Description
Book SynopsisIn 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?
Trade Review'The flow of the book is wondrous, as Pollock buils each new idea onto the next, rounded out with rigorous research.' - Elizabeth Millard, ForeWardo
'If you like psychoanalytic feminism accompanied by committed, sensitive writing, then you will enjoy this read.' - Professor Gen Doy, The Art Book
Table of ContentsPreface PART I Firing the canon 1 About canons and culture wars 2 Differencing: feminism's encounter with the canon PART II Reading against the grain: reading for ... 3 The ambivalence of the maternal body: re/drawing Van Gogh 4 Fathers of modern art: mothers of invention: cocking a leg at Toulouse-Lautrec PART III Heroines: setting women in the canon 5 The female hero and the making of a feminist canon: Artemisia 6 Feminist mythologies and missing mothers: Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Bronte, Artemisia Gentileschi and Cleopatra 7 Revenge: Lubaina Himid and the making of new narratives for new histories PART IV Who is the other? 8 Some letters on feminism, politics and modern art: when Edgar Degas shared a space with Mary Cassatt at the Suffrage Benefit Exhibition, New York 1915 9 A tale of three women: seeing in the dark, seeing double, at least, with Manet
