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Women in Transcendentalism: How the Transcendentalist Movement Empowered Women
- TERAVARNA
- 19 hours ago
- 5 min read
Women in Transcendentalism knew that art was more about empowerment than beauty.
The Transcendentalist movement was not just about emphasizing intuition, nature, and self-reliance, but it was also the epitome of the belief that the truth of the individual is more important to live by than societal norms or reason and logic.
While Emerson and Thoreau are the well-known names for the philosophy of Transcendentalism of the 19th century, women were the backbone of this spiritual movement, shaping its artistic soul.
For Transcendental Women, whether they are of the 19th century or the modern world, this philosophy is a gateway to self-expression. The sensitivity of the feminine energies, the power of self-expression, the courage to be vulnerable, and be open about it — it's empowerment at its peak. Through articles, salons, paintings, and publishing, transcendentalist women are transforming the abstract ideals into tangible art forms. Scroll through their creativity, which is a reflection of their inner truth, and maybe yours too -- art that quietly resists the restrictive gender norms.
What Are The Three Main Ideas Of Transcendentalism?
The three main ideas of the Transcendentalism movement were:
Individualism
Idealism
Divinity of nature
The transcendentalists believe that spiritual insight, intuition, and self-reliance is superior to any solid beliefs of society. Their focus is on a person’s individual experiences in the journey of inner truth through the connection to nature.
Did Transcendentalists Believe In Women's Rights?
Yes, the core beliefs of the transcendentalism movement are in the rights of being yourself, and that includes women’s rights as well. They challenged the patriarchal norms in the 19th century, claiming the fact that women have an equal intellectual and spiritual nature as men.
Who Were The Women In The Transcendentalist Movement?
The hidden architects of the transcendentalism movement were Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Peabody, the women artists who put the first stroke of paint on the canvas of this world towards the freedom of spiritual experience over dogma.
Margaret Fuller was a women’s rights advocate and editor of the Transcendentalist journal “The Dial”, in which she published essays that argued for the intellectual equality of women. Indeed, she laid the ground for feminism with her book “Woman in the Nineteenth Century”.
Elizabeth Peabody, a publisher and educator, was responsible for creating cultural spaces where art intertwined with philosophy. She owned a bookshop and salons, which became incubators for transcendentalist ideas, nurturing writers and artists alike.
These two are ideal for many women who are continuously acting towards the essentialism of the inner nature and truth.
Sophia Peabody’s infamous and beautiful landscape artwork “Flight into Egypt” (1834) is a beautiful artistic impression of naturalistic expression. It's aesthetic and shows the free imaginative perception of the painter depicting Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus fleeing to Egypt.
Transcendentalism in Art
At its Midst, Transcendentalism is about the spiritual essence of life — it moves beyond the material world, and there is no better way to show the essence of the soul than art. Transcendental Women made art their medium, and naturally spilled transcendental philosophy into their work.
Landscapes, light, and symbolism became the tools to express the transcendental ideals – the Declaration of Freedom, Equality, and Vision.
Nature is the mirror of the soul; the forests, greenery, rivers, and skies are not mere scenery but the very reason for our existence. Combining nature’s greatness with art, art which comes from within a person, transcendentalist women embodied the movement’s belief through themselves.
Agnes Platon's paintings, for instance, “Sea Change”, “The Fountains”, “Sand storm”, were not just about beauty but the reveling of divine intervention in everyday life.
Many women have carried forward this belief and movement, knowingly or unknowingly, proving that creativity can be both a spiritual practice and a social statement.
Women’s Empowerment Through Art - Transcendentalism At Its Core
Transcendentalist Women drew empowerment in essays and salons as well as poetry, education, and group discussion. Transcendentalist ideals strongly influenced Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women. Her lesser-known poetry shows how she struggled with the issues of self-governance and spiritual closeness. In the case of Alcott, art served as a means of asserting the inner authority and rebelling against the limitations of her times, transforming poetry into a vehicle of self-analysis and affirmation.
Equally significant, the Boston Conversation Societies, which were informal groups of women discussing 'what are we born to do,' or 'how shall we do it?' These circles defied the distinction between philosophy and performance, and dialogue itself was considered as an art. They provided women with a platform to explore, develop intellectual confidence, and motivate creativity.
Transcendentalist women spread their tentacles through poetry, education, and collective art to an even wider market. And their creativity was not ornamental--it was a radical act of empowerment, clearing out a space in which women could speak in philosophy and in art.
Legacy—From Transcendentalism to Feminism in Art
The transcendentalist women of the 19th century did not merely go beyond their own time; they sowed the seeds that are still in bloom in art today. Their idea that creativity might be a kind of truth-telling and resistance led to feminist artists who came later in their lives to explore their social norms through painting, poetry, and performance.
The influence of transcendentalism and its ideals is ubiquitous in modern galleries: there are female artists who resort to nature as a metaphor, activate art to reclaim identity, and believe that beauty and activism do not have to be in conflict with each other. The transcendentalist tradition teaches us that art does not passively receive and reflect the world around us, but it is a living power of equality, empowerment, and vision.
Sunflowers by Anna Lau is a perfect piece depicting the freedom, warmth, and beauty of nature and how our inner selves connect with Mother Earth to heal, feel, and grow.
Extraordinary Artworks of Transcendental Vision
Florence Miller Pierce (1918–2007)
White Painting (1940s) - Her compositions were created in layers of resin where she captured light as a spiritual energy and expressed transcendentalist values of the unseen and purity.
The art of Pierce demonstrates how the transcendentalism philosophy was applied to the works of the modernist women artists, where they used abstract expressionism as a spiritual experience.
Hilma af Klint (1862–1944)
No. 3, Group IV, The Ten Largest: Youth(1907) — Monumental abstract paintings dealing with life phases, spirituality, and cosmic order.
Although she is Swedish and not a part of the American transcendentalist school, her work reflects the transcendentalist concept of art as a means of seeking spiritual truth.
Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
Emma is a poet, but is also active in the visual culture. Her work, such as “The New Colossus”, has transcendentalist themes of spiritual freedom and human dignity. Although she was not a painter, she had an influence on other visual artists who tried to combine literature and art with transcendentalist ideals.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
You must be wondering - Is Emily Dickinson a Transcendentalist?
Emily is a well-known poet, although her manuscripts were lavishly decorated. She is considered to be influenced by the transcendentalism movement, though she was not a formal member of it.
Her handwritten poems tended to use visual composition and symbolic drawings, and she regarded text as a literary and artistic expression. Her transcendentalist tendencies demonstrate that women erased the line between words and images.
