Naomi Craven

Behind the Gilded Edge: the Framing of Women in Nineteenth-century Art and Fiction Naomi Craven

The nineteenth century was a period in which women found themselves oppressed and circumscribed like never before. As the relationship between visual art and literature has gathered increasing interest in recent years, scholars of art have concentrated on how visual productions served to further this by creating a image of woman as either inherently dangerous or passive. This study turns the focus away from literal paintings and onto literary representations of artwork, arguing that this process allows women to be seen as not only painted, but also framed. The way that this frame functions is investigated through a combination of examination of a range of nineteenth-century texts with the new and burgeoning frame scholarship. Because of the power held by the frame, attempts to escape its reaches were almost always unsuccessful, and often futile. Only by writing about the frame and enclosing it within their own interpretive surrounds could these women begin to leave its gilded edges, and create positions for themselves within society as a whole.