Witches and Wicked Bodies
Exhibition Review
Written by Molly Lynch | January 19
Witches and Wicked Bodies was curated by Deanna Petherbridge in 2013 and is instrumental in the culmination of popular imagery of witches from the Renaissance up until 2013. The exhibit considers the oddities and complexities of typecasting witches within this vast time frame, and of course the male psyche. Organised thematically, the exhibition orders the works by the visual concern of the artists.
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Surveyor of the exhibition Patricia Allerton acknowledges the role of the witch as a “prototype” used and abused over time throughout art and literature, with the witch being mostly always portrayed as female (Allerton, 2013). Allerton also proposed a theory as to why this may be, expressing that men of esteemed or clerical positioning inherit the idea of women as “weaker beings” or “weaker vessels” than men, in all senses (Allerton, 2013). This is a phrase used repeatedly to describe women in The Malleus Maleficarum.
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It is worth considering that a witch was thought to be someone who “practiced magic and used their supernatural ways to do both good and evil” (Allerton, 2013) spurning fear and provoking a panoply of responses over the centuries. The exhibition includes works of varying importance, nationally and locally. The exhibition did not intend to cover the topic of the ‘witch-hunts’ throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — rather it attempts to hone in on the artist’s fascination with the witch in the first place. More specifically their fantastical imaginings of the witch, sensationalising the figure as an absurdity rather than a depiction of what was most likely a mundane life. It is remarkable to note how little the representation of witches shifted over the centuries.
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The pieces are mostly works on paper and paintings, with some prints, drawings and photographs, some of which are famous for being the most recognisable pictures of the witch, for example Witches and their incantations by Salvator Rosa (1646). Artists such as Rosa focused on the supposed and widely circulated ideas of witchcraft, true to the time, such ideas include visions of sabbaths, mass rituals, and diabolism (devil worship). The figure shares an affinity with Shakespeare’s depiction of witches through his characters The Weird Sisters in Macbeth (1606). According to Christina Larner in her book Enemies of God (1981), the persecution of witches in Scotland, under the observation of King James VI, in particular were the most relentless. The King personally supervised the torture and trials of the convicted — it is likely that16
Shakespeare based the witches penchant for summoning a tempest from the sea on the North Berwick trials of 1590. The witches of the North Berwick trials confessed to using witchcraft in order to sabotage the Kings boat, this is evidenced by the following passage from Shakespeare's Macbeth:
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“Purposely to be cassin into the sea to raise winds for destruction of ships.” — (Macbeth, 1606)
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On the subject of the witches grotesque image, Petherbridge postulated in her key note speech at the ICA “outward signs women being bestial and hag like both young and old were signs of inward evil, used to signify evil to the observer” (Petherbridge, 2015).
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In his Los Caprichos (1799) series, Francisco Goya uses the witch as a vehicle for satire, not actually believing in literal witches, he uses the image of witchcraft metaphorically to point out the evils in society. Goya garnered a more enlightened approach to the portrayal of witches, yet he still enjoyed painting scenes of terror. Petherbridge identified the symbolic nature of these works to be about “social things: greed, war, the corruption of the clergy” (Petherbridge 2014). By the 18th century witches were seen as less of a threat, it was then understood that depictions of witches (such as hags, crones and old or ugly figures) were superstitious imaginings of less fortunate people in society. In light of this realisation, these associations eventually lost their potency. However, artists such as Goya still used the witch’s image to depict poverty, ugliness and deviancy. In plate 68 of the series, an older naked female figure teaches a younger witch, also naked, how to fly a broomstick. Dylan Thuras wrote in an article for Atlas Obscura in October 2014 that the “Broom was a symbol of female domesticity, yet the broom was also phallic, riding on one was a symbol of female sexuality” (Thuras, Sex, Drugs, and Broomsticks: The Origins of the Iconic Witch, October, 2014). The image is heavily sexualised, in Goya’s native language Spanish, the word ‘volar’ (to fly) is slang for having an orgasm. The image of a witch riding a broom first appeared in the 15th century, yet it is still laden with sexual and spiritual depravity, consequently it is now a ubiquitous figure of witchcraft.
Plate 68 'Los Caprichos': Pretty teacher! (Linda maestra!) (Goya,F. 1799)
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What Witches and Wicked Bodies does well I believe, is to highlight just how strong the association between women and witchcraft were, especially in male dominated culture. The exhibit follows the ways in which artists have attempted to re-work, re-order and realise the resilience of the witch. As a woman, viewing such a substantial amount of this imagery can be quite distressing, as the witch is a malleable figure, appropriated in its potential to create drama and excess. Artists were able to use this image freely, evoking ideas of fear, otherworldliness and extremity.
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Whilst scenes depicting demonisation and demoralisation of women can be quite hard to digest, they allow us to peer into the social lens of its conception, where witches are “scapegoats on which the evil of society projected” (Petherbridge, 2014). The end of the exhibit holds a collection of works by contemporary female artists, such as Kiki smith, Ana Maria Pacheco and Paula Rego, women who have reclaimed the image of history’s hardiest outlaw by wearing their wickedness proudly.