The Expanding Discourse: Feminism And Art History (Icon Editions)
This collection of 28 essays is an abundant and diverse exploration of feminist art history from the Renaissance to the present. Deft, intuitive writers equipped with the intellectual equivalent of a surgeon's scalpel cut into the established canon to expose how sexual bias has distorted Western art history. In the introductory text, the editors warn that the "postmodern position that no qualitative standards in art are legitimate" can be construed as a device to exclude those who are not white male artists from an "expanding and changing canon." Essays like Patricia Simons's "Women in Frames" methodically reveal depictions of the female body as subservient to the (male) viewer's gaze, the function of which is control and supervision. As a whole, this book is a thoughtful, stimulating collection that addresses the mechanism inherent in art that works to block women's emotional, social, and political self-realization. Highly recommended.- Marigrace Maselli, New YorkCopyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.