Foreword - 4/99
"The flow of the book is wondrous, as Pollack builds each new idea onto the next, rounded out with rigorous research."


Book Description
In this major new book, renowned art historian Griselda Pollock enters the debate at the very center of the culture wars: Should the traditional canon of the Old Masters be rejected, replaced or reformed? And what difference can a feminist approach to art history make? Differencing the Canon moves between feminist re-readings of modern masters--Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Manet--and the canonical artists of feminist art history Artemisia Gentileschi and Mary Cassatt. Avoiding both an unrelenting critique of masculine canons and the unquestioned celebration of women artists, Pollock asks both how women read and what might be different about art made by a woman. She unpacks the representations of culturally resonant female figures in a range of texts, from Manet's depiction of the model Jeanne Duval in his painting Olympia, to Charlotte Bront's Lucy Snowe, artists representations of Cleopatra and Angela Carter's Black Venus, and argues that it is not enough simply to read as a woman; we must also acknowledge the differences between women shaped by racism and colonialism. Inspiring and original, Differencing the Canon offers an intervention that attempts to make difference a creative and dynamic process, opening up the possibilities of reading the complexity of visual art.


Card catalog description
In this book, art historian Griselda Pollock makes a compelling intervention into a debate at the very centre of feminist art history: should the traditional canon of the 'Old Masters' be rejected, replaced or reformed? What 'difference' can feminist 'interventions in art's histories' make? Should we simply reject the all-male succession of 'great artists' in favour of an all-woman litany of artistic heroines? Or should we displace present gender demarcations and allow the ambiguities and complexities of desire to shape our readings of art? Differencing the Canon moves between feminist re-readings of the canonical modern masters - Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Manet - and the 'canonical' artists of feminist art history, Artemisia Gentileschi and Mary Cassatt. Pollock avoids both an unnuanced critique of masculine canons and an unquestioning celebration of women artists. She draws on psychoanalysis and deconstruction to examine the project of reading for 'inscriptions in the feminine', and asks what the signs of difference might be in art made by an artist who is 'a woman'.


About the Author
Griselda Pollock is Professor of Social and Critical Histories of Art, and Director of the Centre for Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds. She is the author of Vision and Difference (1988) and editor of Generations and Geographies in the Visual Arts (1996), both published by Routledge.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In this book, art historian Griselda Pollock makes a compelling intervention into a debate at the very centre of feminist art history: should the traditional canon of the 'Old Masters' be rejected, replaced or reformed? What 'difference' can feminist 'interventions in art's histories' make? Should we simply reject the all-male succession of 'great artists' in favour of an all-woman litany of artistic heroines? Or should we displace present gender demarcations and allow the ambiguities and complexities of desire to shape our readings of art?" "Differencing the Canon moves between feminist re-readings of the canonical modern masters - Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec and Manet - and the 'canonical' artists of feminist art history, Artemisia Gentileschi and Mary Cassatt. Pollock avoids both an unnuanced critique of masculine canons and an unquestioning celebration of women artists. She draws on psychoanalysis and deconstruction to examine the project of reading for 'inscriptions in the feminine', and asks what the signs of difference might be in art made by an artist who is 'a woman'.

FROM THE CRITICS

Elizabeth Millard - ForeWord Magazine

The flow of the book is wondrous, as Pollock builds each new idea onto the next, rounded out with rigorous research. The writing suffers slightly from an overabundance of academic jargon, especially when the description of individual artworks involves a scholarly definition of 'desire' and 'the other.' Despite this, Pollock reaches and even surpasses her goal, articulated in her introduction, to open new discussions about art and feminism.

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