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Women in the Picture: A Feminist History of Art
A bold reconsideration of how we look at women, art, and power -- from the oil paintings of the Old Masters to athleisure adsArt has a reputation for being irrelevant, elitist. But we're constantly bombarded with images, many of which take their cues from museum exhibitions and gallery walls. And images of women -- as whores or hags, mothers or maidens -- have always been particularly pernicious and powerful. Art historian Catherine McCormack decodes these archetypes in her eye-opening book, Women in the Picture. Moving deftly from the work of Artemisia Gentileschi and Pablo Picasso to Uma Thurman in Kill Bill and Beyoncé's Instagram, Women in the Picture is a twenty-first-century update to John Berger's classic Ways of Seeing that slyly neutralizes the sexism of traditional art history.Sharp edged and stylish, Women in the Picture is essential reading for art enthusiasts, women's history buffs, and anyone looking to change how they see.
- GenresArtNonfiction
288 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 8, 2020
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207 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 14, 2025
Subtitled ‘Women, Art and the Power of Looking’, this book entered my reading list as a resource for research for a novel I’m writing.
It has filled that requirement far better than I ever imagined. The breadth and depth of research the author has conducted to compile this treatise on the misogyny and injustice dealt out to female artists over the centuries is astounding. I have learned about aspects of art, society, history, and the oh-too-respected ‘classics’ of Greek and Roman origin that have given me much cause for consideration and thought.
I have marked 54 of the 231 pages as sources to refer to when I edit my novel, because they contain information relevant to its themes and subject matter.
But all that apart, the book is an excellent source of information about the place of women in art both as subject and creator. As models, they have been sometimes willing, sometimes persuaded, and too often forced to pose for male painters and sculptors. As creators, they have been vilified, excluded, threatened, had their own work pirated and claimed by inadequate males, and been generally prevented from displaying their works, which are every bit as worthy as those of their male counterparts, often more so.
Until recently, most of the world’s major art galleries have treated women’s art as something lesser, something unequal to the quality of their male exhibitors, even when the art of the females has been better than those of males.
Unjust social laws, distorted morality, and the blinkered outlook of those in charge of artistic output have prevented the public from seeing some wonderful pictures and sculptures over the centuries.
In regard to the depiction of women on canvass, in stone, bronze and clay, there has been a deliberate intention to promote only the sexual aspect of the female sitter, display her as a fantasy, willing, coerced, or forced, for the benefit of wealthy men, who so often commissioned such works, and more recently for the benefit of ordinary male viewers at so many galleries. This bias has had the unfortunate effect of devaluing women in general, depicting them as toys, playthings, the willing dolls of male dreams. Subjugation, religious demonisation, and rape have been displayed as the result of female wantonness instead of the overbearing male lust these things truly are.
This book provides a point of change in the way we look at women in art both as subject and as creator. I hope it will be added to the list of books demanded by those running university courses on art history, so that the truth can be taught to future scholars.
I, for one, feel intensely grateful to the author for educating me in so many ways.
It has filled that requirement far better than I ever imagined. The breadth and depth of research the author has conducted to compile this treatise on the misogyny and injustice dealt out to female artists over the centuries is astounding. I have learned about aspects of art, society, history, and the oh-too-respected ‘classics’ of Greek and Roman origin that have given me much cause for consideration and thought.
I have marked 54 of the 231 pages as sources to refer to when I edit my novel, because they contain information relevant to its themes and subject matter.
But all that apart, the book is an excellent source of information about the place of women in art both as subject and creator. As models, they have been sometimes willing, sometimes persuaded, and too often forced to pose for male painters and sculptors. As creators, they have been vilified, excluded, threatened, had their own work pirated and claimed by inadequate males, and been generally prevented from displaying their works, which are every bit as worthy as those of their male counterparts, often more so.
Until recently, most of the world’s major art galleries have treated women’s art as something lesser, something unequal to the quality of their male exhibitors, even when the art of the females has been better than those of males.
Unjust social laws, distorted morality, and the blinkered outlook of those in charge of artistic output have prevented the public from seeing some wonderful pictures and sculptures over the centuries.
In regard to the depiction of women on canvass, in stone, bronze and clay, there has been a deliberate intention to promote only the sexual aspect of the female sitter, display her as a fantasy, willing, coerced, or forced, for the benefit of wealthy men, who so often commissioned such works, and more recently for the benefit of ordinary male viewers at so many galleries. This bias has had the unfortunate effect of devaluing women in general, depicting them as toys, playthings, the willing dolls of male dreams. Subjugation, religious demonisation, and rape have been displayed as the result of female wantonness instead of the overbearing male lust these things truly are.
This book provides a point of change in the way we look at women in art both as subject and as creator. I hope it will be added to the list of books demanded by those running university courses on art history, so that the truth can be taught to future scholars.
I, for one, feel intensely grateful to the author for educating me in so many ways.
January 13, 2025
Reading this after Elkin’s Art Monsters finds it a little repetitive and simplistic, and also more focused on mythology rather than art. Still, a very interesting read and has contributed further to my understanding of art and art history.
February 19, 2025
Everyone should read this book…whether you’re into art, feminism or just not sure. Read it!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews