[ad_1]
LONDON (AP) – A sculpture celebrating Mary Wollstonecraft as the mother of feminism drew criticism before it was even unveiled.
Artist Maggi Hambling said the sculpture in London “celebrates the spirit of Mary Wollstonecraft”, the author of the 18th century treatise “A Justification for Women’s Rights”. The work, cast in silvered bronze, presents a small nude female figure emerging from a large abstract mass of female forms.
The sculpture was unveiled on Tuesday after a decade of campaigning and fundraising, but many critics have taken to Twitter to question why it had to feature a nude female figure. Writer Caitlin Moran, among others, asked why male intellectuals and historical figures weren’t celebrated with nude statues.
Defending the sculpture, Hambling said it was not meant to be a “historical likeness” and that the figure atop the work “is open and defies the world.”
“Clothes define people… As she is Everywoman, I don’t define her in particular clothes,” she says. “This is not a conventional heroic or heroic likeness of Mary Wollstonecraft. It’s a sculpture on now, in his mind.
Activists have worked for years to celebrate Wollstonecraft in north London, near her home, and have set up a boarding school for girls. The author died at the age of 38 after the birth of her daughter, writer Mary Shelley.
[ad_2]
Source link