“Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” A 1970 Art Historian's perspective on female genius

American art historian Linda Nochlin published a famous article in 1971, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” in regards to the institutional and psychological complications that female artists undertook inhibiting them from becoming “great,” or “genius,” artists. Her central question: “why have there been no great women artists” quickly diverges into more realistic and intellectually accurate questions: who is asking this popular question and why? Why weren’t women allowed to compete in art competitions? Why weren’t women allowed to paint models in the nude, when this was a qualifying skill to becoming a renowned painter? What if Picasso had been born a girl; would his instructor have “stimulated as much ambition for achievement?” (Nochlin). Why were only 7% of female artists in France given commission or endorsements of money for their art studies and projects? (Nochlin). Through investigating these questions, Nochlin claims that society has made it “institutionally impossible” for women to achieve artistic success (Nochlin). In this essay I seek to show the way that Nochlin uses secondary sources to establish a status quo of men as central and invert societal perceptions of women as “problem,” for the purpose of showing that the “problem” is not why women lack artistic genius, but why people were using the question’s implied answer to put women’s talent into question instead of putting into question the discrimination that codified it.

First Nochlin must debunk many myths rooted in the question “why have there been no great women artists?” which she does by establishing a status quo of the white male position accepted as natural (Nochlin). Nochlin uses John Stuart Mill to set up that status quo of the “white-male-position-accepted-as-natural” by quoting him saying “we tend to accept whatever is as natural” (qtd. In Nochlin). By establishing the status quo that men, their work, and their opinions are considered the forefront of society, she can go on to explain the issues in institutions and the way that they benefited and encouraged men and prohibited women from success. From there, she can make the claim that “women and their situation in the arts, as in other realms of endeavor, are not a “problem” to be viewed through the eyes of the dominant male power elite. Instead, women must conceive of themselves as potentially, if not actually, equal subjects, and must be willing to look the facts of their situation full in the face, without self-pity, or cop-outs,” (Nochlin). She uses Mill to put into question why women in the 1970’s should feel like they have to attempt to prove that there were talented female artists throughout history instead of addressing the root of the problem: institutions, which were solely geared toward the benefit of the achievement of men.

To further establish that women were codified of the resources and encouragement for artistic excellence, Nochlin presents a painstakingly and powerful quote from C.H. and C.A. White: “women were not accepted as professional painters” (qtd. Nochlin). They were not taken seriously as artists and were “deprived of encouragement, educational facilities and reward” (Nochlin). Beyond institutions preventing women from success, they were also held back by codifying viewpoints on what was “feminine” and “proper” for a woman to do, and becoming an expert in art was far from that. Women were haunted with the reality that if they were to pursue a successful career in art, or anything, they would have to be rebellious and ridiculed by society as masculine and selfish for pursuing a career instead of a domestic lifestyle. To prove this reality, Nochlin presents an angering quote from The Family Monitor and Domestic Guide written by Sarah Ellis before the middle of the nineteenth-century warning women against the “snare of trying too hard to excel in any one field” for it would “draw away her thoughts from others and fix them on herself…[something that] ought to be avoided as an evil, however brilliant or attractive it may be” (qtd. Nochlin). As soon as the reader finds this extremity of discrimination laughable, Nochlin points out that not enough has changed. Popular women’s magazines and a popular book at the time, Feminine Mystique ring that a well-rounded personality prepares a woman for marriage -- her “chief career,” -- and that deep involvement with her work is unfeminine (Nochlin). These secondary sources help Nochlin establish the stakes of her essay that reach beyond art history. She states “such an outlook helps guard men from unwanted competition in their ‘serious’ professional activities and assures them of “well-rounded” assistance on the homefront so that they can have sex and family in addition to the fulfillment of their own specialized talents at the same time” (Nochlin). Nochlin puts into question the entirety of the message of domesticity that women are fed and makes us wonder who it benefits, men or women?

Nochlin’s essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists” goes far beyond attempting to answer this popular question at the time and more rightly puts into question institutions and the male-dominated society that was running these institutions. Being that this article was written in 1971, it makes me wonder what stories of “proper” femaleness we are abiding by today that are more helpful to men than to us.

Works Cited

Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” Women, Art, and

Power and Other Essays, 2018, pp. 145–178., doi:10.4324/9780429502996-7.