a asociación de mujeres y pájaros tiene una larga tradición en la cultura victoriana. El concepto de inferioridad femenina quedó reforzado por las posibilidades metafóricas de la iconografía aviar y la simbología del confinamiento en el ámbito doméstico. A diferencia de los varones, representados por aves majestuosas e imponentes como el águila y el halcón, el género femenino era vinculado, comparado o directamente explicado con pájaros pequeños y débiles, o con aquellos que destacaban por su belleza o por su delicado trinar.
La presencia de pájaros se volvió omnipresente en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX. Ilustraciones, poemas, novelas, pinturas, manuales de comportamiento, todos albergaban imágenes de aves domésticas. Incluso la sociedad victoriana fue testigo del aumento de la venta de exóticas jaulas y pajareras cuidadosamente decoradas. En Villette {1853}, Charlotte Brontë compara a las mujeres con colibríes y palomas, mientras Elizabeth Gaskell las imaginaba como gorriones y gallinas en Wives and Daughters {1866}. Cuadros como The Pet {1853} de Walter Deverell, Good Night {1866} de Arthur Hughes, Veronica Veronese {1872} de Dante Gabriel Rossetti o The Gilded Cage {1900-1910} de Evelyn De Morgan, mostraban pájaros enjaulados en espacios domésticos a la vez que ubicaban a sus figuras femeninas cerca de ventanas o puertas abiertas que dejaban ver todo el mundo exterior. Pero la movilidad es siempre limitada o, como en el caso de Rossetti, completamente anulada.
Los pájaros sirvieron, además, para subrayar los prejuicios acerca de la conducta y el comportamiento femeninos, y al mismo tiempo permitían establecer paralelismos simbólicos prescriptivos. Un temperamento nervioso, ansioso o incluso asustadizo quedaba representado por metáforas móviles, aleteos y bandadas; de manera que un pájaro enjaulado sugería su control, cuidado y custodia. En ocasiones, el pájaro funcionaba como un símbolo de la psique femenina, de su mundo interior que, al igual que el espacio doméstico, era cerrado e íntimo. Otras veces se convertía en modelo de virtudes por su paciente y amorosa crianza de los hijos. Finalmente, podemos encontrar representaciones aviares y domésticas en las que se contrapone la libertad del pájaro y la reclusión de la mujer. En todos los casos, el pájaro, enjaulado o no, no era sino una extensión de la mujer victoriana, de su situación social, de su estado anímico o de la interpretación masculina que se hacía de ella.
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| The Pet {1852} WALTER H. DEVERELL |
"The earlier painting, The Pet, depicts a young lady, neatly attired in her afternoon dress, standing on the threshold between her home and her garden surrounded by an array of pet birds. One bird, perhaps a canary, is in a cage; one is on her right shoulder, directly under her chignon, and a pigeon at the left is perched on top of this cage with a small garden bird, possibly a sparrow, hops across the path in the blackground. Within this seemingly innocent portrait of a woman feeding her birds, Deverell makes a more complicated statement, fraught with ambiguities, by adding the following "motto" to the painting: "But after all, it is only questionable kindness to make a pet of a creature so essentially volatile." This attached emblematic line stimulates a re-examination of the painting. The composition contains a series of contrasts, which aim at visualizing the ambiguity suggested by the accompanying motto. The imprisoned or caged birds are contrasted with the free birds who are at liberty to wander where they will. The woman herself stands between two alternatives, the inner world of her home and the outer world represented by the garden. This intermediate position is emphasized by Deverell´s use of chiaroscuro: half of her body is lighted by the sun while half remains in shadow. Both the positions of the birds and their relationship to the woman make it clear that all of them have chosen the confinement of a "cage". The caged bird is unmistakably within the additional confines of the interior {...} although the woman´s body is half lighted by the "outside" world, that world is but a garden, another "enclosure" of the woman."
