Graduate School (bring on the naked ladies!)

So, I'm now (or sooner or later) expected to start keeping a blog for (around?) my graduate school experience, noting readings, discussing accomplishements, generally proving that I am, indeed, working towards some sort of thesis. So, consider selves forwarned, we are about to enter an abundant, if boring phase of sequinner note writings.

My critical Theory 1 class seems to be a recap of several of my undergrad classes. And what reading do we start with? Linda Nochlin's "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" This is not the first time I've read this 1971 article. Indeed, wikipedia says that the "title posed a question that would spearhead an entire new branch of art history," so I guess it should be considered required reading, especially for female artists.

However, I'm always uncomfortable with this Euro-centric, "Painting and Sculpture are the only forms of art" article. The reason that you don't have Great Female Artists would seem obvious- they were probably busy doing something besides painting and sculpting. You could probably posit the theory that there were very few women that wanted to paint, or who had the desire to make a living at it until the 20th century, by which time not only could women vote and hold property, but also the costs of creating artwork had greatly diminished. In the era of Michaelangelo very few women owned and operated their own businesses doing anything, let alone a business in the trades, like fresco painting was at that time.

The article spent too much time discussing the trouser wearing artist Rosa Bonheur, (whom I had never heard of and was unimpressed by images from), as well as giving the bizarre excuse that possibly there had been no great female artists because in European countries women were denied access to nude models for the study of figure drawing until the late 19th century (because we all know that Giotto, someone sighted in the article as an artistic "Genius" was drawing nudes all the time!).

There were some interesting ideas floated in the beginning of the article. One was that women artists of different eras were more likely to resemble men of the same era, rather than be a subclass of ladies by themselves. "In every instance women artists and writers seem to be closer to other artists and writers of their own period and outlook than they are to each other." Clearly women artists, though few and far between, were more interested in making art than they were in making "feminine" art.
There was no articulation of what "feminine" art would or could have looked like, but certainly it was not to be a "...naive idea that art is the direct personal expression of individual emotional experience, a translation of personal life into visual terms. Art is almost never that, and great art never is....art is... neither a sob story nor a confidential whisper." I love that quote, but I wonder what exactly is supposed to denote "feminine" art besides that a female made it.

Another interesting observation was that women, as well as people of the upper-classes of both genders, are more likely to be encouraged to be generalists. To be a little knowledgeable about most things, instead of isolating themselves by being an expert. In other words, women were not (and I would say are not) encouraged to be geeks. However, it was not necessarily supported that great artists were fixated exclusively on art, so I'm not quite sure how relevant this argument was.

I would say that the same reason that there had been no great female artists by the 1970's would be the same reason why there were more pigeons than women who had recieved the purple heart- Women weren't participating the painting/ sculpting in any significant numbers. The same reason that there have been historically few notably famous women artists is the same reason there were few notable female generals- a lack of participation in the field.

Also, I would say tampons, birth control, and washing machines probably made a bigger difference to whether or not there could be great female artists than anything having to do with male domination.