Mary Cassatt Influence

(Millhouse, 2011) In the 1980’s Pollock’s Feminism “critiqued the essential myths of individualism, the artist, and the social constructions of femininity and masculinity that define bourgeois culture”. While the 70’s feminism movement aim was to stand next to the existing masculine dominated culture. “Feminism's encounter with the canon has been complexed and many-leveled: political ,ideology,mythological,methodological and psycho-symbolic” (Pollock, 1999). The 1970’s movement was followed by the immediate task which was “the need to rectify the gaps in historical knowledge created by the consistent omission of women of all cultures from the history of art” (Pollock, 1999). The only art that was put on display was significantly male dominated work, if you wanted to see work created by women, you would have to view them “in a basement or storeroom of a national gallery” (Pollock, 1999). Female artists are only known in their own category of female artists while male artists don’t require a separate category . Art that is created by females have been historically dismissed from the art historical canon as craft, as opposed to fine art. The evident of

“Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” was written with a passion both intense and familiar. Reading Nochlin’s words, I found myself thinking, several times, “I’d always wondered the same thing,” or “I feel the same way.” I even formulated some of my own thoughts on the subject, responding to the title question with another, asking, “What makes an artist an artist?” Upsettingly, it would seem it is not by her own choice or talent. It is decided by the world around her, including the men and “social institutions.” However, it would also appear that hope is always in reach for those who will wake up and grab it. Nochlin left us with this stirring advice:

Mary Reibey, baptised as Molly Haydock, lived a portion of her life as a convict from England then was transported to Australia. Her becoming a convict has impacted and changed her life for the better. Not many Australians are aware of the story and background of Mary Reibey, the lady who is on the Australian $20 note which has been imprinted ever since 1994. It is known that she has been on a journey that may of not had started positively but later on turned out better than she expected. She was able to hide the fact that she was a convict behind her popularity as a business woman and philanthropist.

Catherine, II, the Great was born in Stettin, a German city on April 21, 1729 to Prince Christian August of Anhalt-Zerost and Princess Johanna Elizabeth of Holstein-Gottorp. Catherine, whose original name was Sophie Friederike-Auguste married in 1762 to the czarevitch Peter of Russia, but soon disposed of him and seized control of the government. Catherine made many great changes during her reign and made many opportunities available to the people living in her country during the time. Although she was a woman in a country in a time when men had control over everything, she rose above, saw what she wanted, and took over what she wanted. She knew what she wanted and she went for it, she was an amazing ruler of her time period.

“Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known.” -Oscar Wilde. Women are wild, sensitive, magnificent, mysterious, and above all: individual. Art’s many different medias allowed artist throughout the ages to capture women at both their strongest and most vulnerable points. It has the power to capture a woman: as a naïve, young girl clutching her brother as they are painted into a lasting portrait, a golden statue of an angel sent down to Earth to help a saved man take his first steps into an eternal life with God, to the powerful goddess, Artemis, transforming a hunter into a deer and having his hunting dogs tragically attack him. The six pieces of art chosen express the individuality of each women who has walked, walks, and will walk the earth.

The final section of the article, Art and Self, poses the question: “What would Lewis have risked if she had sculpted obviously black or obviously Indian women” (201)? The article goes on to explain that Lewis wanted her art to be separate from her ethnicity and gender. Here Buick explains that Lewis “refused to be victimized by her own hand” (201). Buick provides several quotes from art historians and passages from interviews with Lewis, making her argument and article stronger.

Every girl growing up always use to play dress up in clothes as a childhood past time for fun. Cindy Sherman used that passed time as a way to create art with photography and is known for her talent of this act and taking self-portraits of it. Her ideas come stereotypes of women throughout past and present society. These self-portraits are known to “confront and explore the representations of women in society.” (Jankauskas).