[ELAINE SHEFER, "Deverell, Rossetti, Siddal and 'The Bird in the Cage'", The Art Bulletin, vol. 67, nº 3, 1985, p. 437]
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| Good Night {1866} ARTHUR HUGHES |
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| Swallow, Swallow {1864} JOHN EVERETT MILLAIS |
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| Love´s Messenger {1885} MARIE SPARTALI STILLMAN |
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| The Caged Bird {1907} JOHN BYAM L. SHAW |
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| Veronica Veronese {1872} DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI |
"In Rossetti's Veronica Veronese, the domestic interior again serves a purpose, highlighting the process of absorption in interior thought that is central to the scene. The female figure, a pale red-haired beauty of the Rossettian type, sits at a desk upon which a book of music lies open. The woman fingers a violin's bow and strings absently, while staring dreamily into space. Behind her, a caged bird perches in a cage and sings. The domestic space that surrounds the figure is severely truncated -her little desk is pushed against one wall in front of her, and the bird cage creates another limit behind her. A third wall draped with heavy-looking patterned fabric greatly reduces the depth of the room. This claustrophobic domestic space resembles an extension of the woman's clothing. The figure wear an opulent dress of green velvet, the folds of which echo the drapery on the wall behind her. The colors of the wall and the garment are remarkably similar, heightening this effect. It seems Rossetti wishes to connect the figure and her surroundings, subtly implying the room is actually a part of the woman {...} The walls and the woman are one. Nothing external to the female figure intrudes upon this private space, which is a prime setting for introspection and personal contemplation."
[MAYA TAYLOR, "Domestic Interiors as Extensions of the Feminine Soul", The Victorian Web, 2006.]
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| The Blue Bird {1918} FRANK CADOGAN COWPER |
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| The Birdcage {1907} HENRY TONKS |
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| The Pained Heart {1868} ARTHUR HUGHES |
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| The Gilded Cage {1900-1910} EVELYN DE MORGAN |
"De Morgan's version of the woman-as-caged-bird theme sends a very similar message as The Prisoner, although more fully and elaborated worked out. In The Gilded Cage, c. 1905-1910, a woman in the loose robes and hair of the boudoir is shown with her older husband: while the man gazes despondently forward, distracted from the intellectual pursuits suggested by the titles of the books on his desk, his young wife turns away from him, yearning for the freedom she sees outside the window. Heedless of the yewels scattered at her feet and the sumptuous gold robes and bracelets, she longs to escape from the quiet, sedate rhythms of her enclosed world to the exuberance of the poorly clad group dancing by. Her pose echoes that of the lead dancer, although she is weighted down by her clothing, hampered in her movements and lacking the buoayancy of those free spiritis. The cushioned confinement of middle-class domestication is linked by De Morgan to the gilded cage of the songbird at the upper right, in poignant contrast to the duller colors but soaring flight of the bird outside. De Morgan strenghthened the visual parallel between woman and caged bird by repeating the gold tones, full throats, upwardly extended necks, and open mouth or beak."
[ELISE LAWTON SMITH, Evelyn De Morgan and the Allegorical Body, Madison, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002, p. 117]
CAROL J. ADAMS y JOSEPHINE DONOVAN (eds.), Animals and Women: Feminist Theoretical Explorations, Durham, Duke University Press, 1995.
ELISE LAWTON SMITH, Evelyn De Morgan and the Allegorical Body, Madison, Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002.
PAUL MARCHBANKS, "Jane Air: The Heroine as Caged Bird in Charlotte Brontë´s Jane Eyre and Alfred Hitchcock´s Rebecca", Revue LISA/LISA e-journal, vol. IV, nº 4, 2006, pp. 118-130.
ELAINE SHEFER, "Deverell, Rossetti, Siddal and 'The Bird in the Cage'", The Art Bulletin, vol. 67, nº 3, 1985, pp. 437-448.
ELAINE SHEFER, Birds, Cages and Women in Victorian and Pre-Raphaelite Art, New York, Peter Lang Publishing, 1990.
MAYA TAYLOR, "Domestic Interiors as Extensions of the Feminine Soul", The Victorian Web, 2006.