Why There Have Been No "Great" Women Artists

     In this week’s reading, we examined the discouragingly rampant sexism in art history through Linda Nochlin’s essay Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? She points out the similarities between all the “great” artists through history - they were white men with access to extensive art education or apprenticeship through association, and they were deemed “great” by white men with access to extensive bank accounts. She explains that, although these famous artists are often revered as “prodigies” or “artistic geniuses”, implying that their artistic success was inherent from birth,¹ they actually had significant advantages over other (especially female) artists at the time.

    Nochlin’s most obvious example for this is that professional male artists at the highest level studied live nude models, but women weren’t allowed access to these sessions until the very end of the 19th century, and even then, they weren’t fully nude.² Without equal access to the most serious levels of art academics, it would be nearly impossible for there to be equal access to the most serious levels of artistic achievement. She later highlights how women were more successful at becoming notable writers than artists through history, and suggests it’s likely because most women were allowed an education in reading and writing. 

    But the lack of equal education was then combined with the simple fact that women were not expected to be spending their time studying anything that seriously anyway. They were expected to be making a home and raising a family, to support their husbands who were studying to be artists and other ambitious, academic things. Nochlin supports this point by asking, why were there no great aristocrat artists? Because the aristocrats, like women, were expected to devote their lives to other matters.³

    Even when women were practicing art, it was often dismissed as a hobby for this reason. In fact, some art forms that were more traditionally feminine, like needlepoint and weaving, were reduced to frivolous “crafts”. While we obviously see the value of this type of art today, the most serious level of artistic achievement in this historical context was being commissioned and adored by the wealthy elite - which were largely white men. In the trickle-down effect of the colonizer’s patriarchy, women didn’t have the time, opportunity, or privilege to be offered a job by a wealthy patriarch, which answers the question: Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?

Rosa Bonheur, La Foulaison du blé en Camargue, 1864-1899, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux.
https://www.musba-bordeaux.fr/en/article/exhibition-rosa-bonheur-1822-1899

    I chose an artwork by Rosa Bonheur, because the limited success she was able to gain as a female artist was still based on the masculinity of her work and personality. While women now have more equal access to education than they ever have, our systems are still set up to disadvantage women and devalue feminine perspectives. In some ways, this makes feminine artistic success even more difficult - we’re still not taken seriously, we’re still not given adequate voice or opportunity, we’re still expected to be primary caregivers to children we’re expected to have, but we’re also gaslit to believe that women (and all minorities, for that matter) have been on the same playing field as white men for 60 years already.

    As a female artist myself who has been dismissed repeatedly by men for my expressive work (like abstract photography and macrame tapestries) and validated by men for the practicality of my functional work (like ceramic mugs or logo designs), I realize that to survive in a capitalist society, I will likely have to lean into what the patriarchy values in my work over what I want to express as a woman and individual. This is frustrating and discouraging, but like Linda Nochlin expresses repeatedly in her essay, asking these kinds of questions and starting these conversations are the first steps to dismantling these long-standing oppressive systems.

¹ Linda Nochlin, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" in Woman in Sexist Society: Studies in Power and Powerlessness, ed. Vivian Gornick and Barbara K. Moran (New York: Basic Books, 1971), 7.

² Nochlin, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" 24.

³ Nochlin, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" 9-10.

Works Cited

Nochlin, Linda. "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" In Woman in Sexist Society: Studies in Power and Powerlessness, edited by Vivian Gornick and Barbara K. Moran. New York: Basic Books, 1971.