Old Mistresses: Women, Art and Ideology

by Rozsika Parker, Griselda Pollock

Why is everything that compromises greatness in art coded as 'feminine'? Has the feminist critique of Art History yet effected real change? With a new preface by Griselda Pollock, this edition of a truly groundbreaking book offers a radical challenge to a women-free Art History.

Parker and Pollock's critique of Art History's sexism leads to expanded, inclusive readings of the art of the past. They demonstrate how the changing historical social realities of gender relations and women artists' translation of gendered conditions into their works provide keys to novel understandings of why we might study the art of the past. They go further to show how such knowledge enables us to understand art by contemporary artists who are women and can contribute to the changing self-perception and creative work of artists today.

In March 2020 Griselda Pollock was awarded the Holberg Prize in recognition of her outstanding contribution to research and her influence on thinking on gender, ideology, art and visual culture worldwide for over 40 years. Old Mistresses was her first major scholarly publication which has become a classic work of feminist art history.

Genres: Art, Art History, Feminism, Nonfiction, History, Research, Womens

256 pages, Paperback

First published February 12, 1982

Reviews

[Talie · Rating 4 out of 5]

زن (هنرمند) در وضعیتی تناقض آمیز گرفتار شده است. زبانی که " به شکل نمادین قوانین و روابط و تقسیم بندی‌های یک فرهنگ" را معین می‌کند مردسالارانه است. زبانی که تعیین می‌کند چه چیزها را می توان به بیان درآورد و از سوی چه کسی. زنان (هنرمند) در درون این زبان کار می‌کنند.
نویسندگان این کتاب کار فمینیست‌هایی که هنر زنان را در دسته بندی‌های جداگانه و تفکیک شده بررسی می‌کنند را نقد می‌کنند. و باور دارند این گونه دسته بندی‌ها، نظام‌هایی را که بر اساس آثار مردان شکل گرفته تقویت می‌کند و هنر زنان را در حکم ضمیمه‌ای نسبت به این نظام‌های مردانه در نظر می‌گیرد. نویسندگان به ذات زنانه باور ندارند بلکه می‌خواهند ارتباط میان زنان هنرمند و نهادهای هنر و ایدئولوژی را طی دگرگونی‌ها و تغییرات تاریخی کشف کنند. به نظر می رسد خود نویسندگان کتاب نیز دچار وضعیت تناقض آمیزی هستند. آیا با بررسی هنر زنان در بطن نظام‌های مردانه خود این نظام‌ها بازتولید نمی‌شود؟ همین نهادها و نظام‌هایی که زنانگی و ذات "مرموز" زنانه را تولید می‌کنند.

[Esther · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read this, oh my, 25 years ago. Fall 1992 I'd just started University and British universities back then required one to really only study one subject. Mine was history, but in your first year you were allowed to select a subsidiary subject to do just for one year. You had a list of related disciplines to choose from and I selected History of Art. Griselda Pollock was actually my first ever university lecture and scorched my brain with her clever rhetoric and wit. More so than any hundreds of subsequent, tedious history lectures. This book is still brilliant. I wish I could go back in time and revisit those lectures.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published in the 1970s, this book is still as relevant and up to date now as it was then. The edition I read included prefaces added later, in 1980, 2013 and 2020, and illuminate the relevance, but also the changes that have happened due, in parts at least, to second wave feminism.
The different chapters examine the roles and status of women artists, as well as women portrayed in art, in a time period from the Renaissance to the 20th century. It examines the ideologies, stereotypes and social conditions that have led to women artists being so dismissed in art historical writing in the 20th century. Even though being a woman artist was by no means easy in the Renaissance, or the centuries after, it was in fact quite possible for some women artists to be well established, recognised and mentioned in older art historical writing - so how come that, if you studied art history in the 1950s and 60s, not a single woman was mentioned in your course literature? Parker and Pollock dig deep into the social constructions behind this.
The last chapter examines critics'responses to more recent women's and feminist art. The chapter can be read as an appeal to critics and art historians to consider their choice of words, their interpretations and their dismissals.
A thoroughly researched, well written book that at the time of first publication must have seemed quite controversial, and is still an important read today.

[Francesca Meylaers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read book on the topic of "the woman artist question".

