The Biggest Art Heist In History
Angela D’Alessandro, 2023

The Mona Lisa, the frescos of The Sistine Chapel, the triptych of The Garden of Earthly Delights, Cubism and splatter paint on canvas; some of the most well known legacies of art history. During the Renaissance, works of art at this caliber were commissioned by aristocrats and hung in churches which is the highest status an artist could have at the time. Looking at western art movements of the last few centuries, cubism revolutionized the way we create illusions of perspective. Expressionism deconstructed master techniques of painting to unveil new modes of creating art.

Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Hieronymous Bosch, Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock; what are we missing here? The documented history of art focuses on men’s contributions to almost every high art and fine art movement. Men have dominated the elite group known as “master artists” and have been cranking out “master artworks” since the beginning of time.

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There is not much room for us regular artists, collectors and viewers to think objectively here. We are inundated with gendered images of people that set a narrow example of what the ideal man or woman is. By giving men all of the resources and access to creating and naming their art, humankind has allowed them to control the narratives of our lives for centuries.

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Certain experiences are recreated by artists across different movements, also. Take Raphael’s The Three Graces (1504), for example: three beautiful young women gently embracing each other, naked, just standing there, waiting. This composition is often duplicated with minor variations. Sometimes the women are dancing, sometimes they are alone in the woods, leaning on a tree.

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I wonder why this subject matter is so interesting to the master artists of the western world. Multiple beautiful women, nudity, careless, alone. There is a theme here. Comedian and art historian Hannah Gadsby might have an answer: “dancing naked in groups of three is the number one hobby of women of all time!”[1] I think this is the ideal scenario in the typical “master artists’” eyes, but if we think about the gendered expectations of women throughout history we can attribute this to power dynamics.

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We have established that men have controlled women’s image in popular art for centuries thus cementing unfair expectations and untrue narratives of how people should look and act based on their perceived gender. The Three Graces poses women to be an ideal of the male gaze and situating them away from the threat of other men. This is just one example of how men project their creepy fantasies of women into their art.

Looking at modern day expectations of women, we are expected to live up to the ideal of the male gaze and be visually pleasing. If we can prove that we are passive and submissive, it boosts men’s egos to secure their dominance in a relationship and makes them feel more powerful. This nonconsensual expectation for women as submissive/men as dominant in any relationship, whether it be romantic, platonic, professional or familial, is harmful for the wellbeing of women and could potentially be a concern for safety.

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Art can be an agent of socialization as it reflects images of everyday life and mirrors ideas of how we relate to each other. Unfortunately, women’s image has been stolen by men in favor of their egos. The male dominated art world is only adding to the power imbalances in our society. Gender affects our everyday experiences and plays a part in the knowledge we create. Creating art is a form of making knowledge, telling stories and remembering people. Luckily, there are activists that dedicate their work to dismantling the male dominated art institutions in our world.

The aforementioned art historian, Hannah Gadsby, has partially concerned her last two comedy specials with the harm that mainstream art history has done to queer individuals and young people. Gadsby pokes fun at the misogynistic nature of men’s depiction of women saying that these master artists have proven they believe women are “just flesh vases for their dick flowers” and any woman that can’t please a man is deemed unworthy by the patriarchy.

Writer Katy Hessel runs an instagram account and a podcast called “The Great Women Artists” where she only features female artists across all disciplines. While some of the names featured on her instagram page can be found in art history textbooks, most of these women were forgotten by mainstream historians. Hessel recently released a book aptly titled “The History of Art Without Men”.

The Guerrilla Girls have been fighting this machine for decades. Beginning in 1989, they have been doing a series of billboards that starkly call out men’s dominance in the art world of New York City. As of 2012 the billboards read “less than 4% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 76% of the nudes are female.”

Men have had control over how women’s bodies are allowed to be represented in such institutions for centuries, which have an effect on societal norms. It makes me wonder; what female narratives would be popular in classic and modern art if women had control over their own image?

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[1]Goldstein, Caroline. “Comedian Hannah Gadsby Offers a Hilarious Art History Slide Show in Her New Netflix Special. We Decode the References Here” artnet. June 5, 2020. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/hannah-gadsbys-douglas-art-history-explainer-1876869