Essay Comparing Nochlin And Pollock

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I found that Nochlin and Pollock had very similar ideas about feminism and why we do not see very many “great” women artists. The primary focus of both readings is the systematic oppression of women by societal structures that were/are implemented at different points in time. I really enjoyed Nochlin’s discussion of women artists and why we do not see very many “great” women artists within the canon of art history. I appreciated both the readings discussion as well as our in-class conversation surrounding why this is. It is not that there are these amazing female artists who have just not been discovered by scholars, like many of us want to believe (as Nochlin points out), but that women were unable to become great artists because of the institutions that were in place. The Victorian city was a place for men to thrive and enjoy and women simply survive. As discussed in class, it is important to view art history with a feminist lens, because it open up many new topics which were previously overlooked. Topics such as authorship and production (as discussed in our readings), social context, issues of the gaze and looking, and issues of “art genus” are all ones which can be explored by feminist art historians. This is something that I find particularly interesting, because although there were not any “great” female artists, …show more content…

They were successful impressionist painters, even though they were subjected to different expectations and restricted by different institutions and societal structures. Although the two female artists could not experience the world in the same way that their male colleagues could, they were able to work with the interior spaces they were confined to. Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot found a way to work around the issues of space and location that were preventing them from creating work in the same format as the male

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