Barred at the Door

The Renaissance art world rarely banned women outright. It just locked the doors that mattered. Women could not join painters' guilds in most Italian cities, could not attend life-drawing classes, and could not travel freely to study ruins or famous works.

The life-drawing rule cut deepest. The nude human figure was treated as the highest subject in painting, so a woman shut out of those classes was shut out of the most prestigious work — before she ever picked up a brush.