Feminist Aesthetics: Examining Art Through Gender, Race, Class, & Nationality - Essay Sample

Introduction

Aesthetics looks at how artists conceive, create and carry out works of art; how these works of art are used, relished and evaluated; and what goes on in people's thoughts the moment they look at a painting, listen to music, or recite poetry, and comprehend what they see and hear (Melanie 12). Feminist aesthetics is an instrument for evaluating how art is questioned and deconstructed on assumptions of values aligned to gender, race, class, and nationality. It aims to criticize and correct how a person's gender, race, social class, or nationality affects our perception of art and what is to be considered beautiful. It brings forth the significance of women's voices and choices, just as men's where art and beauty are concerned (Melanie 15). This is due to the feminist belief that women artists are more inward-looking, more gentle, and nuanced in their working on a given medium (Nochlin 344).

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The skill of quilting became common mostly in the 19th century due to the invention of the cotton gin, and it was established as a feminine domestic craft (Melanie 18). Jonathan Holstein later revived it in 1971, which brought back the desire to learn the skill. Quilting later became a practice that bridged the difference between art and craft and led to a rise of a feminist debate to ascertain its place in the art world. This is because women dominated the craft for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, and it helped them to express their vision of creativity and reflection of their experiences (Chave 222). This fact later led to the shift of this practice away from the traditional craft ideals and towards the old male-dominated fine art world, which was the beginning of the debate. It is, therefore, essential to examine the potential of quilting as a craft or as an aspect of fine art.

The tenets of modernism determine what is labeled as an art as opposed to what is considered a craft. These tenets include formalism (visual elements i.e., line, color, and shape), originality, and artistic autonomy (the proposition that art is separate from other aspects of life). This distinctiveness of art is maintained by the equally supporting hierarchies of superior aesthetics, which heighten art over craft, conceptual over manual, mind over body, idea over matter, product over process, sight over touch, and masculine over feminine (Melanie 20). Due to these hierarchies, therefore, these tenets of modernism do not classify quilting as art, for it is opposed to its traditional values such as touch, care, cost, expertise, and mostly the current specialists of quilting who are primarily female. Hostility towards women in art is amplified by the history of art and its views. It argued that art in totality was fit only for males. Women were thought, by fate, to lack wit, judgment, and skill only by the virtue that they were born female (Christine 559).

In September 2002, one reporter of the Wall Street Journal printed a headline to question the authenticity of showcasing quilts in art galleries. Reporter Brooks Barnes published the article some days before the first Gee Bend quilts display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas. He implied that by including quilt shows, art museums were giving in to low standards and looking for standard techniques of filling galleries (Chave 221). However, in the second and final Gee Bend show opened at the Whitney, Newsweek magazine critic Peter Plagens wrote that the quilts were no less than the equal of any painting made by any trained artist. He considered the exceptional color of the quilts, their bold and astonishing composition, and mostly the elusive visual invention. Soon other newspaper critics like Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times also agreed in acknowledging the artistry of the quilts in modern America. This brewed a great dispute partly because this artistic success not only emerged from the rural south of the United States but also from women who descended from slaves (Chave 230).

On the other hand, there were those against the modernism doctrines and argued for the artistry represented by the quilts. Most took the feminist approach and fought for the world to see the beauty, skill, and emotions put in those quilts which the male-dominated fine art world was against. The case of quilting in Gee Bend Alabama United States in the 1930s and 40s is one of great interest. Although women there had to practice quilting to make ends meet and hence might be argued that they did not have to sew with inventiveness, feeling, or artistic energy, their lesson is actually on the contrary. The quilts served as both useful and artistic covers hence improving the unattractive environment. The quilts, therefore, according to them, represented safekeeping, beauty, and family history (Chave 231). Quilting cannot be compared thoroughly to other modernist art productions, especially in actual material comparison. This is because quilts can be viewed better as a hybrid history; that from African diaspora and the other intertwined African-American and Euro- American history. The cultural production and artistic expensiveness is a way to maintain a connection with the past. For instance, Missouri Pettway (1902-1981) took the remains of her dead husband's clothes, which still had his body scent and life, and made a quilt. This became her memory of him. At the same time, something to warm her at night in his absence (Chave 240). Most visitors saw esthetics in the lives of even poor black farmers. There was no level of poverty that could keep one's eye from learning how to look at the world with a critical eye, how to identify beauty, and how to use it as a force to develop inner happiness (Chave 249).

These two arguments bring forth the question of which side is right. Should modernism accept quilting, a traditional craft that is laden with emotions and creativity, or should it stand firm and maintain its conventional parameters of evaluating what is to be considered art? Quilting bridges the world of art and that of craft. It can be viewed as art, for it is creative and within aesthetics discourse. However, looking at these quilts as spread images of art objects is not enough. They are to be scrutinized closely with focused attention to every detail in a small part, including the ways in which the appearance and the physical feel of the different fabrics varied to create a rich landscape of color and pattern (Melanie 16). Quilting brings forth a pattern as a symbol for communal creativity, which could have a more significant inspiration on creativity in general. It could expand the combination of ethics of care and aesthetics, perhaps aesthetics of care that displays the connections between beauty and the mutual relationships among us all. It could also lead to the expansion of the aesthetics of utility, that is, creativity enriched with a purpose outside oneself, for example, a gift, an item for charity, a quilt for remembrance, or a political statement. All this can be viewed as artistic due to their creativity, aesthetic, and additional problem-solving element, which contributes to the aesthetics of care.

Conclusion

In conclusion, though the male-dominated fine art world is against quilting being viewed as an art because it does not satisfy all tenets of modernism and that the needlewomen still earn very little from their labor-intensive work as compared to the lionized artists, the character and artistic particularity of the quilts lies in the choice of the material, design, and reason for making these quilts. It is also important to note that the Gee Bend songs are as compelling as layered as moving and as exciting as art can be because they amount to something else, just as complex and entirely aesthetic.

Works Cited

Chave, Anna C. "Discovering the Quilts of Gee's Bend, Alabama." The Journal of Modern Craft Vol 1 - Issue 2 (2008): pp 221-254.

Christine, Battersby. "Gender and Genius (The Clouded Mirror)." Joseph, Tanke & Colin, McQuillan. The Bloomsbury Anthology of Aesthetics. New York: Bloomsbury, 2012. 559-570.

Melanie, Anne Pauls. "Piercing together creativity: feminist aesthetics and the crafting of quilts." College of Liberal arts and Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations (2014): 11-21.

Nochlin, Linda. "Why are There No Women Artists ." Gornick, V. and B.K. Moran. Women in Sexist Society. Harper Collins, 1971. pp 344-346.