Lala_(painter)

Iaia

Iaia

Greek painter

This article is about the painter. For the art college, see Institute of American Indian Arts. For the professional association for impact assessment, see International Association for Impact Assessment.

Iaia of Cyzicus (Greek: Ιαία της Κυζίκου), sometimes (incorrectly) called Lala or Lalla, or rendered as Laia or Maia,[1] was a Greek painter born in Cyzicus, Roman Empire, and relatively exceptional for being a woman artist and painting women's portraits.[2] She was alive during the time of Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BC). In De Mulieribus Claris, his book of women's biographies, Boccaccio refers to her as "Marcia", possibly confusing her with the Vestal Virgin of that name.[3] According to Pliny the Elder: "No one had a quicker hand than she in painting".[2]

15th-century portrayal of Iaia from a French translation of De mulieribus claris.
Michel Corneille the Younger, Lala of Cyzicus Painting, Palace of Versailles, 1672

Most of her paintings are said to have been of women. Pliny attributes to her a large panel painting of an old woman and a self-portrait. She was said to have worked faster and painted better than her male competitors, Sopolis and Dionysius, which enabled her to earn more than them.[4]

Life

Born in Cyzicus,[5] Iaia was a famous painter and ivory carver. She probably came to Rome to meet the demand for art there in the late Roman Republic.[6] Iaia remained unmarried all her life.

Influence on culture

Iaia is one of several female artists of antiquity mentioned in Pliny the Elder's Natural History (XL.147–148). Four others are Timarete, Irene, Aristarete, and Olympias. Pliny also possibly lists a fifth, Calypso, though this interpretation is disputed; most scholars accept an alternative reading in which Calypso is the subject of a painting by Irene.[7] Iaia (as "Marcia") is one of three women artists mentioned in Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris.[8]

Iaia is a character in Steven Saylor's novel Arms of Nemesis (1992), where she is depicted practicing her craft on the Bay of Naples in 72 B.C.E

The character of Julie Lambert, protagonist of the novel Shining Harmony (2017), and of the poetic anthology Living and Not Living (2018), both by Italian writer Sabrina Gatti, was inspired by Iaia. In the novel, Julie, a talented painter, sees in Iaia the artist to emulate, and dedicates to her a painting where she portrays the Roman painter, intent on painting in her atelier; while in "Living and not living", the young woman is completely identified with Iaia.

Iaia (as Lalla) is one of the names featured on Judy Chicago's Heritage Floor.[9]

Notes

  1. [1]
    Baldwin, Barry (1981). "Germaine Greer and the Female Artists of Greece and Rome". Échos du Monde Classique. 25. n. 7. ISSN 1913-5416.
  2. [2]
    O'Brien, Peter H. (2000). "Iaia". In Commire, Anne; Klezmer, Deborah (eds.). Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Yorkin Publications. p. 636. ISBN 978-0-7876-4066-8.
  3. [3]
    Yiu, Yvonne (2005). "The Mirror and Painting in Early Renaissance Texts". Early Science and Medicine. 10 (2): 189. JSTOR 4130310.
  4. [4]
    Pliny, Natural History, 35.40
  5. [5]
    Commire, Anne, ed. (2002). "Iaia (fl. c. 100 BCE)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Waterford, Connecticut: Yorkin Publications. ISBN 0-7876-4074-3. Archived from the original on 2018-09-23.
  6. [6]
    "Painting, Roman". Oxford Classical Dictionary (4 ed.).
  7. [7]
    Corbeill, Anthony (2017). "A New Painting of Calypso in Pliny the Elder" (PDF). Eugesta Revue. 7: 184–198. ISSN 2265-8777.
  8. [8]
    Borzello, Frances (1998). Seeing Ourselves: Women's Self-Portraits. p. 42.
  9. [9]
    "Lalla". Brooklyn Museum. Retrieved 2022-05-20. Judy Chicago (American, b. 1939). The Dinner Party (Heritage Floor; detail), 1974–79.

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Iaia (Marcia).
  • Helen Gardner, Fred S. Kleiner, Christin J. Mamiya, Gardner's Art Through the Ages, Thomas Wadsworth, 2004; ISBN 0-15-508315-5.
  • Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 35.40,147.L
  • Virginia Brown's translation of Giovanni Boccaccio's Famous Women, pp 135 – 137; Harvard University Press, 2001; ISBN 0-674-01130-9
  • Harris, Anne Sutherland and Linda Nochlin, Women Artists: 1550-1950, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Knopf, New York, 1976, pg. 23.
  • Frasca-Rath, Anna: The Origin and Decay of Painting. Iaia, Dibutades and the Concept of ‚Women Art, in: Hans Christian Hönes & Anna Frasca-Rath (Hrsg.), Modern Lives, Modern Legends. Artist Anecdotes since the 18th century, Journal for Art Historiography, 23, 2020, S. 1-17.
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