[Ekim]

Bunu okumadan feminist sanat tarihçisiyim demeyiniz.

[Luisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very suitable to complement university studies. Learned a lot about what is hidden behind pictures and what formed art practice for women through out art history and social developments.
Especially remembering quotes of Van Gogh comparing artistic practice to spermatic emission and the reason why female genitals were not detailed in paintings. Also liked the part about Maria Sybilla Merian and generally botanical painting. All in all, it made me visualize how erverything is connected = meaning historical events, social progress and the way the female is looked at and looks at herself.

[Frightful_elk · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel like a lot of this book has already been absorbed into art culture, however I think it well worth reading in order to be concious of a lot of the issues they speak about. I found the most interesting thing in this book the idea of how we digest art - through monographs and key artists. Hopefully by following the course of integration they recommend, men and women can achieve equal footing.

[Ely · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m an art history major who is particularly interested in female artists and this was recommended to me as one of the foundational texts of feminist art history. This was first released in 1982 and it’s clear that it’s one of the early texts on the subject. The thing about reading books like this that were published a while ago is that so much of the discussion has been built up and analysed by newer books and articles that this doesn’t really offer anything. That’s not the fault of the book—it’s just that I’ve read these same arguments that have been expanded further in so many other things that this was no longer really relevant to my own learning. Some of the chapters were still interesting to read, but there was nothing in here that was new to me. I think it might be a good place to start if you’re new to the topic, but otherwise, there’s so much out there these days that seems a little obsolete.

[T · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important work and suggestion on how to think, write and analyse (women) artists and art history as an ideologically structured story. But in this undertaking it obviously has many gaps - most of them are of an methodological or factual nature. They serve important insights and fundamental assumptions and tell an important story with totally diffrent perspectives but miss to serve some kind of methodological tools and footnotes . But nevertheless this work is still one of the most important and inspiring feminist writings about art history.

[Federica Volpera · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Le pratiche femministe hanno prodotto una pluralità di posizioni estetiche e politiche, una molteplicità di stili, media e soggetti [...] Tutta l'arte femminista è però caratterizzata da una coscienza politica della posizione differenziale delle donne nella nostra società, con l'obiettivo di combattere ogni forma di oppressione femminile".

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

J'ai adoré, cet essai était hyper interéssant, bien illustré et vraiment bien documenté. Je le recommande vraiment pour les personnes qui souhaitent en apprendre plus sur l'histoire des femmes artistes.

[Gigi Orphan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Πολυυ ενδιαφέρον. Το προτείνω. Έχει θέμα την γυναίκα καλλιτέχνη αλλα σε ένα γενικότερο πλαίσιο της ιστορίας της τέχνης, προσπαθεί να αποδομήσει τον τρόπο της ιστορίας της τέχνης μεχρι τώρα και τα στερεότυπα περι "γυναικείας" τέχνης.

[Tracy Gaughan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brilliant book! Women produce art, men ignore them, art history is the poorer for it.

[Amy]

DNF. Dated. Difficult to follow. Illustrations were very hard to see detail..

[Apoorva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interessante e scorrevole; un po’ ripetitivo ma sticazzi

[Iulia · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must-read for anyone even remotely interested in art or cultural history.

[Douglas Reedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

4c

[ida · Rating 4 out of 5]

matti, rozsika och griselda: dom tre superkvinnorna som precis räddat mitt gymnasiearbete

[Marmott79 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tlon ha appena pubblicato la traduzione italiana
Leggetelooooooo!!!!!

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lecture nécessaire qui met à plat la question des femmes artistes et le danger des catégorisations. Deconstruit efficacement l'appellation de femmes artistes et comment elle a évolué à travers le temps. Conclusion limpide qui stipule que les artistes féminines ont toujours existé et ont toujours exercé, qu'il est erroné de dire que l'on doit re-découvrir des destins effacés. Il faudrait plutôt dire que l'exercice des femmes artistes a toujours existé mais n'a pu s'effectuer que dans les limites et contraintes imposées par une structure patriarcale, point.

[Mills College Library]

700.82 P2429 2013

[Lessthanhalf]

Another OG text, this one from a little bit after Nochlin's seminal essay and, of course, influenced by it. Griselda Pollock has written often on this subject and much of her other work is important also (particularly "Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity" on female Impressionists).