why have there been no great women artists by linda nochlin

Examining the Social and Cultural Barriers Women Artists Have Faced

Since then, scholars have explored the various social, cultural, and systematic barriers that have prevented women from achieving artistic greatness. The question “Why have there been no great women artists?” has been asked since the 1970s, when feminist art historian Linda Nochlin wrote her groundbreaking essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” In it, she argued that the lack of recognition for female artists was due not to any lack of talent or skill, but rather to the systemic exclusion of women from the art world. Nochlin challenged future generations of artists and onlookers to question the role of the viewer-a radical move that continues to shift the art historical narrative and our popular gaze.Art History, Creative Expression, Gender Bias, Patriarchy, Women Artists Introduction Contemporary female artists continue to work to alter representations of the body in creative, intelligent, and challenging ways, as with Jill Soloway’s Transparent or Kara Walker’s A Subtlety. Through her writing, teaching, and scholarship, Nochlin questioned the role of the male gaze on the female body, while also expanding the field of art history and gender studies in unmeasured ways. As such, women viewers are often left in a sort of liminal space, oscillating between being the subject and viewer, never being the original cis male viewer for whom the original work was intended.

The role of the male viewer? The female subject? Neither really felt applicable to her. Through Nochlin’s words and guidance, Naselli was more equipped to navigate Koons’ nude while understanding her dislike for it-indeed, understanding that she was not the intended audience.Īs a woman looking at a nude, Nochlin asked what role she was to assume. Naselli describes seeing Koons’ take on a classic female nude bath scene, writing, “t is not as if I ever liked the piece, but I didn’t quite have the language to reject it either.” That is, until she saw it again with fresh eyes after reading Nochlin.

Writer Mara Naselli recently described how her experience viewing Woman in Tub by Jeff Koons was transformed by having read Nochlin. A question like the following, for instance, is still pressing: “How are women artists positioned in relation to an erotic imagery created out of male needs and desires and enacted on the symbolic terrain of woman’s body?” This is a question that viewers still need to grapple with at any major art museum, so that Nochlin’s analysis of the female form in art remains relevant nearly fifty years later. Nochlin’s analysis of the female form in art remains relevant nearly fifty years later.Īnd although Chadwick’s review of Nochlin’s work is from 1991, the questions she outlines are still relevant.

Why have there been no great women artists by linda nochlin