Marjorie Hall

Aesthetic

Crafty Women and the Hierarchy of the Arts

(Art from a Womans Point of View)

In this text Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock, mention how art as long since been
divided by two main classifications: Fine Arts and Crafts. This huge distinction has unfortunately
also affected how women are seen in the arts. In this hierarchy the arts of painting and
sculpture enjoy an elevated status while other arts that adorn people, homes or utensils are
relegated to a lesser cultural sphere under such terms as applied, "decorative" or "lesser" arts.
(Korsmeyer, 1998, P. 44). Through out history women have been steered more to the crafts such
as embroidery and needlepoint, because it was seen as a feminine art and also as a woman's job
in the house. Throughout time, every work of art that women have been credited for have either
been declassified as a craft to deem it less important and more common or has been classified as
a womens art, such as Flower Painting By the late eighteen century flower painting had
become a common genre for women artists. (Korsmeyer, 1998, P. 45) or embroidery
Needlework began to embody and maintain a feminine stereotype (Korsmeyer, 1998, P. 48).

Thus, we see that art has been preordained a hierarchy of sorts, in which Fine arts are left
to men and, even though they still could be considered an art, crafts were left to women;

especially the more feminine crafts. This is seen through the arts of quilting as well, and the more
we look into the matter, the more we notice that women's art has always fallen beneath the
hierarchy of the art of men. Patchwork quilt making was a domestic art and therefore different
from painting and sculpture. Because of the place quilts were made, at home by women in the
fulfillment of domestic duties (Korsmeyer, 1998, P. 54). Criticized only as something
unintelligent and common, that even though beautiful, the beauty is only meant to reflect the
beauty of the women who created it.

This creates a system of control in which women are belittled by the arts they were
expected or allowed to perform, creating a circle in which women were forced down by the
limits set by men. Unable to be seen as the true artist because of stereotype and male dominated
cultures. But the art of men can only maintain its dominance and privilege on the pages of art
history by having a negative to its positive, a feminine to its unacknowledged
masculine. (Korsmeyer, 1998, P. 55).

Questions:
1) Isn't embroidery one of the original forms of arts since the beginning of time, and if so,
doesn't that make man even more ignorant by treating it like a second hand craft?

2) In our visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, I could notice there were many beautiful and
amazing paintings, where the authors were men. Could history still affect the decision of
women to choose to be painters (artists) as a profession today? or otherwise?