ABSTRACT
The pregnant 18-year-old Anna Amalia, Duchess of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach, became regent for her 8-month-old son Carl August on May 28, 1758, after the death of her husband Ernst Augustus II. One of the concepts that is important to understanding Anna Amalia as patron and supporter of the arts and intellectual pursuits is Bildung. Because of the already established designations of gender characteristics and the allocation of men and women to difference economic and social functions, theories of human development and educational models were largely formulates in accordance with the gender paradigms. Anna Amalia's portraits reveal how she and the artists adopted and adapted male conventions and symbols as a means to resolve the tension between the male public sphere of politics and her more personal pursuit of self-cultivation or Bildung. This chapter presents an overviews of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book.
