Why Art History is His Story

 "It is far too early in the evolution of the rehabilitation of women artists for us to think that we've arrived." -Erika Gaffney, Art Herstory

 Who decides how art history gets told? Who are its editors? Well, since the mid to late 18th century...men. White upperclass men. They have dictated our story to us. We will not be debating the definition of art today, we will save that for another time but the thing that we need to understand, and what I think has been lost for some time now, is history's definition, or rather, it's definitions. 

History noun

1. the study of past events, particularly in human affairs.

and, more importantly...

2. the whole series of past events connected with someone or something 

The whole series. So, if white-men, most likely, of a certain class and upbringing are the ones telling the story, how can that be the whole story? 

Now. I am not about to go on some big long feminist rant about how the patriarchy has shoved the story of man down our throats for centuries and, how now it's time to give them a taste of their own medicine by doing the same to them with the story of woman. For that is a can of worms far too enormous and far too complicated for this writer, but, what I do hope to achieve with this post is to create a space for open mindedness and exploration further into another side of the story. 

In the 1970s the American feminist art movement, that began during what is now considered the second wave of the feminism movement, included the discovery of women artists who had been considered "written out of the history books". Whether intentionally; planned and intended, or purposely; with a motivation behind the intent, ie, erasing women from the history books, villainously, we will never know. 

One can guess, it may be a combination of all of the above. 

Firstly, I can imagine many an art history professor in the 19th or early 20th centuries, looking out at a class of young men, speaking about the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance, reviewing his notes and deciding in that moment not to mention Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653), arguably the greatest woman artist of the time, amongst the names of Caravaggio (1571-1610) and Michelangelo (1475-1564) simply because why would a group of young men who have probably spent the last few minutes laughing at a picture they've been shown of a naked Greek statue, and who are slowly starting to lose attentiveness in the lesson, have any interest in a female painter? Why would they want to spend any time analyzing Susannah and the Elders (1610) a painting which depicts the invasion of a woman's privacy while she is bathing, with any sort of mature consideration or drawing of parallel to that of her exemplifying the virtues of modesty and fidelity? Or how her depictions of Judith Slaying Holofernes (1613 and 1621) will make you so repulsively intrigued that you cannot bare to look away from the violence and sheer strength of a woman and her maidservant beheading an invading Assyrian general, let alone when you know it was painted by a woman. 

You can take this example, with any era of art, any piece of art, any art history class, anywhere in the world and apply the outline, the story will still be the same. 

Secondly, though I am less inclined to think that there have been equally if not more events where art historians have purposely ignored the female artists in a movement, maliciously excluding them from the story of that of their male counterparts, for whatever justifiable reason they came up with at the time, I can guarantee you, that somewhere out there, this has happened. Probably more times than we will ever know or want to know about. I will, on the other hand choose a surprise third possibility because I like to see the best in people.

How many male art history professors, critics and historians were just lazy? 

Let me explain. 

Art History is generally taught by movement. The Renaissance, Impressionism, Surrealism, Pop Art, Modern, you get the idea, and hopefully can name more than I just did. Those movements are then broken down even further into genres. Historical, Portrait, Genre Painting, Landscape, Animal, and, Still Life. Listed in order of importance according to André Félibien (1619-1695), a French art historian and official art historian to Louis XIV of France. Although it had been around for a few hundreds years already, from the time painting struggled to gain acceptance as one of the liberal arts, alongside architecture and sculpture, which they were debated as whether having equal or superior status to, he essentially, wrote it into "art law" until it became formalized and promoted by the academies in Europe between the 17th century to the modern era. Most famously, the French Académie de peinture et de sculpture, which held a central role in academic art until its abolition in 1793.

The genre hierarchy was of great importance to many past art theorists as well, most notably Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), author of The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects published in 1550 and, Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472). An Italian Renaissance author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher and cryptographer who in his De Picture ("About Painting") of 1441 argued that multi-figure history painting was the noblest form of art. The most difficult, requiring nothing short of mastery, because, in being a visual form of history, it therefore had the greatest potential to move the viewer. 

Speaking solely on women artists after the allowance of their attendance into the official art academies of Europe, where they were "formally" considered artists and were then, subsequently dictated to about the genres they were and were not allowed to paint, it may come as no surprise, that some genres were deemed too significant, ambitious, or simply, not socially acceptable for a woman to paint. They were not exactly forbidden like painting or drawing the nude figure, but rather, other genres were more strongly encouraged to be pursued such as portraiture, landscapes and, still life, which were considered minor genres and therefore acceptable for a women's assumed, inferior talent.

In that case, I not only wonder, because women artists were not allowed to paint all genres if their work can be fairly compared to that of their male counterparts but if the majority of art professors, critics and historians even bother to compare in even some of the genres if they can't possibly compare in them all? Furthermore, isn't it so much easier to speak of an artist's entire oeuvre, covering every genre as opposed to an artist whose, for example, entire oeuvre only consists of portraits? It is for this reason, I wonder as to the laziness of men in these positions, believing the statements I just listed above that this is why we have not been taught anything about women artists. Is it this all or nothing approach that has truly wiped women artists from our history books? 

It doesn't help either that, historically speaking, documentation on male figures in history is more detailed and readily available than that of women figures. In consequence, making your lecture on an artist such as Claude Monet (1840-1926) three times longer than that of Berthe Morisot (1841-1895). Is it even worth mentioning her if she is going to take up such a small amount of time that could be better used for someone or something else? 

The answer is yes. It does matter. Throughout the years I have met many a dead end on researching women artists. And I know, if you decide to start learning about them, you will too. We still don't know the birth or death dates of many. We don't know where exactly they worked or lived. We don't know about their families or their friends. We don't even know how much money they were paid, who their clients were or where they purchased their supplies. We don't know who taught them, where they dreamt of going with their careers or why they even started in the first place. We don't even know where they, after a hopefully long and happy life, were finally laid to rest. And that is, to put it simply, sad. 

The writers of history and those who teach, have truly deprived the world of these women's stories. 

So, what do we do about it. The answer is not to flip the switch and deprive Rembrandt (1606-1669) of the credit he so deserves by ignoring or worse, cancelling him completely, but to take our learnings a step further to someone like Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750). Another Dutch painter who made more money selling her work during her lifetime than Rembrandt did, and who today is hardly mentioned in the art history books. 

The quote at the beginning of this post by Erika Gaffney from Art Herstory reminds us that while we have come along way since the 1970s and the re/discovery of centuries of female artists, we still have a long way to go. We must look further into the stories we have been told in order to find new ones. They aren't new per say, after all, they have always been there, but they are new to us. Only then, can we truly see "the whole series of past events connected with someone or something", history's second definition.

-Emma Madison

the quote from Art Herstory's Erika Gaffney was taken from the latest podcast of The Illustration Department Podcast with Giuseppe Castellano, published June 17th 2024. All views published on https://emmamadisonwrites.blogspot.com are my own, Emma Madison's and are not meant as anything other than personal expressed views. c2024.