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Women Artists in History
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by Jacqueline Marie Musacchio
Vassar College
Poughkeepsie, New York
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Context
Originally written in 1971, Linda Nochlin's essay "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" is essential reading for any introductory survey course in art history. Although many newer textbooks do take women into account when discussing the history of art, older ones do not. And even those that cover this material do so only minimally; teachers will need to bring in outside examples to make this lesson work. It can be used at a variety of points during the year, but I prefer to use it in the discussion of the sixteenth-century Renaissance in Italy, when we get to the first women artists we can actually name and contextualize. This lesson can also be used to great effect later in the year with other examples as prompts. (I use an excerpt from the original version of Nochlin's essay; see notes below.)
Goals
- To ensure students understand the role of women in the history of western art
- To demonstrate the essential differences in training between male and female artists in the past and the impact this had on their cultural production
Activities and Instruction
Students should be given the Nochlin essay as a reading assignment, and they should come to class ready to discuss it. Begin the class with a slide comparison to serve as a springboard for discussion. I suggest showing Michelangelo's David (1501-1504, Accademia, Florence) and Properzia de'Rossi's Cherry Stone Carved with a Glory of Saints (circa 1525, Palazzo Pitti, Florence). Prepare a handout with the identifying information for each slide and the following question: "How can we discuss this comparison in terms of the Nochlin reading?" Allow the students 10 minutes to respond in writing; in this way, the comparison serves as practice for the AP Examination. Collect the responses at the end of the 10 minutes so you can evaluate them later, and open the discussion.
The essential idea behind Nochlin's essay is that women could not receive the same kind of artistic training as men; societal norms kept women in their homes and forbade them from interacting with men in the studio or workshop setting where this training took place. Most women artists were trained by fathers who were artists themselves; these men raised their daughters as prodigies in an effort to attract patrons or suitors.
Students should recognize that Michelangelo's monumental statue of a specific Old Testament hero, meant for public display, carved out of expensive marble and based on classical models, is vastly different from Properzia's tiny pit carved with generic faces of saints, meant for private enjoyment and made from what can charitably be described as debris. But do these distinctions have an impact on the definition of each object as "art"?
Although Michelangelo should be well known to students, Properzia will require some background context. She is the earliest female artist we can cite by name in the survey course. This is not because women did not produce art prior to the early sixteenth century; in fact, women were probably responsible for a great number of earlier manuscripts and embroidered textiles, as well as a lesser number of paintings and sculptures. The Nochlin reading is a way to get students thinking about the artists we haven't shown them in the survey, as well as the ones we will be showing them in the coming months. But it is also important for students to understand that women did not begin to create art in the sixteenth century; we just don't have enough information on earlier artists to warrant much discussion. You can demonstrate this point to them by bringing in additional works of art. For example, a Greek red-figure hydria with the scene of a vase painters' workshop from the fifth century BCE (Stokstad, 207) includes a female painter on the far right side. The male painters in this scene are crowned by Victories, implying that they have won some sort of painting competition. Because the female painter is not crowned, some scholars believe she may be the owner of the workshop and therefore unable to participate in competitions. You might also show them the Roman funerary relief of a painter in her studio from the second century (Stokstad, 259) or the Bayeux Tapestry of circa 1073-1083; teams of women probably embroidered the 230-foot-long linen according to the designs of a male artist (Stokstad, 15-30).
But until we get to Properzia, who was born circa 1490, we don't have enough information to make any sort of judgment on female artistic production. Although she carved several impressive reliefs for the Bologna cathedral, she is best known for small-scale work like this cherry stone. Work like this required enormous patience and, like manuscripts and textiles, was considered more appropriate for female temperaments than monumental paintings and sculptures. It was something a woman artist could do in her own home, with no workshop assistance, with no contact with models, and with inexpensive, easy-to-obtain materials. Although its diameter is less than that of your thumbnail, the pit is carved with more than 100 heads of saints. Such a rare and curious object would have been highly valued by sixteenth-century collectors, who liked to accumulate a whole range of fantastic items for their private studies. This cherry stone is transformed into a precious object; it is no longer a product of nature, but instead a product of human -- and more specifically, female -- endeavor, and as such it was an extremely popular type. Properzia transformed it from an object that was commonly discarded to one that was highly collectable and, by its iconography and the skill it demonstrated, devout almost to the point of being miraculous. Properzia's work makes a particularly interesting contrast to that of her contemporary, Michelangelo, indicating the vast divide between male and female artists at this time, not in skill but in materials, commissions, and opportunities.
Depending on the textbook you use, or the resources available in your area, later in the semester students will encounter other female artists. If you are using this lesson during your examination of the sixteenth century, you might want to show students slides of these later artists as a preview. As you come to these artists in the survey, you should bring up these issues again and get students to think about the differences between these artists and their predecessors and the reasons for the increased (but still not equal) opportunities for women artists in more recent years.
Resources for Follow-Up
The ideas in this essay are essential to any understanding of the history of art, and students should be able to use them in future discussions. Students can practice their research skills and learn more about women artists if you have them give short presentations on individual women as they come up in your class.
Excellent survey books and individual monographs have been published on many of these artists; sources for beginning study include:
Broude, Norma, and Mary D. Garrard, eds. Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany. New York: Harper and Row, 1982.
Broude, Norma, and Mary D. Garrard, eds. The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History. New York: Icon Editions, 1992.
Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Power. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1990.
Guerilla Girls. The Guerilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
Harris, Ann Sutherland, and Linda Nochlin. Women Artists: 1550-1950. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1976.
Notes
Linda Nochlin, "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?" in Writings About Art, ed. Carole Gold Calo, 194-205 (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1994).
Illustration references in this lesson plan are to:
Marilyn Stokstad et al, Art History, rev. ed. (New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc., 1999).
Jacqueline Marie Musacchio is an assistant professor of art at Vassar College. She has degrees from Wellesley College and Princeton University. Her area of expertise is Italian Renaissance art, on which she has presented papers at both national and international conferences. Her publications include the award-winning book The Art and Ritual of Childbirth in Renaissance Italy (1999), as well as Marvels of Maiolica: Italian Renaissance Ceramics from the Corcoran Gallery of Art Collection (2004), and various articles on birth trays, marriage chests, devotional art, dowry goods, and Fascist revivalism.
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