Review: 'Women in the Picture: Women, Art, and the Power of Looking' by Catherine McCormack
Pub. Date: 5/6/2021
Publisher: Icon Books
A bold reconsideration of women in art – from the ‘Old Masters’ to the posts of Instagram influencers
A perfect pin-up, a damsel in distress, a saintly mother, a femme fatale …
Women’s identity has long been stifled by a limited set of archetypes, found everywhere in pictures from art history’s classics to advertising, while women artists have been overlooked and held back from shaping more empowering roles.
In this impassioned book, art historian Catherine McCormack asks us to look again at what these images have told us to value, opening up our most loved images – from those of Titian and Botticelli to Picasso and the Pre-Raphaelites. She also shows us how women artists – from Berthe Morisot to Beyoncé, Judy Chicago to Kara Walker – have offered us new ways of thinking about women’s identity, sexuality, race and power.
Women in the Picture gives us new ways of seeing the art of the past and the familiar images of today so that we might free women from these restrictive roles and embrace the breadth of women’s vision.
The concept of the "male gaze" was first introduced by art critic John Berger, but the one who really "coined" it, and introduced it to a wider audience, was Feminist film critic Laure Mulvey. Her critique clearly analyzed how women, in art and film specifically, are consistently viewed in a way that highlights their desirability to a male audience. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Whether it is classical art, paintings, photography, film and sometimes even theatre, women are displayed as objects, meant to be ogled, not understood as human beings. In Women in the Picture McCormack addresses the way in which women are posed, the way in which Women of Colour are judged and mocked, and how certain trends have evolved over time.
Women in the Picture starts with Classical Art, discussing statues of Venus and paintings by Titian and Botticeli. The way in which she is posed, hip cocked, one hand gently covering the vagina, eyes far away, she becomes an object. From there McCormack tracks trends through different centuries, looking at how female artists have tried to reclaim the female body, to infuse it with actual life, to have women represent a female experience and not a male desire. It is not an overly academic book, but strongly founded in McCormack's scholarship. While some of the connections or comments made in Women in the Picture didn't entirely resonate with me, I gained many new ideas and considerations from this book.
Catherine McCormack's writing is clear and uncomplicated, which means that Women in the Picture is accessible to a wide audience. Her intent is to inform and to start a conversation, to discuss how classical art influences everything from Instagram influencers to shaving commercials, how it directly impacts how young women see themselves. While there is no answer, per se, on how to "solve" this issue, since that requires much more than a single book, McCormack understands the importance of starting a conversation, of raising awareness, and Women in the Picture does that brilliantly. Her highlighting of the difference in which Women of Colour, and specifically African(-American) women, are portrayed, compared to white women, needs to be understood by everyone and I'm glad it was laid out as clearly as it was. I would have loved to see more images since so many amazing paintings and photographs are mentioned. However, I do appreciate that due to rights etc. it may have been difficult to include all of them.
I give this book...
4 Universes!
Women in the Picture is a very informative and, despite its difficult topic, enjoyable read. For anyone interested in understanding the connection between art, culture, self-perception, race and much more, this is a crucial starting point.
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