When art dealer Richard Feigen asked Linda Nochlin in 1970, “Why are there no great women artists?” he inspired her groundbreaking essay with a similar title published in ARTnews in January 1971. Were women not capable of artistic greatness? Were there, in fact, great women artists who had simply been overlooked? While Nochlin acknowledged the role of sexism in the modern art historical canon, her research focused on unearthing the barriers to greatness that had plagued women artists throughout history.
So, Have There Really Been No Great Women Artists?
Nochlin opens her well-known essay by noting that the first reaction of many people, feminists in particular, to this question is to argue for the greatness of certain women artists. They will extol the virtues of historic women artists’ oeuvres or attempt to rustle up long-forgotten or extremely overlooked women in art history. Alternately, when faced with this question, some art historians have posited that women inherently create a different kind of greatness than men. Might there be something innately feminine and unique about the works of art created by women that would require a separate set of metrics in order to judge their quality? Nochlin refutes this suggestion by arguing that women artists of a particular period have more in common with other artists and writers of their day than they do with each other when viewed as a group.
While the merits of reinvestigating women artists of the past cannot be overstated, as Linda Nochlin herself pointed out, it is not simply that a number of great women artists are merely waiting to be discovered, but rather that they do not, in fact, exist.
She states, “The fact of the matter is that there have been no supremely great women artists, as far as we know, although there have been many interesting and very good ones…no matter how much we might wish there had been. That this should be the case is regrettable, but no amount of manipulating the historical or critical evidence will alter the situation.”
Why Have There Been No Great Aristocratic Artists?
Nochlin states that one reason there have been no great women artists is that the equivalency of male artists as born geniuses has been the accepted history of art for so long that it is generally seen as fact. The essay reads, “On this basis, women’s lack of major achievement in art may be formulated as a syllogism: If women had a nugget of artistic genius, then it would reveal itself. But it has never revealed itself.”
However, Nochlin argues that as soon as one leaves behind this world of “fairy tale and self-fulfilling prophecy,” the idea of the inborn genius unravels. In particular, Nochlin discusses the surprising fact that until the nineteenth century, there have been no world-famous artists who came from the upper echelons of society. Surely, a social class with the most expendable income and the greatest access to training should have produced some of the most skilled artists in the world. While a handful became what Nochlin referred to as respectable amateurs, there are no notable artists from the aristocracy who have achieved the same level of fame as Delacroix, Michelangelo, or Rembrandt. Are both aristocrats and women devoid of innate artistic genius?
On the contrary, Linda Nochlin believes that it was the societal expectations imposed on both women and aristocrats, as well as the constraints placed on their time, that led to the exclusion of both groups from the art historical canon.
What Other Obstacles Existed for Women Artists?
But what of the daring, non-conformist women who were unbothered by the assumption that they would marry and bear children and instead wanted to forge thriving artistic careers? Nochlin explains that becoming a career artist was complicated for women, even when it was their sole pursuit.
She draws on the example of the nude model to make her point, specifically within 18th- and 19th-century France. It was considered inappropriate for women to draw from nude models until the late 19th century, and this practice was deemed so essential to success that Nochlin stated, “To be deprived of this ultimate stage of training meant, in effect, to be deprived of the possibility of creating major art works.”
Nochlin viewed the example of women’s lack of access to live models as a symptom of the larger problem: a system to which they were denied entry at every turn. For example, admission into artistic academies was extremely limited. The Académie Royale in France allowed only four women to become members over the course of its 150-year history, and it was the Academy that vaulted aspiring artists into the awareness of wealthy patrons, including the French government.
Women were also generally barred from participating in apprenticeships and were very rarely selected for participation in the Salon.
Finally, Linda Nochlin noted a host of other less concrete but equally important factors in a successful artist’s career that would have been unavailable to women. The ability to travel freely without a chaperone, establish relationships with patrons, negotiate terms for commissions, participate in the exchange of ideas with other notable artists, and manage a bustling workshop; all of these components of building a business as an artist would have been out of reach for women.
How Did Any Women Become Career Artists Before Modern Times?
As far as society was concerned at the time, women should not have any interest in pursuing artistic success anyway. Nochlin references advice from The Family Monitor and Domestic Guide, published in the first half of the 19th century, which encouraged women to enjoy artistic hobbies in order to make themselves well-rounded but to be wary of setting their sights on excellence in any one field. Drawing and painting, in particular, were deemed suitable hobbies as they could easily be discarded for a time when more important duties related to homemaking arose. Art was, at best, a great pastime to keep women busy until they married and had children, but should never be a woman’s ultimate priority.
So how did art history end up with the group of women artists who Linda Nochlin says “have achieved pre-eminence, if not the pinnacles of grandeur of a Michelangelo, a Rembrandt or a Picasso”?
Almost all of them were raised by fathers who were artists, allowing them to receive not only artistic and business training at home but, in the case of some like Artemisia Gentileschi, access to nude models. By the late 19th century, some women were able to earn a living as artists by other close associations with powerful men through friendships or marriages. However, Nochlin maintains that some important relationship with a male artist was critical to women’s success until the 20th century.
Were Any Women Artists “Successful,” According to Nochlin?
One woman in particular, Rosa Bonheur, stands out to Nochlin as a success story, though the author is quick to point out that Bonheur’s flourishing career was possible in large part because it coincided with major cultural and economic changes.
In the art world, history paintings were on their way out, and it was this genre that relied heavily on studying live models. Instead, smaller paintings of everyday subjects, such as landscapes, were growing in popularity along with the increasing size of the middle class. The economic changes of 19th-century France meant that art was no longer purchased only by the elite of society or the government; a new market with a new clientele was emerging with an appetite for consumption, and Bonheur’s work perfectly met its needs.
In addition, the artist remained unmarried until her death and stated that her purpose behind the decision was to maintain independence. Bonheur was known to wear trousers rather than skirts but vehemently denied that it was an act of defiance in any way. Instead, it was merely a matter of practicality for a working artist.
Nochlin makes note of how much Bonheur’s attire is discussed and the artist’s unfortunate need to justify her clothing choices and assert her love of all things feminine. It seems that even for a wildly successful artist in the 19th century, a woman could not exude too much masculinity without endangering her career.
Will Future Art Historians List Any Great Women Artists?
As Linda Nochlin explained in her essay, “While great achievement is rare and difficult at best, it is still rarer and more difficult if, while you work, you must at the same time wrestle with inner demons of self-doubt and guilt and outer monsters of ridicule or patronizing encouragement, neither of which have any specific connection with the quality of the art work as such.” The presence of great women artists in the art historical narrative of the future is not dependent on scholars rewriting history. One cannot conjure a mass of astonishingly great women artists from the past where they did not exist. Rather, the future inclusion of women on lists of “the greats” will be the product of institutional and societal change, driven and demanded by women but adopted by all.
