Linda Nochlin: 'Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?'

In her case study of two artists, Linda Nochlin suggests that it is not prsonal circumstances that are directly responsible for the exclusion of women from the art scene, but rather it is the social and institutional errors which have made it impossible for female paricipation.

"The current uncritical acceptance of "what is" as "naturally" may be intellectually fatal. Just as Mill* saw male domination as one of many social injustices that had to be overcome if a truly just social order were to be created, so we may see the unconcious domination of white male subjectivity as one of many intellectual distortions." p1 Nochlin
*John Stuart Mill, 'The Subjection of Women' (1869)

Her argument is centered around the dominance of the 'white male'. She discusses the restrictions that were implaced which directly excluded women from the right and freedom of an accademic art education. Until recently women were restricted from being present at nude life studies, or to model for them, and mastering this technique was considered the height of artistic achievment. Another deprivation was the exclusion of women form art academies: "To be deprived of this major state of training meant to be deprived of the possibility of creating major art...none had attended that major stepping stone to artistic success, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts..." pp 25-26 Nochlin

She discusses the path into an artistic career. According to Nochlin, women only came into art through the encouragement of a male counterpart:

"Almost all women artists were either the daughters of artist fathers, or later, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, had close personal connections with a strong or dominant male artist." 30 Nochlin

This is partly to blame for the dismissal of women artists. When considered as part of this 'relationship' they will always be considered as a minority to the patriarchal figure of the male 'genius', this raises the interesting question of artists who came from non artistic backgrounds, and wether the influence is benign.

Nochlin approaches the notion of the male artist as a genius' figure, and that this is a critical invention, an idea which Nanette Salomon attributes to the 16th Century art critic Georgio Vasari. ['The Art Historical Canon: Sins of Omission'(1998)]