Gender and Aesthetics

An Introduction

Carolyn Korsmeyer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781134500468
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Feminist approaches to art are extremely influential and widely studied across a variety of disciplines, including art theory, cultural and visual studies, and philosophy. Gender and Aesthetics is an introduction to the major theories and thinkers within art and aesthetics from a philosophical perspective, carefully introducing and examining the role that gender plays in forming ideas about art. It is ideal for anyone coming to the topic for the first time. Organized thematically, the book introduces in clear language the most important topics within feminist aesthetics:

• Why were there so few women painters?
• Art, pleasure and beauty
• Music, literature and painting
• The role of gender in taste and food
• What is art and who is an artist?
• Disgust and the sublime.

Each chapter discusses important topics and thinkers within art and examines the role gender plays in our understanding of them. These topics include creativity, genius and the appreciation of art, and thinkers from Plato, Kant, and Hume to Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. Also included in the book are illustrations from Gaugin and Hogarth to Cindy Sherman and Nancy Spero to clarify and help introduce often difficult concepts. Each chapter concludes with a summary and further reading and there is an extensive annotated bibliography. Carolyn Korsmeyer's style is refreshing and accessible, making the book suitable for students of philosophy, gender studies, visual studies and art theory, as well as anyone interested in the impact of gender on theories of art.

1

ARTISTS AND ART

A brief history of concepts

W hat is art? What is an artist? Each concept is defined in terms of the other: who counts as an artist partly depends on what is produced, and whether a product is a work of art partly depends on who produced it. Let us begin by considering the concept of the creator: the person who makes art, whether that art be poetry or painting or music, architecture or sculpture or dance. Of course, by listing these particular arts, I have already importantly prejudged the terms of discussion, for the answers would be different had I included the person who makes quilts or jigsaw puzzles or wedding cakes; or the person who spins, weaves, or throws pottery; or who blows glass or manufactures furniture or binds books. As we shall see in the course of this chapter, the identification of certain persons as artists changes through history with shifting categories of things that are considered works of art.

The contemporary notion of an artist is inseparable from ideas about self-expression, imagination, and creativity, all of which suggest a particular kind of freedom that artists are accorded. Today an artist is often considered to be a breed of free spirit, a nonconformist unbound by social convention or pedestrian rules. At best, this freedom may indicate genius, even though the originality of genius is often misunderstood until the passage of time delivers a verdict. Thus this vision of artists often pictures them as romantically isolated and lonely figures. This chapter will question the origin and conceptual framework that supports this popular image of the artist in order to determine why there are so few women in the lists of recognized artistic geniuses. Indeed, especially at certain periods of history, it has been difficult even to conceive of women fitting into the image of a fully autonomous artist who creates for the sake of creation alone. Why is this, and what does it indicate about the role of gender distinctions in concepts of creativity?

Historians have produced considerable scholarship about the patterns of exclusion that, at significant periods of the past, have all but barred women from entering fields such as painting or sculpture or musical composition, and that have hampered their advancement and recognition in other fields such as literature.¹ Our focus now, however, is not chiefly on the history of exclusionary education or social barriers; these are contingent practices that change with the passage of time and the exigencies of situation. Rather, we are interested in the nature of the very concepts that shape philosophy of art and aesthetic norms, the theoretical frameworks that influence social practice. Here we also find gender distinctions and tenacious concepts of “femininity” and “masculinity” in play.

Conceptual foundations

This investigation of the way that gender operates in aesthetics requires a preface: a review of foundational assumptions about human nature and of what makes possible the achievements of culture and civilization. Art is a phenomenon comprising significant components of culture, and the best of it is taken to present reflection and insight into human life and its meaning. Those people who produce art of profundity and lasting value, whether satirical, taxing, tragic, comic, uplifting, or beautiful, are accorded special honor and considered to embody a lofty and difficult level of human achievement. The concept of the artist-creator is founded on beliefs about what qualities of human beings give them the capacities for the highest levels of cultural accomplishment; according to venerable tradition, rationality is the essential mental capability that grounds human achievement in general. Feminist perspectives on reason and rationality are directed at all areas of philosophy, though they are cited in aesthetics less often than they might be, probably because art and aesthetic values are frequently and facilely associated with “non-rational” areas of endeavor, with intuition and imagination and feeling. But at the same time the governance of these mental activities, which separates inspiration from nonsense and aesthetic insight from mere eccentricity, requires a disciplined and tough mentality that is traditionally considered to be rooted in rational capabilities.

