The Myth of “No Great Women Artists”: What Really Lies Behind It
Today, I begin by revisiting Linda Nochlin’s influential book “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”, whose latest edition was published in 2022. The rise of the women’s movement, most recently visible during Türkiye’s local elections, prompted me to delve deeper into the relationship between women and art. I have been reading widely to better understand gender inequality, and Linda Nochlin is an essential voice in this conversation.
Nochlin, an American art historian, professor, writer, and pioneering feminist, first published her groundbreaking essay in 1971. The book was translated into Turkish by Prof. Dr. Ahu Antmen in 2008 and republished on its 50th anniversary. As Antmen notes, Nochlin not only exposes how deeply male-centric the narrative of art and art history has been, but also reveals how profoundly Eurocentric its ideological foundations are.
Nochlin argues that artistic production relies on historically constructed conventions, schemas, and systems of codes. Art is not merely the result of a touching life story or an intimate act of confession. Confession may be a universal human impulse, she says, but not every confession becomes art. Moreover, in the 1970s, she drew attention to the systems and structures that determine whose expressions become visible, where, how, and according to which value systems. In this respect, she reminds us that feminism is, at its core, a human-centered demand for social justice.
Our second book, “Women Can’t Paint” by Helen Gorrill, an artist, editor, and educator in visual culture, pushes the discussion further. Gorrill’s findings are striking: she examines whether works by women artists are consistently valued less than those by men, and investigates the causes of this disparity in the contemporary art world. Her research suggests that this field carries its own distinct forms of discrimination. She identifies eleven different “glass ceilings” that hinder the proper recognition of women’s artistic achievements.
The book reveals the alarming extent of gender-based pay gaps and exposes significant institutional shortcomings.
Now, let us take a closer look at the key insights I’ve summarized below…
Note: This article was originally published on June 2, 2024.
George Baselitz once asked, “What is the biggest challenge for female painters?” and answered, “Actually, it’s that none of them can paint.”
I picked this question as the title for my article because it gets to the heart of the issue: the idea that women lack the basic qualities needed to be painters.
According to Prof. Dr. Ahu Antmen, these questions should also be asked for Türkiye. For example, why were the workshop instructors at art schools, long considered the centers of artistic authority in Türkiye, predominantly male, with only a few exceptions? Today, in the West, more egalitarian collection policies are being adopted, with exhibitions dedicated to female artists and retrospectives honoring their work. This trend, reflecting the “me too” movement that began in 2017, is also influencing Türkiye.
Nochlin explains her work as follows: To transcend the cultural and ideological boundaries of our time and reveal biases and inadequacies, it’s essential to address not only women’s issues but also significant problems within the entire discipline. This requires a feminist mindset dedicated to the topic, similar to that of John Stuart Mill. Thus, rather than being seen as a minor, marginalized, and absurdly trivial appendage to a serious and established discipline, what is referred to as the “women’s issue” can become a catalyst and an intellectual tool, leading to the investigation of fundamental and natural assumptions, the development of necessary paradigms for different forms of inquiry, and the establishment of connections with radical approaches and paradigms in other fields.
If we answer a simple question like “Why have there been no great women artists?” thoroughly, we can initiate a chain reaction that goes beyond accepted assumptions. This allows us to challenge the assumption that the traditional divisions are still adequate to deal with the meaningful questions of our time, rather than the merely convenient or self-generated ones.
When asked, “ Well, if women really are equal to men, why have there never been any great women artists, or mathematicians, or philosophers?” Nochlin argues that the accusatory nature of the question is self-answering: Asserting “ There are no great women artists because women are incapable of greatness” is essentially falling for the trap and trying to address the question in its flawed form.
Some feminists attempt to answer the question by slightly shifting the ground, asserting that the concept of “greatness” in women’s art is different from that in men’s art. They propose the existence of a distinct and recognizable feminine style, characterized by its unique formal and expressive qualities, grounded in the special conditions and experiences of women. Since it is acknowledged that women’s experiences and situations differ from those of men, the art produced by a group of consciously united women to express their shared feminine experience can be considered feminist art. However, Nochlin points out that female artists seem to be closer to other artists of their period than they are to each other.
