In the second portion of the essay, entitled ‘ The Question of the Nude,’ Nochlin examines the social and institutional construction of the artistic profession, finally elaborating on why women did not have the ability to realistically achieve ‘greatness.’ Nochlin does identify a couple of women who fell into the category of the exception, but for a vast majority of women artists, who were deprived of the essential academic training necessary to be classified with the ‘greats’, specifically those academic courses focused on studying the nude male body, were out of reach for women. Also pointing to the fact that the question everyone is asking only touches the ‘tip of the iceberg’ when it comes to women participating in the professional realm of the visual arts. The heart of Nochlin’s argument lies in undoing the myth of genius, commonly associated with the male artists, and not the female artist. Women are more inward-looking, more delicate, and nuanced in their treatment of their mediumĪfter posing all of the wrong questions and then answering them with these generic and typical responses, Nochlin explains that we are examining the wrong question ultimately, the problem for women artists lies within the institutions and educational systems that govern the professional realm of the visual arts. There is a different kind of greatness for women’s art than for men’, there by postulating the existence of a distinctive and recognizable feminine style There are no great women artists because women are incapable of genius. In attempting to answer ‘why have there been no great women artists,’ Nochlin proves that the answers to the questions that we have been posing for decades, actually bring up a number of fallacies, including: What I have always enjoyed about her argument is that she openly states to the audience, from the beginning, we have been asking all the wrong questions, which leads to inappropriate answers with regards to the status, talent and intelligence of women artists over the course of history. In this essay, Linda Nochlin highlights and elaborates upon the reasons ‘why there have been no great women artists.’ Overall, I have always found Nochlin’s argument truthful and straightforward, as she attempts to answer the question she poses.
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