Differencing the Canon: Feminism and the Writing of Art's Histories (Re Visions : Critical Studies in the History and Theory of Art) - Hardcover

Pollock, Griselda

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415066999 ISBN 13: 9780415066990

Publisher: Routledge, 1999

Synopsis

In this major book, Griselda Pollock engages boldly in the culture wars over `what is the canon?` and `what difference can feminism make?` Do we simply reject the all-male line-up and satisfy our need for ideal egos with an all women litany of artistic heroines? Or is the question a chance to resist the phallocentric binary and allow the ambiguities and complexities of desire - subjectivity and sexuality - to shape the readings of art that constantly displace the present gender demarcations?

About this title

Review:

..."Pollock deesentializes the category "woman," here well described as a fiction of the canon that erases class and race in the modernist movement--a rubbing-out that feminist art history can write back in." -"SIGNS "[A] keen critique of the canon as a gendered and gendering institution intent on excluding those who differ from its hegemonic structure of European male power." -" RACAR "The flow of the book is wondrous, as Pollack builds each new idea onto the next, rounded out with rigorous research." -"Foreword, 4/99 ..."a densely woven text of art, literature, history, and theory... powerful... rewarding." -Steven Z. Levine, Bryn Mawr College, "Woman's Art Journal, Spring/Summer 2001

Synopsis:

In this major new book, renowned art historian Griselda Pollock makes a compelling intervention into a debate at the very centre of feminist art history: should the traditional canon of the Old Masters be rejected, replaced or reformed? What difference can a feminist approach to art history make? Differencing the Canon moves between feminist re-readings of modern masters - Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Manet - and the canonical artists of feminist art history Artemisia Gentileschi and Mary Cassatt. Pollock asks both how women read and what might be different about art made by a woman. Pollock unpacks the representation of culturally resonant female figures in a range of texts, from Manets depiction of the model Jeanne Duval in his painting Olympia, to Charlotte Brontes Lucy Snowe, artists representations of Cleopatra and Angela Carters Black Venus . She argues that it is not enough simply to read as a woman; we must also acknowledge the differences between women shaped by racist and colonial hierarchies.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0415066999
• ISBN 13: 9780415066990
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368