A ‘Book of Drawings’ and the ‘Writing Pen’: Women Artists’ Self-Teaching and Transnational Print Culture in Early Modern Europe

Abstract

Abstract: In early modernity, artistic education began and endured with the student’s drawing practice—first in replicating works from the master, then of antiquity, and finally in the student master’s creation of new ‘invenzione’ to express artistic command. For women, this learning process was less straightforward. This article considers the changing nature of women’s artistic education between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, where the book and textual knowledge production come to mark the onset of women’s artistic practice. With case studies exploring artistic texts by Giovanna Garzoni, Élisabeth-Sophie Chéron, and Catherine Perrot, I trace the private means by which women artists utilised rising access to print culture for artistic instruction, commensurate with the growth of printing across Europe.