WOMEN AND ART

Images of Women in Western Civilization: A Historical Look at Women and Art

Images of Women in Western Civilization: A Historical Look at Women and Art

Introduction

One of the issues, which give rise to a discussion, is the role of women in arts. There are a number of studies, which are driven by a feminist perspective, but also from a perspective that ignores the world of women as something alien to human beings. In addition, a second item to review is the entity of iconic women, and the role she plays in avant-garde arts. The classic studies in these matters of Parker and Griselda Pollock Rozsika, and many others go deeper into such issues abound in the ratio of female personalities in art, who are forgotten or placed in secondary positions. Other tests, such as Amparo Serrano de Haro, affect the types of the same artists and feminine attitude in the search for identity. The thesis statement of this paper is that there is a significant role of women in the history of art.

Discussion

Among the early texts of gender studies in the specific area of the visual arts are those written by Linda Nochlin, Ann Sutherland Harris and John Berger. The concepts deployed have altered many of the assumptions that underlie traditional art history. In the 1970 questions of feminism in the field of art aimed primarily to two issues. First, questions were raised about the artists in the history of western art. Second, was the need to critically review the image of women as had been set in the history of art (Hetzner, 1995) . It should state that feminist inquiry about the visual arts is not an isolated social and political events developed during the 1960 and 1970.

During the nineteenth century, feminist movement was gaining strength in the heat of the struggle for obtaining the right to vote. However, during the first half of the twentieth century, after having obtained this right in most Western countries, feminism began to freeze. In contrast, the 1960 was a favorable time for the resurgence of the feminist movement. Gender studies impacted virtually all academic disciplines. Two of the many areas were renovated by the movement of history and art practice. Artists, art critics and historians believed that, like the women's movement, the feminist art represented a new beginning, a second part in the history of Western culture. It aimed at transforming the culture permanently by introducing the previously suppressed female perspective (Hetzner, 1995).

Linda Nochlin and the beginning of the Feminist Critique

In 1971, Linda Nochlin published a fairly extensive text, called “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” This paper marks the beginning of the feminist critique of art history. Nochlin's answer to this question, rooted in broader historiographical trend of social history of art, emphasized the institutional and social aspects, which art takes place. First, Nochlin emphasizes that feminism should problematize the ideological assumptions that are based on academic disciplines. Therefore, feminism is seen as a radical movement, which ...