Reading Response #3

Going into this reading I had already been familiar with the Nochlin article "Why Are There No Great Women Artists?", but reading about it in this way gave room for a different perspective and more of an insight to happen as I was reading. I completely agree with how Nochlin argues that there haven't been any great women artists because of the hegemony of males in the art world so women have always been disclosed from the distinctions of what great art is and who can create it. Almost everything in and out of the art has been previously defined and set by males so the women are left to reach, in many eyes, an unreachable equal goal. I really enjoyed reading about what Bovenschen said about "feminine sensibility" and how women are generalized yet there is not formal criteria for feminist art which I think shows the exact point of how women artists are secluded yet there isn't necessarily a reason to. I think it was very important to include how the "feminine representation" of art changed along with the changes happening within the feminist movement. I view this as any other form of an art movement. Artists, mostly males, would create art that was personal to them often times in relation to what was happening culturally that they relate to and this is the same thing just in relation to the lives of women. Although this is not typically seen as that. This shift has a negative connotation reflecting on women and further secludes them into the box of only feminist artists or women artists but not great artists in general. I think the problem with there not being any notable "great women artists" is summed up perfectly when Gever says "...whether there have been - or even will be - any "great women artist's" have been effectively displaced by the critical voices of feminism."
I think these articles work together because Tamblyn uses specific examples to almost prove the points of Gever's article about women artists and potential of "great" work. The two ideas I was drawn to the most in this article were the idea of "The personal is political" when talked about by Kraus and Millner and the work Beneath the Skin(1981) by Cecilia Condit when talking about the idea of women as "the other". These are both huge ideas to the women's and feminist movement that when they are shown and displayed through work of women artists it adds even more to their merit and the influence they hold for the movement and meaning within the movement.

How do you think the idea of the "feminine aesthetic" plays into how art made by women is viewed by men and other women? Does it matter? Is it different, if so why?