In this artwork, how is the Reception discussed?
Despite these changes made to Kinney’s original design, the version of the monument erected remained a topic of controversy. According to Smith, critics disliked the monument's youthful depiction of a southern woman. Smith explains how protestors viewed Kinney’s monument as a sexualized representation of their female ancestors. While Kinney’s design had the “youthful beauty and pure, virginal air often described by the men of the South,” the most “praiseworthy” role of Confederate female ancestors, that they wished to immortalize, was the role of the mother.The Confederate value of motherhood was also reflected in a Nashville Banner article from October 11, 1926. The article quotes from author Virginia Frazer Boyle’s poem which she presented at the dedication ceremony for the monument the previous day. In this poem, Boyle personifies Tennessee, comparing the state to a mother figure with “a Spartan hope” who “wears the scars for the manhood of Tennessee.”Smith explains how commentators from the time struggled to find this vision of motherhood in Kinney’s design. She writes that the women’s monuments chosen for the remaining states, in the place of Kinney’s, “specifically addressed the issue of motherhood by giving visual expression to the maternal ideal.” Smith suggests that Kinney’s monument might not have been positively received by all the southern states because of its failure to incorporate themes of motherhood.Thomas Brown states that critics disliked Kinney’s final design because of its “sexually charged portrait of the Confederate woman.” Brown quotes a critic who states: "we do not consider appropriate, the representation of the Southern woman of the Confederacy as a beautiful girl of 20 or 22, appearing in a costume with low neck and short sleeves, and we cannot determine whether expression of exquisite sadness is on account of the soldier or the fact that the only covering for her unquestionably beautifully shapely legs is a misty, gauzy something that would give Comstock the horrors. She is magnificent, but she's not the woman of war." Brown quotes another critic who refers to Kinney’s model of Fame as “amazonian” due to its “large, bold features…massive form” and “brawny neck.”
Fame Nashville Banner Confederate