“A Portrait of a Girl”

My Name is Isabella, welcome to the viewing of my final project! For my final project, I chose the unessay option and for this, I decided to create an oil painting with an accompanying reflective formal essay, in which I detail the background and various inspirations behind my work. As one might notice, the painting does not live within the realm of realism, as it is a painting of a woman whose head appears to be a 'lily'. It is in this specific detail that the significance of the piece exists. As the title suggests, it is "A Portrait of a Girl"; of course, we know a woman or girl to have a face, not a 'lily' however a 'lily' in the medieval era was a symbol of a women's purity in sexuality. A women's purity was considered the most valuable thing about her, so much so that usually, men did not offer the sociopolitical promise of marriage based on love; instead, it was often about buying a women's purity. This awful idea presents the notion that women were not seen as 'people' but instead seen as a valuable good that could easily be tainted if not 'kept pure.' This unfortunate economic standing during this time period inspired me to create a piece that displays the way women were truly seen, detailing the faceless-ness and the emphasis that they were only seen for their purity, which is why I chose to display the head of this women as a 'Lily.'

Isabella Storey