Women As Readers: Visual Interpretations.

Artists in America have used books as a means of characterizing women while holding at bay the power reading implies, From the colonial period to the beginning of World War I, the relationship between readers and texts in American painting evolved steadily in conjunction with changing social norms and artistic tastes. Over time, painters created increasingly disparate types of images that bespeak ambivalence toward the cultural effects of female literacy. As women gained increased education, along with influence and independence, artists recognized their historical progress and passed pictorial judgment on it.