Why Have There Been No Great Women

Early Landscape photography used the same principles as painters in order to create pieces of art. Before the 18th Century, artists used landscapes as backdrops and as a frame for the principal subject. Towards the later part of the century, however, artists such as Nicolas Poussin started to romanticize the environment, instead using it as a principle subject in paintings.

Instead, if we look at art as the total of toleration and production and purpose, we see that there was a whole system in place that excluded women from creating the type of work that made artists like Michelangelo and Raphael famous. So, why haven't there been any great women artists? Nochlin's answer is two-fold: first, the myth of artistic genius, which has been a part of art writing since Pliny, makes it seem that anyone with true artistic gifts would naturally make

The question “Why have there been no great women artists?” has been debated since the 1970’s, when historian Linda Nochlin released her book of a similar name. In the decades that have followed, the number of women pursuing education and

Classical landscape by Charles Sheeler is an exterior oil on canvas of the Estate of Mrs. Edsel B. Ford, Grosse Pointe Farms (figure 1) filled with deep, hidden irony. It was painted in 1931, and is based on a watercolor study. It’s a calm, clean, and serene painting that takes your breath away. It’s depicting a place someone would want to be in, a place where things get done, and a place where one can go to achieve this idea of the American dream. Charles Sheeler used American industry as a major theme of his art, his work “lends itself to an analysis in terms of geometric forms” he examines his subject matter so closely in order to fully understand the composition, the effect, and the design he wants to depict. Sheeler painted the plant’s exterior as an idyll, a beautiful, picturesque scene of the industrial age booming; however, in reality the United States was in the middle of the worst years of the Great Depression. Therefore, this painting done in Sheeler’s hyper-realistic artistic style is not actually depicting what the factory actually looked like.

Humanity is but a facet of the sublime macrocosm that is the world’s landscapes. In the relationship between man and landscape, nature is perpetually authoritarian. In her free-verse poems, The Hawthorn Hedge, (1945) and Flame-Tree in a Quarry (1949), Judith Wright illustrates the how refusal to engage with this environment is detrimental to one’s sense of self, and the relentless endurance of the Australian landscape. This overwhelming force of nature is mirrored in JMW Turner’s Romantic artwork, Fishermen at Sea (1796). Both Wright and Turner utilise their respective texts to allegorise the unequal relationship between people and the unforgiving landscape.

“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:

Throughout history the unique and changeable Australian landscape has inspired a diverse array of artistic responses. Impressios of its power and beauty, expressions of individuals' responses, symbolic religious orientation, the range of landscape art works extends onwards. A great example of the vast variations of styles can be seen in the artworks of Glover, Drysdale, Berkowitz and Reid.

“The landscape, the whole great circle of it, grassheads, scrub, water, sky, quite took his breath away.” (Pg 17)

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

In chapters two and three titled “Sites” and “Movements” respectively, Howard makes the case that there is a “dialectical” relationship between the subject and the landscape (both social and physical) and

Cassatt’s composition is a great example of the impressionist style movement. It is a great everyday scene showing a mother comforting her child. Cassatt is successful in creating a works of art that perfectly describe the everyday lives during these times. Her piece Susan Comforting the Baby uses various techniques to convey Cassatt’s message on the ordinary life of women and

In the early nineteenth century landscape artists painted scenes of America’s east side near the Hudson River, but by the mid-nineteenth century Landscape artists tended to paint portraits of the newly explored western territory and the South American tropics to show a more extravagant side of the United States.

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

In the today’s society, it may appear that women’s rights have been propelled forward by equal opportunity sanctions. However, taking a more concise look at different spectrums, such as the art world, it appears that many women are still being snubbed despite their artistic abilities. In

this point in time, as they were believed to be inferior to men. The works of female authors were not as