How do critics and art historians define "great" in art and how does t

Question:

How do critics and art historians define "great" in art and how does this exclude women?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

You should look for essays by Linda Nochlin on the subject. She was one of the earliest to look at this issue.

To a certain extent, the notion of "great" art and the "true" artist is very much defined as male historically. For hundreds of years, women were blocked from training. Now they aren't, but women continue to experience a lack of recognition or respect. They aren't offered gallery shows as much. Women are often defined as trivial or decorative, even if their work doesn't offer much evidence of that. Another factor: women are often seen as simply the wives or girlfriends of famous artists, even when their work was of very high merit itself (Elaine de Kooning). That's not even going into the demands of motherhood or keeping a home (Kathe Kollwitz).

Even today, when women make up a majority of art students, they continue to be radically underrepresented in art shows.

In classical music, the powers that be used to insist for years that men were better musicians and that's why women were underrepresented in orchestras. Then they introduced blind auditions and lo and behold, the number of women hired shot upward. Sometimes I think something similar has to be done in the visual arts.