If you create or own art
concerning menstruation or menopause and are
interested in showing it on thesepages (it's
free!), contact MUM
Marie Claire magazine
(Italian edition) featured several of the
above artists in an article
about this museum and menstruation in 2003.
The newspaper Corriere della Sera (Io Donna
magazine) (Milan, Italy) and the magazine
Dishy (Turkey) showed some of the artists in
2005 in articles about this museum.
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The Art of Menstruation at the
Museum of Menstruation and Women's Health
Orant
by Joseph Tonna
Mr. Tonna seems to have created
the top artwork specifically for the
record album cover (small picture)
entitled "The Effect of Estrogens in
the Menopause," copyright 1960 by
Ayerst Laboratories, which he also
designed. (Maybe this should be
called The
Art of Not Menstruating.)
A blurb on the cover explains the
figure as "familiar to art
historians and archaeologists as the
Orant, [and] is often found in early
frescoes and mosaics. For both pagan
and Christian, it symbolized
supplication for deliverance. The Orant
portrayed here represents
womankind's appeal for deliverance
from the age-old afflictions of
the menopause." (For more
on menopausal afflictions, a controversial
subject, see the lecture,
26 June 1998, also sponsored by a
pharmaceuticals company.)
The first edition of the Oxford
English Dictionary adds that the
Church regarded the orant as
especially significant because "it
recalled the position of the Saviour
upon the cross." Compare Female
Crucifixion, by Martina
Hoffman.
Webster's Third International
Dictionary reports that the orant
was "used in early Christian art as
a symbol of the faithful dead."
By the way, all eight speakers on
this LP are men.
My thanks, again, to Kathleen O'Grady,
a friend of this museum from the
beginning, author of Sweet
Secrets:
Stories of Menstruation,
doctoral candidate at the University
of Cambridge (England), and creator
of the MUM list
of books about menstruation in
English. She writes that she saw
this album at a garage sale and
"couldn't resist" buying it for 25
cents. She then kindly mailed it to
her MUM.
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Next artist:
Jessica
Wagner
See all the
artists in the links in the
left-hand column.
If you create or own art
concerning menstruation or
menopause and are interested in
showing it on these pages (it's
free!), contact MUM
© 1997 Harry Finley. It is
illegal to reproduce or distribute
work on this Web site in any manner
or medium without written permission
of the author. Please report
suspected violations to hfinley@mum.org
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