"Not Only Can Women Paint but..."

“She could have done it differently of course; the colour could have been thinned and faded; the shapes etherealised; that was how Paunceforte would have seen it. But then she did not see it like that. She saw the colour burning on a framework of steel; the light of a butterfly’s wing lying upon the arches of a cathedral. Of all that only a few random marks scrawled upon the canvas remained. And it would never be seen; never be hung even, and there was Mr Tansley whispering in her ear, “Women can’t paint, women can’t write ...” (Virginia Woolf, The Lighthouse).

The refrain of Mr Tansley whispering “Women can’t paint, women can’t write ...” echoes throughout Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse. The book itself, widely acclaimed as one of the finest 20th century novels, is a defiance of the latter statement. Likewise, Vanessa Bell, prominent Bloomsbury painter and Woolf’s sister, controverted the former with her astounding body of work. Not only did she prove that women can paint, but famed for her designs and textiles, Bell demonstrated the practices and skills of female artists extend well beyond the media of paint.