Inner Woman and Art (Introduction)
 

Female qualities. What are they? The typical feminine properties, like receptiveness, beauty, vulnerability, being in the background and surrender. But also being connected to Mother Earth, offering protection and fertility. These qualities have become less appreciated in our days. They have moved to the background.
The male properties, like activity, being directed outwardly, acting and being powerful are handy instruments
because they help us to acquire as many material securities as possible. This is why they are more appreciated. Men and women carry inside them qualities of both sides. Many women develop in these days their male qualities better than their female side because many things have to be achieved.

But with help of the, lesser appreciated, female qualities we can make contact with ourselves. They also help us to surrender to ourself and to life itself. They manage our ability to receive. The ability to live in and from our heart can only come to practice if the female aspects have developed enough. And precisely this is, in our harsh time, often the weak point. Men and women thus can benefit by developing their female qualities.

John William Godward (1892)
'Far Away Thoughts'

Look over my shoulder with me at past times. If we consider the expression of old art to be a reflection of life in those days, then we see that female aspects were much more present. They were respected and considered to be valuable. Painters loved to paint the mythic goddesses that represented the female qualities. The most familiar is probably Venus but less known figures like Psyche, The Lost Pleiad, Biblis, Lilith and Leda were also often painted.

Exactly the woman scarcely dressed, displayed in her vulnerability and beauty expresses the immaterial qualities of the soul of the woman. With other words: in her Original appearance her Divine Origin is evident.
If we see only sexual aspects in those portraits this only tells us something about our own inability to perceive her with our heart. After having developed our female aspects we will be able to perceive the world through our heart. More of the True Nature of things will be revealed to us then.

John William Godward (1890)
'A Pompeian Bath'

This makes the art of those days so valuable. While opening up for those paintings, the mentioned qualities
that fell asleep in us will wake up again. On the next pages I collected more than 200 exquisite paintings that express the Inner Soul Qualities of Woman. These qualities radiate outwardly on many of these paintings. Exercise your abilities in receiving, inner awareness and surrender by experiencing the timeless beauty that was magically created by great masters.

I wish you a heartfelt experience and much joy as from the next page.

Olaf