Nurturing Mother – Mothering Nature: Motherhood, Breastfeeding and Nature in Paula Modersohn-Becker’s Kneeling Mother with Child at her Breast (1906)

This thesis questions the relation between the painting Kneeling Mother with Child at her Breast (1906) by Paula Modersohn-Becker and the ideal of nature. By investigating the use of the concept of nature in breastfeeding discourses and critically assessing its relation to the painting, it will argue that Kneeling Mother offers a more complex view of the natural and nature than it might seem at first glance. This ambiguity will productively open new perspectives to study Kneeling Mother’s representation of motherhood. Taking the painting out of its original context and analysing it through a feminist lens will make it possible to account for the impact Modersohn-Becker’s maternal paintings still have today. The argumentation will build upon theories by feminist scholars Simone de Beauvoir, Adrienne Rich, Anne McClintock and Sherry B. Ortner to confront the painting with three facets of the conceptualisation of the natural: natural as easy, as related to nature and as being opposed...Show moreThis thesis questions the relation between the painting Kneeling Mother with Child at her Breast (1906) by Paula Modersohn-Becker and the ideal of nature. By investigating the use of the concept of nature in breastfeeding discourses and critically assessing its relation to the painting, it will argue that Kneeling Mother offers a more complex view of the natural and nature than it might seem at first glance. This ambiguity will productively open new perspectives to study Kneeling Mother’s representation of motherhood. Taking the painting out of its original context and analysing it through a feminist lens will make it possible to account for the impact Modersohn-Becker’s maternal paintings still have today. The argumentation will build upon theories by feminist scholars Simone de Beauvoir, Adrienne Rich, Anne McClintock and Sherry B. Ortner to confront the painting with three facets of the conceptualisation of the natural: natural as easy, as related to nature and as being opposed to culture.Show less

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Nurturing Mother – Mothering Nature: Motherhood, Breastfeeding and Nature in Paula Modersohn-Becker’s Kneeling Mother with Child at her Breast (1906)