Gender and the History of Art
Critical Approaches: Gender and the History of Art (PdB)
Different types of feminism:
• Liberal (improve the existing system)
• Essentialist (woman as a biological specificity)
• Radical I post-structuralist (gender and identity a cultural construction)
Feminist art histories:
• Recovering women artists from the past
• Why no 'great' women artists
• Questioning the categories and definition (What is 'great art'? What is an artist? How are these culturally defined in ways that exclude women? E.g., if 'genius' is defined as a 'masculine' characteristic, a woman cannot be a genius, or can only be so as an 'exception' that, by being exceptional, proves the rule.)
• Understanding the construction of gender in representation
SLIDES
Slide 1: Sofonisba Anguissola, Self Portrait Miniature, 1560s
Slide 2: Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Decapitating Holofernes, c. 1618
Slide 3: Elizabeth Thompson, The Roll Call, 1874
Slide 4: Elizabeth Thompson, Listed for the Connaught Rangers, 1878
Slide 5: Artemisia Gentileschi, Susannah and the Elders, 1610
Slide 6: Tintoretto, Susannah and the Elders, 1555-6
Slide 7: Manet, A Bar at the Folie-Bergere, 1881
Slide 8: Morisot, The Wet Nurse, 1880
Slide 9: Allen Jones, Table, 1969
Slide 10: Allen Jones, Hatstand and Chair, 1969
Slide 11: Jemima Stehli, Table 2, 1997-8
Slide 12: Jemima Stheli, Chair, 1997-8