Ernst Gombrich’s 1950 ‘The Story of Art’ is the truth.
Led by clear narration, skillful ability to condense a massive time period into less than 700 pages and careful blend of visual and contextual analysis, ‘The Story of Art’ was the undebated history.
Despite having misplaced my copy, I also held it in high esteem. But there was something lacking, something overlooked: where were the women?
Comments on women were brief, limited to just the roles of the wife and artistic subject (see the covers, which more or less all of which feature artwork with a woman). In fact, only one female artist is included in the text and that was in the 16th edition. And yet this was supposedly the undebated truth? Were there really no female artists worth mentioning? Did no woman ever hold any influence over art?
It’s easy to take the short route answer and say that women have always been sidelined and pushed away from positions of power, let alone that of artistic power. But this would be untrue, as Hessel keenly points out.
Hessel’s text offers another take on the narration told by Gombrich, encapsulated in the witty title ‘The Story of Art without Men.’ She distances us from the viewpoint provided by prior histories in order to showcase the talents of non-male artists who have been left out of these histories entirely even if they were incredibly famous during their lifetime, impacting both society and art. We can see this in Mary Delany’s use of collage techniques in the 18th century, making her the first collage artist, rather than- as Google suggests- that title being one held by Picasso.
Even earlier was the self-portrait of Caterina Van Hemessen, of which was the first of its kind to depict the artist at their easel.
Many artists saw their ideas stolen by their famous male counterparts, such as Mackintosh’s ‘The Opera of the Sea’ of which includes figures, pattern and composition similar to that of Gustav Klimt’s ‘The Kiss.’
There’s also Marlow Moss, whose style was evidently copied by Mondrian.
Highlighting these artists is a step closer to putting them in their rightful positions in the artistic canon, along with the male artists that copied and even stole.
One aspect of the text that I particularly enjoyed was her attention to lesser known artists. Whilst she covered the greats- like Kahlo, The Guerilla Girls, Artemisia Gentileschi (all of which are bizarrely left out of the history books)- she also looked at artists who are overlooked due to their gender expression, sexuality or mental condition, such as Gluck, for example. Through this range of artists, she was able to express variety of human experience and creativity, countering the idea that ‘women’s’ art is defined by their gender and gender only, whilst men’s art is defined by their personal experience.
Its through this that Hessel points out how the study of art itself is gendered. Even if an artist was famous during her lifetime, she is forgotten after her death due to the sexism (see Sofonisba Anguissola or Vigée le Brun).
The artistic practice itself has been gendered by the men who analyze it and write on it. Chadwick points this out in her 1990 book ‘Women, Art, and Society,’ stating: “The wholesale rewriting of the history of art as separate and distinct lineages for men and women laid the groundwork” for the study of art itself. In other words: art history is gendered.
And it’s here that Hessel tripped up.
But before I get into that lengthier debate I want to point out a couple of other downsides to the text.
Firstly, the visual and sometimes even contextual analysis was poor. At first I longed for some analysis so as to direct my reading of the works presented and to highlight the qualities of the artists. But when analysis was finally given I found it backed up with little to no evidence, making Hessel’s ideas completely inert.
But this is what took away the book’s credibility even more: Hessel had set out to distance herself from the limited viewpoint of Gombrich’s text, but ultimately reinforced his Western-centric attitudes. Whilst there are a scattering of artists from other parts of the world the focus is mostly on the West. It can be debated that this is just her research focus, but why then would she title it ‘The Story of Art’: does the story of art only encompass the West? She does address this flaw of her work, but this could have been easily overcome by doing more research.
Now back to what I found was the biggest flaw of the book, on which the entire text was based on: to make women’s art history a part of mainstream art history, it must not be divided from it, but Hessel did exactly that. This is only prolonging the gendered ideas that art history has previously been approached with.
Returning to Chadwick’s comment on how art history is studied with these “separate and distinct lineages for men and women,” where men’s art history is simply phrased as ‘The Story of Art’ but then there’s the art history belonging to women. The history of art versus women’s history of art. Hessel’s title wittily side-steps this issue, but the concept of her book does not. Are we not at a stage where all artists can take there place alongside their male counterparts in the artistic canon?
It can be argued that women need a distinct history due to their unique “Female art,” as the art historian Anna Brownwell Jameson debated. Whilst women go through a unique experience, so does everyone else: no one’s art should be defined by one characteristic when the true variety of art is found in the variety of human experience itself, not in a singular, externally-defined label. By continuing this narrative, we feed into the ideas held by sexist art critics from the past.
Examples of such as seen in the unnamed response to Louise Nevelson’s first exhibition in 1946, where one man said “we learned the artist was a woman, in time to check our enthusiasm. Had it been otherwise, we might have hailed these sculptural expressions as by surely a great figure among the moderns.” Therefore, talent and skill are not limited in woman due to her being a woman, but by the external views of women which place certain preconceived characteristics upon her. Hans Hoffman’s comment on Lee Krasner also expresses this view as he said her “work is so good, you would never have believed it was done by a woman.” He places Krasner on a pedestal, hailing her as a great, but putting other women down. In this way, the effect is more belittling than actually praising. A few female artists are seen as exceptions to their sex. On this, Chadwick draws our attention to how “throughout the history of western art there have been a tendency to exoticize the woman artist as an exception and then paradoxically to use her unique status as a woman to undermine her achievement,” as evidenced in both the quotes above.
Whilst Hessel avoids the sexist viewpoint preferred by male art historians of the past, she does not escape the narrative itself. In fact, she perpetuates it. Supposedly we are not yet at a point in art history where marginalized groups can be a part of art history.
Despite my criticism, the book in and of itself was good. I gave it a high rating due to how informative it was. I recommend it if you want to explore lesser known artists. But besides that, I believe we are long overdue an art history that is all encompassing to finally get rid of this idea that there’s art…then there’s women’s art.
Here are some questions to consider:
How can we further integrate marginalized narratives of art history into the mainstream?
Have you read Hessel’s book, if yes, what did you think of it?
and,
How influential is gender over an artist’s work?
Further reading:
Currently reading: ‘The Name of the Rose’ by Umberto Eco
Random Recommendation: ‘In Bloom’ by Zerobaseone
Have a good day! (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)