This art work clearly shows that women and their roles were becoming viewed as more valuable and acceptable. One element of the art that expresses this higher role that women possessed is demonstrated by the fact that there are two women – probably mother and grandmother – placed in the center of this painting; this may be representing a previously learned term called “republican motherhood” (168). Surprisingly, the Louisiana Purchase is an event that wonderfully displays how women were becoming more accepted. In 1804, when Jefferson called on Lewis and Clark to go see what the new land had to offer, it is mentioned that a women by the name of Sacajawea was of assistance to them (222). By her helping out these two American men, she showed

In the twenty first century there are a few men in this world that admits when you think of artist, you don’t typically think of women. Women rights and racism play a strong role when it comes to African American female artist. For decades’ African American woman have always had a permanent double bull’s eye on their back. Their skin and gender was their worst enemy. In the 1700 century women rights movements started to rise. But if you look up women right movements starting in the 1700 century, the face of women rights is predominantly white women. Between books and the internet, they show that it was mostly white women who helped woman rights. If we still struggle to shine light on African American Women now in the 21st century, you cannot

Terror and mockery come together in the portraits of Cindy Sherman on display at the Crocker Art Museum. Walking into the large, dimly lit ballroom, one may begin to feel a slight sense of trepidation as the viewer looks around to find nine sets of beady eyes watching one’s every move. Sherman produced her History Portraits during the late eighties and early nineties, nine of which are displayed at the museum. In her portraits she uses lush fabrics, lavish jewelry, and false body parts to decorate herself in these self-portraits. Her portraits have been know to cause discomfort in the viewers who find the general stereotypes, depicted in her portraits, amusing, yet confusing and terrorizing.

Mary Stevenson Cassatt (May 22, 1844 – June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She lived most of her adult life in France. She was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, which is now part of Pittsburgh. She began studying painting at the Pennsylvania

Have you ever looked at a piece of art and wondered how it could be based on real life, because it was just so beautiful? Well Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun was able to paint in such new and exciting ways; people were left wondering just this. Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun was a woman of many talents. In her life time she came up with new ways of painting, revolutionized fashion in France, and overcame any prejudice thinking because she was a woman. Before dying at the age of eighty-seven, she had gained the respect of women and men all across the world. Being a female artist in the eighteenth century was not easy, especially when you had to keep a career and your life together during the

Judy Chicago (artist, author, feminist and educator) has a career that now spans five decades. In the late 1960s, her inquiry into the history of women began a result of her desire to expose the truth of women’s experiences, both past and present. She still continues on a crusade to change the perception of women from our history, “Women’s history and women’s art need to become part of our cultural and intellectual heritage.” (Chicago, 2011) Through our history women - their struggles, accomplishments and contribution to history, have been overlooked, downplayed and even completely written out of a male dominated society and culture. In anthropologist Sherry Ortner’s 1974 essay “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?” she supports this view, writing “…woman is being identified with—or, if you will, seems to be a symbol of—something that every culture devalues,” (Ortner, 1974) Where Mendieta's work primarily came from a striving to belong and an understanding of where she came from, I feel that Chicago's aim was to find a place for all women, past and present in this world, starting with herself in the art world. Chicago did explore her peronal heritage in later works entitled 'Birth Project' and 'Holocaust Project'.

Throughout history many artistic works have been deemed "great" and many individuals have been labeled "masters" of the discipline. The question of who creates art and how is it to be classified as great or greater than another has commonly been addressed by scholars and historians. The last quarter of the 20th century has reexamined these questions based on the assertions that no women artists have ever created or been appreciated to the level of "greatness" that perpetually befalls their male counterparts. The position that society has institutionalized on women as unable to be anything but subordinate and unexpressive is a major contributor to this claim. Giving a brief history of gender discrimination in the art

There is some disparity between the way critics and philosophers like Judith Butler view Cindy Sherman's work and the way that Cindy Sherman speaks of her photographs. It may be the disparity that exists between many modern artists, who often operate on an intuitive level, and the philosopher critics who comment upon them from a theoretical perspective or a pre-established framework. On one level, Cindy Sherman may only be playing "dress-up" (as she herself admits) in her famous History Portraits (1989-90) (Berne, 2003). On another level, however, her "dressing-up" may be indicative of a deeper problem in modern gender identity theory which is the problem of "becoming" woman (Butler, 1994) or, as Judith Butler sees it, the problem of performativity. In the History Portraits, Sherman may certainly be said to be "performing" and perhaps even attempting to "become" the male and female characters she represents in her work. Indeed, it is upon such a premise that philosopher critics and gender theorists find her work so engaging. This paper will examine Cindy Sherman and her History Portraits in relation to Judith Butler's gender theory, the portrayal of the self, and how gender identity has changed throughout the course of modern history. It will examine representations of womanhood from Romantic Idealism to Post-Modernism and will also