The concept of an independent rational faculty that separates man from beast and thereby describes essential human nature dominates western theories of knowledge, of morals, of politics, of human nature, of culture; indeed, there is no area of philosophy not under its long influence. It is also one of the most complexly marked of theoretical concepts, operating in different forms in various contexts, modifying not only gender but also the position of subordinated social groups in general. Though often not explicit, rationality has significance for the idea of creativity and the ability to be trained in artistic skills, as well as for the autonomy of mind that is requisite for inventiveness and originality.

First, some general observations: reason is traditionally designated the faculty of the mind that distinguishes human from nonhuman activity. This is both a descriptive and a normative generalization, for it is believed to be a fact that only human beings exercise rationality. To some extent they thereby escape the laws of nature and are capable of building cultures and civilizations, exercising a degree of choice over how they live that is not possible for other animals. Therefore reason also has a value-laden meaning: it is not only an essential human trait that virtually defines what it means to be a human being, but it is also our best quality, the one that permits artistic achievement, moral choice, scientific knowledge. These general claims about rationality pertain to all human beings—male, female, past, present, familiar, foreign.

And yet: different degrees of reason are frequently invoked to account for social difference and for what, in certain periods of history, is considered to be a “natural” superiority of some people over others, a superiority of mind and temperament that validates hierarchies of power, education, and rank. It is by no means restricted to the superiority of male over female; one can find such reasoning at work in accounts that try to justify slavery, for example, or in speculations about the persistence of class and economic differences in societies. Such rationales are consistently and systematically invoked to describe gender difference in social roles and abilities; for in numerous theoretical contexts reason is considered the chief trait that elevates male over female within our species. That is to say, while females possess reason, they exercise it less adeptly than do males, thus making them, in the opinion of many influential philosophical and religious systems, less capable of self-governance and therefore the natural subordinates of men in all circumstances from domestic life to politics.² The dual role of reason—not only to mark the difference between human and nonhuman but also to distinguish among members of the human species—has resulted in a tangled set of conceptual counterparts that connect reason with “masculine” activities and traits, and nonreason with “feminine” correlates. Insofar as women are human, they are rational. Insofar as they are feminine, they are drawn into a system of symbols that represent the nonrational regions of mind and uncontrolled and inchoate nature. Note that this division of abilities and traits does not really separate males from females. It is more apt to separate what are extolled as human/male traits from symbols and concepts that are contrastingly labeled “feminine.” Further complicating the situation, in some circumstances characteristics that fall on the “feminine” side are appropriated by male subjects; this happens with values associated with artistic creativity and discerning taste, as we shall soon discover. Because both the sense and the reference of gendered terms can be ambiguous, understanding their import always requires careful attention to historical and social context.

While our focus is on aesthetics, it is worth bearing in mind the widespread influence of these ideas in virtually all fields of philosophy, and relatedly in those areas of science, politics, psychology, and religion that historically justify their scope and methods by reference to philosophical foundations. All of these areas are tied together, so constraints in one field reverberate in others.³ In brief: in epistemology—the study of the nature of perception and the formation of knowledge—the paradigmatic knower is modeled on a concept of male nature which is capable of exercising reasoning abilities to their fullest extent, while to female nature is ascribed a contrasting emotional and intuitive temperament. Because emotions are standardly regarded as unreliable and idiosyncratic, this description has both theoretical and practical consequences not only for female educational and scientific achievement, but also for the idea of female moral reliability. In ethics and moral philosophy, the model of the person who exercises responsibility, possesses just principles, and executes free choice and clear decision-making is the male agent. By comparison, the image of femininity is merciful and kind but also vacillating, swayed by particular circumstances and practical exigencies, and apt therefore to be inconsistent and irresponsible. This female moral sensibility may be seen in wicked or good lights. Hamlet railed, “Frailty, thy name is woman!” when he worried that his mother had succumbed to sinful sexual desire; but the Victorian sentimental image of the “angel in the house” pictured the chaste mother of the home as imbued with natural kindness and goodness, the all-forgiving source of love. Neither the flattering nor the unflattering characterization, however, equips women to exercise public power. The public sphere of policy and law-giving is conceived as both masculine and the purview of males, for political life requires that one be capable of formulating dispassionate general laws to govern society with disinterested justice. The domestic sphere is conceived as a female domain, where matters of particular concern and quotidian remedies for the ups and downs of personal life are addressed.

Generally speaking, the world of male values is abstract and associated with the “mind,” that of the female, concrete and particular and associated with the “body.” It has seemed to follow in philosophies from Aristotle onward that cognitive abilities and natural proclivities have been unequally distributed in males and females.⁴ In what has become a rather infamous series of binary oppositions often analyzed from feminist perspectives, human traits and activities are paired in conceptual hierarchies that systematically place women and “feminine” traits and activities in subordinate positions. Reason and the mind, justice, activity, and public responsibility are all identified as masculine domains where males best function, while emotion and the body, whim, passivity, and domesticity are assigned to the feminine realm.⁵ In short, no matter what activity we examine, the conceptual framework that organizes ideas about who is best equipped to do what, tends to place the male function as the most important for all but domestic roles (and even here, it is the male head who is supposed to govern the household).

