I had a great time exploring Denver last week, and as part of my wanderings, I ended up at the Denver Art Museum. I like to casually stroll through art museums until a particular work captures my interest, and then I like to sit with it for a while. I also saw a powerful special exhibit, but maybe I'll write about that later.
My time exploring the galleries called to mind a podcast episode from last summer that I still think about. So, are you ready to wonder?
The Small Idea: Our idea of beauty is shaped by the bodies missing from art
The Spark: Paul Giamatti's Chinwag with Stephen Asma. "On Disability and Monsters with Riva Lehrer."
What if our understanding of beauty, humanity, and worthiness has been quietly shaped by centuries of artistic erasure?
Nancy Martira
Clew Strategy
When was the last time you saw a person with a disability depicted in fine art? Not as a metaphor, not as a cautionary tale, not as a curiosity — but simply as a person existing in the world?
Rbecca Maskos, painted by Riva Lehrer, 2001. All Rights Reserved.
Artist and disability rights advocate Riva Lehrer had this realization while attending art school: throughout the entire history of Western art, people with disabilities were almost entirely absent. When they did appear, they were often portrayed as monsters, warnings, or objects of pity rather than full human beings with agency and dignity.
"The history of art was almost entirely absent of images of people with impairments," Lehrer notes. "I decided that I wanted to make portraits of people like me. Not specifically like me, but people who undergo stigma. It's really stigma that fascinates me."
Influencing, But Hidden From Modern Art
Throughout art history, bodies have been idealized, standardized, and homogenized. From Greek sculptures celebrating physical "perfection" to Renaissance paintings that meticulously erased physical differences, art has long reinforced what scholar Tobin Siebers calls "the aesthetics of human disqualification." Siebers' groundbreaking research reveals a fascinating paradox: Disability Aesthetics demonstrates that disability has been central to the evolution of modern art, even when unacknowledged.
The absence of people with impairments from classical art isn't merely an aesthetic curiosity. It reveals a profound truth about who we deem worthy of preservation and who we recognize as fully human.
Siebers argues that "the modern in art is increasingly readable as disability" pointing to how techniques of Dadaism and Expressionism deliberately deform bodies, how modernist palettes embrace the discoloration associated with disease, and how avant-garde movements have consistently drawn power from themes of alienation, violence, and sensory difference. His research shows that "broken and disabled bodies in art are not seen as less beautiful because of their state but as more beautiful."
The historical stakes of this erasure become even clearer when we consider how aesthetic and political exclusion have intersected. During the Nazi era, there was a "powerful connection between modern art and disability" that resulted in both being targeted for elimination. The regime's concept of "degenerate art" was explicitly linked to their eugenic programs targeting people with disabilities, revealing how aesthetics and bodily "purity" have long been intertwined in Western thought.
"And the story of Frankenstein is really, I think, about a parent who has a disabled child, cannot deal with it, completely rejects the child, and the child is big enough and wounded enough to come after daddy."
Lehrer's interpretation of Frankenstein offers a powerful reframing of a classic monster tale, one that connects to her own relationship with the Golem. She adopted the Golem as a central metaphor in her memoir, "Golem Girl." Traditionally a protector in Jewish folklore, the monster takes on a new meaning in Lehrer's hands. Not as a monster to be feared, but as a powerful being shaped by circumstance yet capable of agency, creativity, and transformation.
Both the Frankenstein monster and the Golem are beings created from raw materials and brought to life, yet society views them as unnatural, threatening, or wrong. In Lehrer's framework, these "monsters" become metaphors for how society treats people with disabilities: as creations that disturb the natural order rather than as full human beings deserving of acceptance and love.
Many stories that feature physical differences cast them as metaphors for moral corruption, villainous tendencies, or divine punishment. From Richard III's hunched back to Captain Hook's missing hand, physical difference is often visual shorthand for moral deficiency.
