The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work by Germaine Greer (review)

336 writing one finds in erudite journals-informed, scrupulous and generous in its attributions to other scholars. Most of the essays are not recommended for lay readers, since the writing is too choppy, and understanding them requires a knowledge of sociology in some depth. One needs to be familiar with the works ofseminal sociologists such as Max Weber and Emile Durkheim in order to appreciate subsequent developments that are presented here. The titles of articles give some indication of the broad range covered: Science and the Ethic of Protestant Asceticism: A Reply to Professor Robert K. Merton (Lewis S. Feur); Joseph Needham and the Comparative Sociology ofChinese and Modern Science (Sol P. Restivo); Phenomenological Marxism and Critical Theory (Barry Smart); Early French Contributions to the Sociology of Knowledge (W. Paul Vogt); Emile Durkheim Today (Terry N. Clark); The Sociology of 'Silas Marner' (Werner Stark); The Factor of Hermeneutics in Habermas's Critical Theory (David Earl Sutherland). For artists interested in the developing social organization of their craft and profession, the essay entitled Social Evolution of the Artistic Enterprise by Vylaintas Kavolis is recommended. He traces the development of socio-artistic systems from those in tribes or bands to those in present-day advanced technological societies. Visual art in tribes has either a utilitarian or a religious value, but gradually it acquires more aesthetic quality, and artists attain more important social status. In the civilizations of dynastic China, ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, etc., art workshops made their first appearance, though the social prestige of artists, rather surprisingly, was not high and professional artists were drawn from the lower ranks of society. Art writers and dealers appeared on the scene for the first time, though not in such large numbers as in present-day industrial societies. What most distinguishes the socio-artistic systems ofso-called 'modern' civilization is the large amount of stress placed on 'cultural individualism' of artists and the' growth of the dealer-client system. Kavolis notes, however, that certain inadequacies are appearing in the system. He points out that 'the percentage of artists who subsist exclusively from the sale of their works has been estimated, around 1960, as 0.5 per cent in Paris and 7 per cent in Hamburg'. He notes that in The Netherlands 'well over half the estimated 2500 [artists] benefit from public funds in one form or another'. Commenting on recent changes in the art market, Kavolis notes perceptively that the 'widening of the population of art buyers beyond the circle of the very rich gives greater weight to the less sophisticated artistic judgment, and provides a social basis for a proliferation of evanescent styles, the cult of originality and the search for striking effects to catch the attention of the potentially large but fickle public'. Editor's note: For Gifford Phillips' review of Vol. I ofthis series, see Leonardo 14, 159 (1981). The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work. Germaine Greer. Seeker & Warburg, London, 1979.373 pp., illus. £9.95. Reviewed by Naomi Boretz* Greer has produced a substantive and scholarly work on women painters of the past. Eschewing, for the most part, a proselytizing feminism, she has presented excellent cases for both the triumph of talent and the sorrow of sociopathology. The illustrations have been chosen with care and are sufficient in number and quality to support the author's theses. In addition to her own work on this project, Greer acknowledges the importance of the original, pioneering research by art historians Linda Nochlin and Ann Sutherland Harris. Their publication Women Painters: 1550-1950 (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1976) is widely regarded (in the U.S.A., at least), as the definitive work on this subject. Greer's book is a respectable addition to the sparse literature in this area. Several of the painters represented here are well known to the sophisticated art public: Rosa Bonheur, Suzanne Valadon, Mary *15 Southern Way, Princeton, NJ 08540, U.S.A. Books Cassatt, Angelica Kaufmann, Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, Berthe Morisot, Gabriele MUnter. But, the new interest in works by women artists has revealed the existence of a considerably larger number of painters of skill and strength, for...