As we shall see, this hierarchy has deep implications for notions of creativity and the idea of the artist. Even though the image of the artist changes and develops in different historical contexts, one detects in both theoretical and practical dimensions assumptions about the differential capacities of male and female artists. Notably, this occurs in spite of the fact that when theorists investigate the creative power of the artist, reason often does not take center stage but gives way to imagination, inspiration, intuition, or emotion. If these are contrasted with the rational faculties, and if the rational faculties are gendered as masculine, then why do we not see female characteristics clustering around ideas of artistic creativity? This question will be addressed in more detail later, where we shall see how the split between femaleness and the exercise of the highest, most strenuous, and difficult human capabilities promotes an image of women as closer to nature and more distant from the construction of civilized achievement. Although metaphors of labor, midwifery, and birth are prevalent in discourse about artistic creativity, women are associated with procreativity—a natural function that ties them to their bodies and to “animal” reproduction; it is men who are assigned the role of artistic creativity free from biological destiny. All of this has a very long history, and a review of this history can help us see the depth and extent of the gendering of the concept of the artist.

This chapter will lead up to some modern concepts regarding the artist that are the immediate precursors to our own times. These include ideas about creativity, imagination, and skill that have gradually emerged since the Renaissance, attaining systematic theoretical justification in the eighteenth century. Not only is this period formative of the ideas about creative artists that, by and large, still hold sway today (despite the fact that they were shaped some time ago), but also the ideas developing in this era combine with reigning concepts of human nature and womanhood to imbue the idea of the artist with an especially virulent gender prejudice. But before tackling these more recent influences over our concept of the artist, it will be useful to consider the older historical backdrop against which modern concepts of the arts emerged.

The idea of the artist: ancient predecessors

When we discuss the classical Greek and Roman roots of concepts of art and art-making, we also have to be specific about which art forms are to be considered, reminding us once again that the notion of “artist” is inseparable from ideas about what counts as “art.” Today the general term “art” chiefly refers to the fine arts, such as painting or literature or music or theater. But this itself is a modern development, one that, as we shall see, had especially important consequences for the idea of the gender of the artist. However, no generic term that encompasses all of the genres of art was in use at the time that early philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle wrote about the subject we now designate “philosophy of art.” When ancient writers discuss artists, they distinguish among sculptors, painters, poets, musicians, orators, and so on. The Greek term that is often translated “art” in English is techne, which is better translated as “skill in making or doing” and can be applied to any kind of purposeful human activity. Although we now use the term “art” in contrast with non-artistic artifacts such as manufactured objects, older senses of this term employed it in general contrast with nature—i.e. to that which is not a product of human endeavor.⁶

While there is continuity between ancient theories of art and our own, the concepts employed have a history of development; we cannot simply match term for term and obtain an accurate picture. One important thing that the absence of a generic term “art” signals is that the distinction between fine and applied arts was not yet in use. So rather than singling out artists from (say) engineers or craftspeople, the term we translate “art” denoted particular activities of doing or making something which contributed to the welfare of society, including not only what we now call the arts but also what we would designate sciences and crafts.⁷ Because we often read the history of philosophy for clues about our own intellectual heritage, we tend to select comments about painting or sculpture or poetry or music, of which there are many in the ancient texts. In so doing we ignore oratory and recitation, not to mention metallurgy, shipbuilding, and other activities that the Greeks would have considered “arts” as well. Our modern distinction between fine art and craft or applied art is also culture-specific. It is not found in traditions such as those that arose in Japan, China, or India, for example, although those civilizations produced huge numbers of finely-wrought artifacts that now reside in art museums, as well as a large literature on art and standards for aesthetic evaluation.⁸ This is yet another indication that the products that count as art also have a history that shifts in tandem alongside the changing idea of the artist.

In the first century AD the Roman historian Pliny the Elder wrote his encyclopedic Natural History, which includes many chapters on artists of the ancient world. Pliny is our chief source of information about these ancient artists because he compiled his work by consulting the ea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Artists and art: a brief history of concepts
• 2 Aesthetic pleasures
• 3 Amateurs and professionals
• 4 Deep gender: taste and food
• 5 What is art? (Art is what?)
• 6 Difficult pleasures: sublimity and disgust
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Back Matter