13th March 2011

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Feminism So recently in class we been exploring Methodologies in Art History. I been focusing mostly on the nature of the image but I have noticed the ideals of feminist methodology in Art.  Not surprisingly most of the female students of the class decided to make their final presentation on a ongoing question in Art History: Why have there been no great Female Artist? Feminist Linda Nochlin explains “Why have there been no great women artists?” The question tolls reproachfully in the background of most discussions of the so-called woman problem. But like so many other so-called questions involved in the feminist “controversy,” it falsifies the nature of the issue at the same time that it insidiously supplies its own answer: “There are no great women artists because women are incapable of greatness.”  WHile the statement must be read in the full context to get a greater understanding, I have to disagree with nochlin in some sense and agree in another. The respectability of Women in the realm of art is something that is relatively new (it can be said that it used to be a Man’s World) and that there is no great women artist because there is no longer Greatness to be achieved. Let’s take the example of Frida Kahlo: Frida Kahlo, who stands in inspiration to many, still fails to be recognized as greats in the realm of here peers (when one speaks of Surrealism the first names that pop up are Dali, Breton, Duchamp and Magritte) but the problem falls not in that her peers were great and she wasn’t, it falls on the ambitions of the artist themselves. Kahlo never aimed to be great, Instead painted as a form of expression, while supporting her husband as well. Greatness can be then argued that it is a male centric creation, as female artists tend to not aspire to greatness but exploration.  That being said i want to admit that I have a crush on cindy sherman (when She was younger and hot)

Feminism

So recently in class we been exploring Methodologies in Art History. I been focusing mostly on the nature of the image but I have noticed the ideals of feminist methodology in Art.  Not surprisingly most of the female students of the class decided to make their final presentation on a ongoing question in Art History: Why have there been no great Female Artist? Feminist Linda Nochlin explains “Why have there been no great women artists?” The question tolls reproachfully in the background of most discussions of the so-called woman problem. But like so many other so-called questions involved in the feminist “controversy,” it falsifies the nature of the issue at the same time that it insidiously supplies its own answer: “There are no great women artists because women are incapable of greatness.”  WHile the statement must be read in the full context to get a greater understanding, I have to disagree with nochlin in some sense and agree in another. The respectability of Women in the realm of art is something that is relatively new (it can be said that it used to be a Man’s World) and that there is no great women artist because there is no longer Greatness to be achieved. Let’s take the example of Frida Kahlo: Frida Kahlo, who stands in inspiration to many, still fails to be recognized as greats in the realm of here peers (when one speaks of Surrealism the first names that pop up are Dali, Breton, Duchamp and Magritte) but the problem falls not in that her peers were great and she wasn’t, it falls on the ambitions of the artist themselves. Kahlo never aimed to be great, Instead painted as a form of expression, while supporting her husband as well. Greatness can be then argued that it is a male centric creation, as female artists tend to not aspire to greatness but exploration.  That being said i want to admit that I have a crush on cindy sherman (when She was younger and hot)

  1. nerdshavingfunwitharthistory posted this