Two questions: women as subjects and women as artists
When we study art with a gender perspective, we ask two simple questions.
- Who is shown? This is about the subject of the work.
- Who made it? This is about the artist.
The answers are often very different. Women appear in thousands of paintings and statues, but for a long time very few of those works were made by women. The wall in the 3D uses an example: 7 of 10 pictures show women, but only 1 of 10 is made by a woman. These numbers are a teaching model, not a real count.
How women were shown: images of women
In many old works women are shown in a few fixed roles: a goddess, a mother, a beauty to look at, a model, a helper. The picture is often made to please the person looking. Writers on art call this the male gaze: the world seen through the eyes of a male maker and a male buyer.
A critical view means we stop and ask: Who chose this pose? Who paid for it? What is left out? For example, a woman may be painted as a quiet object, while the same era had women who ran farms, taught, healed and ruled.
Not every image is bad. The point is to look carefully and to see that an image is a choice, not just the truth.
Women as artists through history
Women have made art in every age, even when it was hard.
- Sofonisba Anguissola (Italy, 1500s) painted lively portraits and was invited to a royal court.
- Artemisia Gentileschi (Italy, 1600s) painted strong women from old stories in the Baroque style.
- Rosa Bonheur (France, 1800s) was famous for animal paintings.
- Amrita Sher-Gil (India, 1900s) mixed European training with Indian village life.
- Frida Kahlo (Mexico, 1900s) used self-portraits to tell about pain and identity.
- Women in homes and villages made quilts, embroidery, Madhubani and Warli art. These are art too, even when no signature was added.
The doors that were closed, and the struggle for visibility
Why were there so few known women artists? The 3D shows three closed doors.
- Art school: many academies did not accept women.
- Life class: drawing the human body from a live model was key training, and women were long kept out of it.
- Selling: it was hard for women to run a studio, sign contracts or be shown in big exhibitions.
In 1971 the art historian Linda Nochlin wrote an essay saying the real problem was not talent but the lack of chances. In 1985 a group of artists called the Guerrilla Girls began to wear gorilla masks and put up posters asking museums to show more women. As doors opened, the number of known women artists grew. Today we also ask for fair pay, fair prizes and fair space for all genders.
Key formulas and definitions
- Subject = who or what is shown in a work
- Artist = the person who made the work
- Gaze = whose eyes the picture is made for
- Visibility = how often a person’s work is shown, named and remembered
- Share (%) = (works by women ÷ all works) × 100
Worked examples
1. A gallery has 40 paintings. 6 are by women. What percentage is by women?
Share = 6 ÷ 40 × 100 = 15%.
2. On the 3D wall, 7 of 10 pictures show women and 1 of 10 is made by a woman. Compare the two numbers in one sentence.
Seven pictures show women, but only one was made by a woman. So women were shown six times more often than they were the maker (7 vs 1).
3. Look at a film poster that shows a woman smiling at the camera, with a man behind her looking serious. Give one question a critical viewer can ask.
Who decided this pose? Why is the woman placed to be looked at while the man is shown as strong? Is there a woman on the film team who chose the poster? Any of these questions is a good critical question.
Common mistakes
- Thinking "women in art" only means pictures of women. It also means women who made art.
- Saying there were no women artists in the past. There were many; their names were often left out of books.
- Believing the numbers on the 3D wall are real statistics. They are a model for learning.
- Judging old artists by today’s rules without asking about their time. Ask what was allowed then.