This book examines the pictorial representation of women in Great Britain both before and
during the First World War. It focuses in particular on imagery related to suffrage movements
recruitment campaigns connected to the war advertising and Modernist art movements including
Vorticism. This investigation not only considers the image as a whole but also assesses tropes
and constructs as objects contained within both literal and metaphorical. In this way visual
genealogical threads including the female figure as an ideal and William Hogarth's 'line of
beauty' are explored and their legacies assessed and followed through into the twenty-first
century. Georgina Williams contributes to debates surrounding the deliberate and inadvertent
dismissal of women's roles throughout history through literature and imagery. This book also
considers how absence of a pictorial manifestation of the female form in visual culture can be
as important as her presence.
