Pittura: A Gendered Template for Painting

This chapter offers the thoughts of a painter-philosopher on the historic significance of the choice of topic, iconography, and gender of the most recognized allegory of painting, namely the original textual description of the Italian writer Cesare Ripa on Pittura which was later illustrated by various artists. The gendered template of Pittura invites artists —male, female, nonbinary, transgender, intersex, “women” of any identity and persuasion —to adopt the template and extend it yet again. The chapter looks at how painting —the act of painting and the painting of women’s portraits by women became elevated to the allegorical figure of Pittura and enshrined through at least nine Italian editions, eight non-Italian, as well as an Austrian, Russian, and even a Slavonic edition. Poesia clearly appears, opposite Pittura on the frontispiece of the Dutch version of Iconologia, assuming main stage position in the 1644 translation.