Zanetta, Maria Alejandra

Dr. María Alejandra Zanetta is Associate Professor of Spanish Literature and Culture at The University of Akron. She earned her Ph.D. in Spanish Literature from The Ohio State University. Dr. Zanetta is the author of La pintura y la prosa de Santiago Rusiñol: un análisis comparativo (Universidad de Valladolid, 1997), and numerous journal articles in such areas as comparative studies between Juan Ramón Jiménez’s paintings and poems, Ramón del Valle Inclán and Santiago Rusiñol, Rosa Chacel and Remedios Varo, Carmen Martín Gaite and Eduardo Arroyo.

La Otra Cara De La Vanguardia: Estudio Comparativo de la Obra Artistica de Maruja Mallo, Angeles Santos y Remedios Varo

2006 0-7734-5721-6
This book presents an extensive study of the common thematic and stylistic features present in the artistic production of the avant-garde painters Maruja Mallo, Ángeles Santos and Remedios Varo. Dr. Zanetta comparatively analyses the visual manifestations of these women painters that result from the competing theories of gender and sexuality central to the various ideological struggles of their period. The author studies the ways in which these women artists reflected in their works the new relationships and dilemmas of social change and feminist activity in Spain. Using as theoretical background many of the feminist theories of their time such as Joan Riviere’s notion of “Masquerade” or Simone De Beauvoir’s concept of woman as “the other” as well as contemporary feminist psychodynamic theories of gender and representation, the author demonstrates how these artists not only reacted against the misogynist conception of women that permeated the avant-garde movement but how they also proposed a new version of womanhood based on their own realities and experiences. The study of their work from this perspective clearly demonstrates that these three artists are outstanding pioneers in the field of feminist art, anticipating in their work many of the artistic trends that nowadays are considered by feminist art historians and critics as truly representative of the female experience. In Spanish