Aurelia’s Relic 2017

Mary Jane Ansell created "Aurelia's Relic" using oil on canvas. This modern painting evokes Pre-Raphaelite portraiture by drawing on the cultural associations between young women and aesthetic beauty. Ansell’s image creates meaning through visual codes, like the girl’s delicate white dress, and historical associations, like the relic she holds. England, where Ansell works, has a long history of portraiture that idealizes its subjects, particularly its female subjects. Ansell engages this history self-consciously, as the girl seems to brandish her relic in defiance of her portrait. Is she a progressive figure who critiques traditional artistic institutions? Or is she simply too enigmatic to categorize? To better understand the image, an art historian would have to research English portraiture and the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Only by understanding the social and institutional contexts of the work can we know what to make of its subject.