing for them saw a way to integrate themselves into a sphere they were formally excluded from. Up until the late 19th century, women were rarely allowed to exhibit their art publicly and were barred from most drawing classes, unless they were the models. They were barred from the most prestigious genre of art—history painting, and only participated in lesser forms such as life and portraiture. While schooling was still possible, it remained expensive, and women’s work was often overlooked. Therefore, embodying the model helped some women be accepted into the artistic elite ranks, which then enabled them to show their work alongside their male counterparts.
Still, while men’s pursuits in art are frequently saluted as respected professions, women’s artistic endeavours are often relegated to hobbies. When thinking of most art movements from the Renaissance to Pop Art, the artists embodying the face of these movements are almost always male. Yet, many times, they were heavily inspired by women. Women have contributed to just over 1% of the collection in the London National Gallery, which only held its first major female solo exhibition in 2020, for the Italian baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. The first edition of EH Gombrich’s The Story of Art featured no female artists in its first edition in 1950, and only one woman in its 16th edition. In addition, exhibitions of female artists still contextualise them in relation to the men they knew, which is rarely done the other way around. In some instances, it can be useful as contextualisation for their art, but it is not right to primarily cite women as the wife of, the muse of, or the daughter of.
Acknowledging a woman as a muse is not the issue; solely seeing her as one is. It promotes the idea that women are simply beautiful, with men being the ones to proclaim it to the world. By reducing them to mere objects of inspiration, we take away recognition of their own creativity and artistic agency.
Often, a woman would start with a promising artistic career of her own, meet and collaborate with a male artist, and eventually become sidelined as the man’s fame grew. She would then be recast in the role of muse, wife or girlfriend. The dynamic of artistic pairs is no doubt valuable, but it always leads to the figure of the muse being secondary. The duality between ‘artist’ and ‘not artist’ has been established for centuries, not allowing for any nuance in the relationship between a creator and their creative inspiration. The muse is only a man speaking through a woman, never the woman herself.
For instance, Zelda Fitzgerald was the embodiment of the American flapper. But once she married writer Scott Fitzgerald, he used her life for his content, taking materials from her letters and diaries, while forbidding her from doing the same in her own writing. She did not need to create art because she was art; art that only he could bring to life. Take Dora Maar, whose innovative photographic work was completely overshadowed when she met Picasso, or even Camille Claudel, reduced to being Auguste Rodin’s mistress and muse when many of their works were collaborative. Even Sappho, the most famous female poet from Antiquity, who has been named as the tenth muse, is mostly remembered through Ovid’s literature, portraying her as a love-sick girl who threw herself off a rock because of her overwhelming love for Phaeon, and never for her own artistry.
This is the curse of the female muse: they are doomed to be forever viewed through the prism of the men in their lives. Once you become a muse, can you be anything else? Women should not have to be relegated to the simple vessel for a man’s message, nor imprisoned in the role of the passive model.
One part of the reason we’ve maintained this limited view that muses are women and artists are men is that the concept was delivered to us through the male gaze from the beginning. Once regarded as a muse by their artists, these women were confined in that role by the gallerists, critics, and collectors, who did not care to go beyond that idea. Many modern female artists are now fighting back to reclaim their creative power and agency, repositioning themselves as subjects. Because, as Frida Kahlo said, “I am my own muse.”
