Linda Nochlin was an American art historian, university professor and writer. A prominent feminist art historian, she was best known as a proponent of the question "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?", in an essay of the same name published in 1971.
Her critical attention has been drawn to investigating the ways in which gender affects the creation and apprehension of art, as evidenced by her 1994 essay "Issues of Gender in Cassatt and Eakins". Besides feminist art history, she was best known for her work on Realism, specifically on Gustave Courbet. Complementing her career as an academic, she served on the Art Advisory Council of the International Foundation for Art Research. In 2006, Nochlin received a Visionary Woman Award] from Moore College of Art & Design.
Fragmented ideas were bound together as a whole in a bookish format. Found it quite hard to follow her ways of thinking and personally do not agree with several ideas presented here. I do like the parts about Gericault and the French revolution
Art criticism fascinates me - what makes art 鈥楢rt鈥�? I did a module at university on this, 鈥榯he philosophy of art and literature鈥�. The lectures were at 17:00 on a Thursday and keeping myself going for it was the first time I drank coffee at the tender age of 19.
Caffeine association aside, I am lucky enough to know a gifted artist and her fashion design partner, who together form quite the art criticism duo. One believes the visual speaks for itself, whereas the other believes it is the description or the justification that makes the piece what it is. What I learned reading this was that both things are true but women are still drawing the short straw. Or perhaps we鈥檙e not. My home is full of artistic renderings of female body parts, perhaps I鈥檓 the fetishist, here?
I read this book straight after reading Realism and it was a nice accomplishment to that. This is a short book following a lecture, so I would recommend taking it out from a library, unless you鈥檙e in dire need of it. Not essential reading by any means, but if you wish to read more of Nochlin鈥檚 insightful thoughts on Manet, Degas, etc. it鈥檚 a good addition. Makes some visual links between earlier revolutionary art and the French realists which is nice, but not hugely insightful. Not essential but a good short blast of art history and analysis.
Very good study, just very short. Would have liked it to be a bit bulkier with more examples. Very good point of reference in a wider study though if you have an interest in this topic.
The Surrealist writer Georges Bataille, in an article entitled Sacrificial Mutilation and the Severed Ear of Vincent Van Gogh maintained that "art is born of a wound that does not heal."