Weeping Woman with Handkerchief, Picasso; 1937

IT’S interesting that feminists have so often condemned the art traditions of the West for their supposed exclusion of women artists of genius even though those traditions produced millions of enchantingly beautiful realistic portraits of women, filled with character and depth. Do feminists in academia or the art world express any revulsion for the depiction of women by modern artists even when it dehumanizes them? I am not aware of any.

As E. Michael Jones writes in Degenerate Moderns, perhaps with a touch of overstatement:

“Picasso’s mutilations of the female body bespeak the modern version of human sacrifice; they presage simultaneously in a visual way the concentration camp, the abortion clinic, and the pornographic film, and may well have helped pave the way for all three.”

In his private life, Picasso frequently became infatuated and then disgusted with the objects of his infatuation, such as the photographer Dora Maar, who was the subject of, “Weeping Woman,” above. In addition to his Cubist portraits, he created realistic images of the women discarded, such as the pencil drawing below of Maar, but these are not the pictures for which he is most famous. It’s not surprising that Picasso’s pictures of spliced and hacked female faces were acclaimed and found an enthralled audience given the simultaneous rise of feminine self-loathing.

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