Art history, like other kinds of history, favors the "great man" theory.
Museums are filled with larger-than-life battle scenes, made by man heroes about man heroes, in tragic, bitter, death scenes.
To determine the aesthetic value and relative importance of art made by women, art historians have traditionally ascribed "feminine" qualities to the work. And so, what women make is often cataloged by museums as decorative; precious; miniature; sentimental, and temporary.
Art history prefers monumental concepts and scale of Michelangelo to the selective or intimate portraiture of Anne Mee.Feminist art historians like Whitney Chadwick attribute this difference to simple dependence on binary oppositions within Western thought:
man/woman;
nature/culture;
analytic/intuitive.
(What about art/craft?)
Joanna Vasconcelos' intricate crochet over laptop and mouse; the doily a typical example of women's handiwork, an ultimately useless thing made by women with time on their hands. A simple household embellishment? Femininity quietly installed in the cubicle? Lace restraints.
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