Journal of ART in SOCIETY
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    • Exploring Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street, Rainy Day
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    • How one man saved the greatest picture in the world: Piero della Francesca’s Resurrection
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    • The Isenheim Altarpiece Pt 1: Pestilence and the Concert of Angels
    • The Isenheim Altarpiece Pt 2: Nationalism, Nazism and Degeneracy
    • The shocking birth and amazing career of Guernica
  • Forgotten Women Artists
    • Forgotten Women Artists: introduction
    • Forgotten Women Artists: #1 Arcangela Paladini: The Rapid Rise and Fall of a Prodigy
    • Forgotten Women Artists: #2 Jane Loudon
    • Forgotten Women Artists: #3 Marie-Gabrielle Capet: Stepping out from the Shadows
    • Forgotten Women Artists #4: Michaelina Wautier: entering the limelight after 300 years
    • Forgotten Women Artists #5 Thérèse Schwartze and the business of painting
    • Forgotten Women Artists: Christina Robertson: A Scottish artist in Russia
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    • Murder, Caravaggio and The Taking of Christ
    • The rescue of the fabulous lost library of Deir al-Surian
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    • Perception and Blindness in the 16th Century
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    • The extraordinary career of Granville Redmond, deaf artist and silent movie actor
    • Rose-Marie Ormond: Sargent’s muse and “the most charming girl that ever lived”
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  • Techniques and technology
    • The Art of Shadows
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    • Art in a Speeded Up World >
      • Art in a Speeded up World: overview
      • Changing concepts of time
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      • Pt 1: Initial impacts
      • Pt 2: Photography as a working aid
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  • Authenticity and meaning
    • Deception and Misdirection: Hieronymus Bosch’s The Conjuror
    • Reflections on a Masterpiece: Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergere
    • An exploration of vision, reality and illusion
    • Carpaccio's Miracle on the Rialto
    • Masters of All they Survey -- Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Andrews
    • Understanding Petrus Christus’ A Goldsmith in his Shop
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forgotten women artists
By  Philip McCouat
introduction

Over the centuries, women artists have faced special obstacles in achieving successful careers and appropriate recognition for their work. There are a number of reasons for this. Without being exhaustive, these include:
-- the limitations on subject matter available to women arising from restrictions on their study of the human figure, or from confinement to the home;
-- lack of adequate (or any) facilities for pursuing an artistic education;
-- male appropriation of credit, particularly for a relative or partner’s work;
-- early death, particularly in childbirth;
-- lack of the financial independence which would give them freedom to indulge in serious artistic pursuits;
-- social constraints against women working for a living, engaging in social movements, or even being eccentric; 
-- the patronising treatment of undeniable female talent as freakish;
-- critical attitudes adopted by many male artists and commentators against anything produced which did not fit within their personal or artistic world-view, or which was produced by those whom they preferred to think of as the weaker or less-motivated gender.

For some women artists, a minority, these obstacles were able to be overcome, or had little significant effect. Rather, these artists’ obscurity arises from other occurrences, such as a small output, impoverishment or a change in artistic fashions.

In this series we deal with a variety of women artists for whom talent alone was not enough to achieve long-lasting fame. Their re-emergence has, in many cases, been inspired by a new generation of researchers, particularly over the last few decades.

The artists are: 

~ the Scottish artist that went to Russia Christina Robertson 
- the ill-fated 17th century Italian prodigy Arcangela Paladini

~ the multi-talented English painter/writer/futurist and horticulturist Jane Loudon
~ the 18th century French artist Marie-Gabrielle Capet
~ the long-forgotten 17th century artist Michaelina Wautier
~ the ultimate professional:19/20th century painter Thérèse Schwartze