Feminism and Art History

The history of mankind has often been captured in snapshots between the rise and fall of great leaders and civilizations, by artists all with a common dream of portraying what they saw during their times. Ideologies reflective of their societies were depicted through sculptures, frescoes, pottery, paintings, and many other methods. Many of these principals were created, celebrated, and popularized by constituents of societies where andocentric values were applied not only to social and political mores, but also to the various art forms as the male body was cherished and praised and the female body was hidden away from public view. The book Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany edited by Norma Broude and Mary D. Garrad, strives to examine the role of women in art history as well as articulating the pleasures and problems of artistic pieces in a contemporary feminist vantage point. According to Broude and Garrad in the introduction, modern feministic views have changed the scope of art history in that "…feminism has raised fundamental questions for art history as a humanistic discipline, questions that are now affecting its functioning at all levels and that may ultimately lead to its definition." In this book they have dissected widely accepted paradigms of the beauty aesthetic, which directly challenges the idolization of the male physique. In the chapter entitled "Matrilineal Reinterpretation of Some Egyptian Sacred Cows" by Nancy Luomala the concept of power is discussed as Luomala scrutinizes the ancient power structures of Egyptian society, and how in fact it's actually through matrilineal descent that men were able to receive the status of Pharaoh. Luomala theorizes that it was the Egyptian "Great Wife that made whomever she married into a living king. (Luomala pg.30) I found her analysis of the definitions of the ancient symbolism in regards to power and kinship, and how she uses the different images and monuments to elucidate her argument