BRUSHED ASIDE

An encyclopedic series of short biographies focused on overlooked women in art history.

In this “herstory,” Charney, a professor of art history and author of The Devil in the Gallery and The Collector of Lives, aims to “teach the history of art using only female artists.” While he succeeds at finding representatives for each major historical movement, the author frequently leans too far into his subjects’ lives and omits descriptions of their work. The book is underillustrated, many features are forgettable due to their lack of visual information, and Charney rarely paints a picture with his prose. This is particularly frustrating as he explicitly touts the importance of balancing biography with art appreciation. Regarding Judith and Holofernes, a violent work by baroque master Artemisia Gentileschi that was likely influenced by her own history of sexual abuse, Charney writes, “this masterpiece should be considered as a great artwork unto itself, avoiding an over-focus on Artemisia’s biography that turns the work’s analysis into a revenge fantasy while ignoring its technical brilliance.” Despite this, much of the text is too focused on biography. To his credit, Charney offers a unique twist and expands the scope of his history to include women patrons and collectors, many of whom were instrumental in the formation of major museums. He closes with a new take on Linda Nochlin’s 1971 essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” offering a lukewarm urge to reframe the discussion. He finds her argument “concerning, potentially destructive to the art historical narrative, to empowering women, to giving credit to those heroines of the past. The same point can be made in a supportive, inclusive way.” Unfortunately, Charney’s book falls short of being empowering, as the cascading biographies eclipse the spirit of his subjects. Readers intrigued by the subject should turn to Katy Hessel’s The Story of Art Without Men.

A well-intentioned but underdeveloped new perspective in art’s discourse.