Awakening Beauty: A Woman on the Verge of Emancipation? Case-Study of Venny Soldan-Brofeldt’s Jesus Raising Jairus’ Daughter
Awakening Beauty: A Woman on the Verge of Emancipation? Case-Study of Venny Soldan-Brofeldt’s Jesus Raising Jairus’ Daughter

Summary/Abstract: This paper discusses the painting Jesus Raising Jairus’ Daughter (c. 1917) by the Finnish artist Venny Soldan-Brofeldt. The intriguing painting challenges the representational conventions of altar painting in early twentieth-century Finland. The case study has international significance: it demonstrates how the imagery of Jairus’ daughter changed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a process which took place in religious art elsewhere in Europe too. The aim is not only to highlight how the iconographic and compositional details changed within the theme of Jairus’ daughter, but also to emphasise how its iconography began to bear a resemblance to Sleeping Beauty, another subject popular at that time, addressing the borders between life and death. The results of the analysis are placed in the context of the artist’s views and the societal changes of the era. Jairus’ daughter in Soldan-Brofeldt’s painting is presented as a modern woman placed in the conservative context of altar painting, which particularly leads in the direction of the women’s movement.

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