The real issue lies not with feminists’ understanding of femininity but with the widespread misconception about what art is. The belief that art is a direct, personal expression of individual emotional experience, a translation of personal life into visual terms, is, according to Nochlin, a misconception. Art is rarely, if ever, that simple. Artmaking involves a language of form that is either dependent on or free from temporally defined conventions, schemata, or systems of notation, which must be learned through education, apprenticeship, or extensive individual experimentation.
The issue of women’s equality in art, as in any other field, stems not from the relative goodwill or ill-will of individual men, or the self-confidence or submission of individual women, but from the nature of our institutional structures and the view of reality they impose on those who are part of them. As John Stuart Mill noted, “Everything usual appears natural. The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural.” Most men, despite outwardly supporting equality, are reluctant to abandon this “natural” order of things in which their advantages are so significant. For women, the situation is further complicated by the fact that, unlike other oppressed groups or castes, men demand not only submission but also unqualified affection; thus, women are often weakened by both the internalized demands of a male-dominated society and by material comforts and luxuries.
Nochlin says: “Art is not a free, autonomous activity of a super-endowed individual, ‘influenced’ by previous artists, and, more vaguely and superficially, by ‘social forces’.”
“But rather, the total situation of art making, both in terms of the development of the art maker and in the nature and quality of the work of art itself, occurs in a social situation, are integral element of this social structure. They all are mediated and determined by social institutions, whether they are art academies, systems of patronage, mythologies of the divine creator, artist as he-man, or social outcast.”
Nochlin explains why women were able to compete on far more equal terms with men in literature—and even become pioneers in the field—by noting that art-making traditionally required learning specific techniques and skills within an institutional setting outside the home, as well as acquiring a specialized vocabulary of iconography and motifs. In contrast, this was not the case for poets or novelists. Anyone, including women, could learn to read and write and commit personal experiences to paper in the privacy of their own room. While this claim oversimplifies the real difficulties and complexities involved in creating good or great literature, whether by men or women, it hints at why figures like Emily Brontë or Emily Dickinson could emerge in literature, whereas comparable female figures in the visual arts were absent, at least until quite recently.
In the book “Women Can’t Paint”, author Helen Gorril sheds light on the subject through a total of 38 graphic works and findings. Research on contemporary painting, including analyses of figures and abstraction, content, technique, format, brightness, dimensions, signatures, or annotations, reveals a common thread: since the 1990s, methods and approaches labeled as “feminine” or “masculine” have transformed, with “feminine” methods becoming more “masculinized” and “masculine” methods becoming more “feminized”.
Gorrill’s goal is to address the issue of gender. She believes that adopting a categorization of men and women can lead to positive and constructive steps that benefit everyone. She believes that to give equality a real opportunity, we must permit new methods and ideas to thrive. The book also underscores the importance of acknowledging gender bias in society. It uses a categorization-based semi-quantitative approach to perform a feminist analysis of gender differences in the paintings of male and female artists, aiming to identify whether contemporary painting contains intrinsic “feminine” or “masculine” traits. Given that there are no distinct gender-based traits, and that a new androgynous aesthetic can even be discussed, it suggests that a work marked as “male” is considered more valuable than one marked as “female.”
The second chapter discusses data on contemporary art auction prices. The visibility of women in art auctions worldwide ranges between 10% and 25%. In the US and UK, the gender-based value difference in art reaches rates of around 80%. In the Middle Eastern sample group, visibility drops to as low as 2%. Based on these findings, the author concludes: Being a female artist is a whole different ball game compared to being a male artist, and as a result, a female artist’s work is frequently undervalued.
Another point is that while the value of male artists’ works increases with their signature, the opposite occurs for female artists; the value of their works decreases when signed. Do these findings indicate that if a painting is created by a male artist, the inherent masculinity, which is seen as a clear added value, enhances the painting’s worth? According to the book, it clearly shows that the position, representation, and popularity of female artists have declined since the 1990s, and today, fewer women can achieve success.
Art critic Brian Sewell claims that only men are capable of producing aesthetically superior works. His opinion on women’s limited capacity for achieving aesthetic excellence is supported by the fact that men receive 80% of the internationally distributed awards in regions such as the Middle East, America, the United Kingdom, and Europe. Interestingly, awards given in the Middle East show a more balanced gender distribution and a smaller gender-based value difference compared to other regions. According to the examined statistics, being nominated for or winning an award contributes to the symbolic value of an artist’s work. Unfortunately, this too is tied to whether the artist is male or female. Could this possibly, albeit unintentionally, reinforce the perception that the symbolic value of male artists is higher than that of female artists?
