Feminism and Art

Ellen Seay
WMST 250
Sect. 0101
Feminism and Art

The first museum that I decided to visit was the National Museum of Women in the Arts. I picked this one first because it seemed like a good jump off point to start my exploration of learning about feminism and art, in general. When first walking in, a grand staircase and lots of showy marble is easily noticeable. The appearance of this museum surprised me because I would have thought that the creators of the museum would want the colors and materials to be subtle so that the art could just speak for itself, but that is not the case in this museum.
As I walked around the Permanent Collection, I learned a lot about art, and women artists, which I have not ever studied before. I did not think that there were any really prominent artists from the sixteenth, seventeenth, or eighteenth centuries, but there was a fairly large section of art pieces from this time period. I suppose I had assumed that women in this time period were supposed to take care of the household and the children, and did not have time for hobbies like creating art. In actuality, information at the museum taught me that women from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries painted many still life and genre paintings. Still life painting became so well-known, that some artists made a living by specializing in one smaller area, painting lots of the same things. In the eighteenth century, women became highly regarded for a while, and people listened to what they had to say and they were allowed to do things that they hadn’t been able to do before, like participate in political discussion and create art. Soon though, they lost their power and were only allowed to paint portraits because they were in a higher demand.
The nineteenth century was turning point in the lives of women. The printing of books became easier, so more women were reading and learning about art. They predominantly depicted women’s lives as young girls, mothers and older women, which showed that domesticity was a proper subject for art. I had never really known that during these specific time periods, there were acceptable and unacceptable types of art that women could create; I just thought that they painted whatever they wanted to paint. I enjoyed the more modern sections of the Permanent Collection because it had a lot more variety. There were paintings, sculptures, and abstract pieces, all of which had lots of character and were pretty interesting. In seeing some of the abstract art, I learned that I had previously assumed that a lot of abstract art didn’t really count as art, when apparently, it does. This museum could be seen as both feminist and not feminist, depending on how you look at it. If you look at the whole art world, the museum is feminist. This is because the museum was created to produce equality in art displays among men and women. However, looking at the museum by itself, it is not feminist. It does not give equal representation to both men and women, which is the definition of feminism.
The National Museum of the American Indian also had many interesting art pieces, although a lot of the things displayed in this museum are recreations of earlier time period pieces. I had assumed that a good number of the things in this museum would be extremely old artifacts, especially clothes, but in actuality, this was not the case. The clothes section was my favorite part, but I was very surprised to see that the clothes were not very old, even though they seemed like the clothes that would have been worn a long time ago. The overall message of this museum, it seemed, was to tell people that the American Indians are still around and that they are still an active part of American culture today. A lot of the clothing was made by women, so I feel like this is the exhibit where women’s art is most prominent. The women were the people in the culture who made the clothes, and the different embellishments that the clothes had represented things like age, social status, and marital status. The museum is fairly feminist because there is art by both men and women, like clothes, pottery, weapons, and jewelry.
The National Gallery of Art was another museum that I visited. It had a wide variety of art pieces that I found to be interesting, and a lot of others that I did not particularly like. The building itself is its own art piece. It has amazing and unique architecture and beautiful gardens. This museum is definitely feminist because I felt like for every piece of art that I saw by a man, there was one done by a woman. In going into this museum, I had assumed that art was supposed to be aesthetically pleasing, but I found that there is a lot of art that just is not pretty. Some paintings, mainly ones that are abstract, are not particularly fun for me to look at. There are also many sculptures where I just don’t understand what the artist was thinking, so I do not find them aesthetically pleasing.
The last place that I went to was the Textile Museum. Before I entered this museum, I had never really considered textiles to be art, but someone has to come up with the designs for the textiles, and they have to make sure that people are going to like what they’ve made, otherwise they will not be successful. The museum also has many rugs and tapestries from countries all over the world and different time periods, so I learned a lot about what styles were in these places and time periods. I’m not completely sure if this museum is feminine because a lot of the textiles did not have names associated with the pieces, however some pieces seem more masculine and others seemed more feminine, so that makes the museum slightly more equal among men and women contributors.
Through this assignment, and experiencing the different things that so many museums have to offer, I have learned that a lot of my assumptions about women, and art have no reason behind them. It is interesting to go into these places and look at the art and displays with a different viewpoint because you discover things that you hadn’t thought of before. Overall I thought this was an interesting assignment and it allowed me to learn things about art and about myself as well.

Assumptions -
I assumed that feminists are extreme.

I assumed that artists are poor.

I assumed that abstract art doesn’t count as art.

I assumed that art is aesthetically pleasing.

I assumed that there are not very many famous female artists.

I assumed that women are only portrayed in art as beautiful and pure.

I assumed that feminists think men are inferior to women.

I assumed that art is mainly painting, drawing, and sculpture.