Women Writing Art History in the Nineteenth Century
Looking Like a Woman

This book examines women's art writing in the nineteenth century, challenging the idea of art history as a masculine intellectual field.

Hilary Fraser (Author)

9781107075757, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 4 September 2014

254 pages, 18 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.51 kg

'… this eminently readable study of women writing in a diversity of genres during the nineteenth century … provides an important account of the conceptual origins of art history in Britain and the contributions of writers participating from the discipline's margins.' D. H. Cibelli, Choice

This book sets out to correct received accounts of the emergence of art history as a masculine field. It investigates the importance of female writers from Anna Jameson, Elizabeth Eastlake and George Eliot to Alice Meynell, Vernon Lee and Michael Field in developing a discourse of art notable for its complexity and cultural power, its increasing professionalism and reach, and its integration with other discourses of modernity. Proposing a more flexible and inclusive model of what constitutes art historical writing, including fiction, poetry and travel literature, this book offers a radically revisionist account of the genealogy of a discipline and a profession. It shows how women experienced forms of professional exclusion that, whilst detrimental to their careers, could be aesthetically formative; how working from the margins of established institutional structures gave women the freedom to be audaciously experimental in their writing about art in ways that resonate with modern readers.

Introduction
1. The profession of art history
2. The art of fiction
3. Girl guides: travel, translation, ekphrasis
4. Women's periods
5. Feminine arts
Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: from c 1900 - [DSBH], Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [DSBF], History of art & design styles: from c 1900 - [ACX], History of art & design styles: c 1800 to c 1900 [ACV]