The process of enhancing an artist’s cultural and social capital is revealed to be crucial for their full recognition, with its effectiveness being closely tied to the artist’s gender.
When it comes to cultural and social capital, studies on how social, symbolic, and cultural capital are converted into economic capital reveal that gender inequality continues to persist in this area.
In an analysis of northern regions, Finland stands out as a model of complete gender equality, having addressed and resolved the issue of equality long ago and established itself as a pioneering leader in this area.
The author states that many of the artists interviewed shared incidents of discrimination by women against other women in the art world. This type of sexism is often referred to as the “Queen Bee” syndrome, which typically occurs in male-dominated environments. The reasons behind some women hiding their identities by only using initials on their works or adopting an androgynous image have been interpreted as such.
The author dedicates a section to suggestions for eliminating the causes of inequality.
The author suggests that in societies marked by inequality, embracing these kinds of manifestos might help dismantle the sexist glass ceiling that hovers over female artists. Art history programs should be designed to be more inclusive to address the ongoing underrepresentation and marginalization of women, while museums must implement policies that promote diversity and inclusivity in their collections. This might be achieved through museums and institutions taking on more public relations responsibilities. And of course, art historians and researchers in gender studies should adopt quantitative methods in their work. Additionally, educational institutions should provide funding for research on these issues.
I have shared some excerpts from both books, but if you want to draw conclusions or delve into the details, I would like you to enjoy the pleasure of reading the books yourself. Given everything we have discussed, can we conclude that women are their own greatest adversaries? Certainly not; such a generalization would be unfair. However, it’s a fact that women who embrace masculine behaviors forfeit many of their distinctive advantages. Despite societal expectations and norms regarding male and female behavior being challenging, and despite some of us, perhaps many of us, harboring admiration for the opposite sex, it’s important to recognize that men and women are created differently. This distinction benefits both genders and creates a complementary balance within the family unit. Of course, there are many examples where this balance is disrupted—children raised by single parents or boys and girls growing up with aunts, but these are not ideal outcomes. Remember, life is not a laboratory, and humans are not test subjects!
Of course, when approached as a societal project, individuals can be directed towards desired professions and arts, achieving remarkable success. For example, the current social wound, such as violence against women, is indicative of a deeply flawed and primitive understanding that treats women as commodities to be used and manipulated. This is fundamentally wrong from religious, social, and economic perspectives. Despite the media shedding light on this issue, the efforts remain insufficient. Unfortunately, I have yet to hear from policymakers or legislators regarding the necessary measures to address this issue. Whenever I hear about an incident of violence against a woman, I find myself hoping for change. I even wonder if these women have family members—sisters, brothers, cousins—and I cannot make sense of it. In our society, marriage is considered sacred as a union, so isn’t divorce, or the end of marriage, also sacred? Then why this male oppression? As I voice this, my goal is not to be complicit in this social injustice, as those who remain silent about oppression become perpetrators themselves.
After all, the authors are practically shouting from the rooftops that, indeed, women can be great painters: Remember, this is not the end, but the beginning. After this book, the ongoing inequalities in the art world will continue to be exposed. Let’s work together to find new ground and make the world a fairer place.
In a previous article of mine (https://muratulker.com/y/hepimiz-hz-ademin-ve-havvanin-cocuklariyiz/), I discussed a book that examines how the Torah, Psalms, Bible, and Quran portray women and their roles in family, worship, law, and society, including my perspectives on feminism. The article stated, “This analysis will give us a better understanding of contemporary feminism and related movements that are gaining popularity in the West and spreading across the globe.” I recommend reading Nochlin’s discussion on feminist art and artists through this lens.
The conditions and status of women vary across the West, East, and Far East, in every region and society. To conclude, as stated in the article, When a woman takes part in society, she becomes more noticeable, making a bigger impact in all areas, like art, science, and sports.
References:
Nochlin, L. (2022). Neden Hiç Büyük Kadın Sanatçı Yok? [Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?] (A. Antmen, Trans.). Istanbul: Hayalperest.
Gorrill, H. (2021). Kadından Ressam Olmaz [Women Can’t Paint] (E. B. Alpay, Trans.). Istanbul: Hayalperest.
Note: This open-source article does not require copyright and can be quoted by citing the author.
