Shea post 6

“Why have there been no great woman artists?” (Linda Nochlin) It is a good question. Unfortunately though, it is not all that difficult to answer. Women were denied access to positions of any artistic sophistication for so long that it was impossible for them to gain any recognition for their work. In regards to art, when men alone do the constructing, buying, selling, criticizing and praising, where do women fit in?

Odalisque by Joseph Sheppard

Right here. If "women are art" (Ryan Musgrave, possibly quoting someone else), how could they be expected to produce it? The perspective would be wrong all together, backward. This concept is addressed by Mary Devereaux as the "male gaze". She argues that approaching an image requires that you judge/measure it against your existing body of knowledge. The historical imbalance of power among gender dominates that body of knowledge. For example "'His' attributes define all humanity...our language, like our thinking equates 'male' gender with gender-neutral." (Devereaux, 122) "Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men..." (Devereaux, 127). In other words, women are considered inadequate as artists because their work lacks the perspective that we recognize and have come to identify as valuable; the masculine perspective. "The value of art is linked with the special mind of artists, and thus these theories give rise to a picture of the artistic Genius, a figure deeply inflected with masculine properties both historically and conceptually." (Brand, 6)

Promenade, also be Joseph Sheppard, makes plain the assumption of a male viewer. In elevation, color and motion the men are apart from the women. It is clear that their only purpose is to be observed, by men of course. As spectators, we take on the same role as the man on the pedestal; "the spectator's gaze is male in two senses; both in its direction at women as objects of erotic fascination and its identification with the male protagonist." (Devereaux, 133) For this reason, even those who overcame the systematic exclusion of women from the artistic field could not achieve so called artistic genius. "Feminist scholarship has unearthed women artists, writers, and musicians of the past that were oftentimes well known, amply commissioned and self supporting in their day but were subsequently omitted from the canon of 'greats' in the written histories of art." (Brand, 10) The girl in back strikes me as a feminist. She maintains the connection with her gender with an outstretched arm but takes on some qualities of the men portrayed here. She is of a darker complexion than the other women and more static in her composure. Despite these efforts she is not able to achieve that position held by the man who reigns on high. She cannot become a man and is therefore without power, without greatness.

In light of the male gaze, creative projects undertaken by women, despite their utility, were not seen with any of the prestige of art. In order to recognize these works as artistic , the traditional standards of art's inherent components would have to be reevaluated. "As with earlier anti-essentialism, definitions of art were rejected. To feminists they were seen as oppressive: privileging 'high' art over low, 'fine' art over 'craft', men's art over women's." (Bland, 10) The daunting nature of this proposition was greeted with great resistance, as is the proposition of any widespread change.

Here we see a complete rejection of artistic standards in their relation to gender. Certainly the image is politically charged, but the politics of gender are the focus of this discussion. The woman is the object of the gaze, but she is an entirely different kind of object. Shirin Neshat's photograph is not at all erotic. Her body is covered from head to foot, eliminating the female position as an item of lust, a vamp. The violent implications of her gun and red hands also reject the woman as a manifestation of mothering nurture or helpless inaction. This woman is not innocent. "Reading against the grain is a strategy designed by out-of-power groups to counterbalance the dominant textual traditions by offering alternative interpretations of works within those traditions." (Devereaux, 139) The photograph presumes the perspective of no one in particular, and is therefore a renovation or a "re-vision" of artistic categorization's imperative patriarchy.