This pattern reveals our discomfort with bodies that challenge our expectations. Rather than engaging with physical difference as natural human variation, we transform it into narrative devices that reinforce harmful stereotypes and distance viewers from the reality of disability as a common human experience.
Curiosity
Sarah Biffin was born in Somerset, England in 1784 with a condition known today as phocomelia. Born without arms and legs, she learned to use tools by holding them in her mouth. She was highly skilled at sewing but is best known for her work as a painter. Despite the limitations of her era, both physically and socially, Biffin became an accomplished miniaturist whose works were praised by the Royal Academy. Her self-portrait, painted with a brush held in her mouth, stands as a powerful act of self-representation in a world that often denied her very existence.
The Experiment: Seek the Unseen
The erasure of disability in art requires active unlearning and intentional seeking.
Here are two small experiments to try:
Museum Challenge: On your next visit to an art museum, actively look for representations of disability or physical difference. Notice how few there are, and how they're portrayed when they do appear. What patterns emerge? How does this shape your understanding of the museum's narrative about humanity?
Representation Audit: Take inventory of the art, media, and images you surround yourself with daily. In your home, workspace, and social media feeds, count how many depictions of disability you encounter. Challenge yourself to diversify your visual world by following artists with disabilities or seeking out work that portrays a broader spectrum of human embodiment.
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When we begin to notice absence, we can start to question presence. What would art history look like if it had embraced the full spectrum of human embodiment? How would our understanding of beauty, dignity, and humanity be transformed?
Her work invites viewers to see disability not as something to be hidden or overcome, but as an integral part of the human experience worthy of artistic attention. This act of seeing differently isn't just about art; it's about expanding our capacity for empathy and understanding. By recognizing whose stories have been systematically excluded from our visual culture, we begin to question other narratives we've accepted without examination.
The revolutionary power of representation lies in its ability to transform the invisible into the seen, the marginalized into the centered, and the excluded into the essential. When we expand our visual vocabulary to include the full spectrum of human variation, we enrich not just our art, but our understanding of what it means to be human.
The Question
When you think about art that depicts 'idealized' human forms throughout history, what messages does this send about whose stories are worth telling? How might actively seeking out diverse representations change your perception of beauty and worthiness?
And now for the Mystery Link!
It's a true mystery this week! Can you guess the theme? There are multiple correct answers, of course. Respond back to this email with your guess and I'll publish them in Wonder Work 05.
(or buy me a coffee.) Meet Nancy Martira. I'm a brand strategist and communications consultant who brings endless curiosity to every project. If you've got a challenge that needs a fresh, unexpected perspective, let's talk!
"On Disability and Monsters" was released on July 17, 2024, as part of the Chinwag podcast by Treefort Media. Chinwag has sadly come to an end, but I'm grateful that the podcast introduced me to Riva Lehrer. Riva has a series of portraits called Circle Stories. "In 1997, I began a series of portraits of Disabled people who had careers in the arts and academia, and who explored body issues in their own work." Lehrer's painting of Rebecca Maskos is part of this series. Dr. Maskos is a doctoral researcher whose qualitative research project looks at disabled people‘s personal mobility choices and their relations to internalized ableism and stigma. For more of Riva in her own words, I recommend this interview she gave to Bomb magazine in 2021.
I am not knowledgable about art history, and I'm certainly not knowledgeable about disability in art history. This guide was a great background for me and maybe for you. Art History Teaching Resources is a peer-populated platform for art history teachers and I look forward to digging in more! Content note: The history of people with disabilities is full of cruelty and exploitation, and that is reflected in the guide I referenced above. My favorite online resource for learning about Sarah Biffin is hosted by the South West Heritage Trust.Philip Mould & Company also hosted an exhibition about Biffin's work, and that's where I learned about Alison Lapper who consulted on the exhibition.
"To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for it."
Communications consultant, brand strategist, & Wonder Work creator. Curious about everything from terrible orchestras to happiness algorithms. Feed your curiosity; starve the doom — one small idea at a time. Let's wonder!