On 02/22/2014 11:23 PM, Jane Darnell wrote:
Magnus is able to collect data on all the museums on
the BBC's "Your
Paintings" website, and with his data I just created a list of
painters of the National Gallery, London. I was surprised to see that
there is not even one female artist from Britain represented (though
the British men are also underepresented, with only 18 out of 750
names). Lists like these can help generate demographic data for all
To be fair, if
I was asked the name of one single female French painter
from before the 19th century (or even 20th century), I would only be
able to name Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (widely considered one of the
foremost portraitists of her era in France). I don't know enough about
British painting to name a single one.
One interesting question is whether this is a consequence of bias from
the museums, or from the way that 18th-19th society worked. I'm no
historian, but as far as I know, women in those days were not expected
to become artists; they probably could paint as amateurs but certainly
not become professionnals. (For instance, I've read that W.A. Mozart's
sister, as a child, exhibited the same extraordinary capacities as him,
but since she was a woman she was expected to marry and have children,
instead of becoming a professionnal musician.)
We cannot repair the unfairness of centuries past, but we can certainly
try avoiding selection bias on top of it.
My point in preceding messages was that reliance on traditional
scholarship mechanically propagates the biases present in that
scholarship. If traditional scholarship lists as "the most important
painters on the 18th century" 100% West Europeans, 95% males, then this
will be reflected into Wikipedia.