post-impressionisms answered:
Yeah…um…no. Not really.
I had a long response typed out to this, which I have rewritten and deleted now several times in my frustration, and I’ve answered this sort of question before, but I can’t find it. When I do, I will make sure to post a link to that response.
The thing you gotta realize, anon, is that women have, by and large with a few exceptions, been elbowed out of not only art making but critically analyzing and writing art history–which is pretty significant, given the prevalence of women depicted IN art. I could list dozens of examples of women artists being discriminated against for merely their gender. Lee Krasner, one of my favorite abstract expressionist painters, comes to mind. Her teacher, Hans Hoffman, once remarked about her work, “Her art is so good, you would not know it was painted by a woman!” This from an educated, worldly man–supposedly. That’s not ancient history. That’s modern. And it’s a pretty prevalent mindset even today.
Here’s an experiment for you. Walk through your local museum. See how many women artists there are. How many names and pieces do you recognize? Are they given the same treatment in space as male artists? What do the accompanying plaques say about them?
Anon, women weren’t even included in most art history books until the 1980’s. That’s beyond embarrassing. And even then, it was almost purely tokenism–here is one female artist for every hundred male artists. Have fun!
The thing is, women don’t have to “catch up” to men. Women have been making art for as long as men have–probably longer, if we want to go all the way back to hunter-gatherer societies when women stayed at home and cared for children. The Smithsonian even wrote a great article about it in 2013, about women producing not just some cave art, but most of it. (Check it out: www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ancient-women-artists-may-be-responsible-for-most-cave-art-1094929/?no-ist )
Women have always, always been producing art. Women artists aren’t the problem here. People’s attitudes towards women making art are.
