The Value of Art

Origins of Western Art

Gallery of the Lions in Chauvet, France from 38,000 years ago

30,000 to 38,000 years ago, humans entered a series of caves in what is today southern France and, using charcoal and ochre, painted multitudes of animals of that era. It is believed that the art was created for use in rituals since the caves, rediscovered on December 24, 1994, give no evidence of occupation and are not suitable for living.

What led these ancient humans to undertake, over a series of years, the development of an animated environment of energetic animals? What reward, if any, did these original artists receive for creating their monumental work of art? What did viewers experience as they entered this dimly lit environment and confronted life-like images of animals that they followed, hunted, killed, devoured and revered?

The April issue of Smithsonian magazine carried a feature story about the recently opened replica of Chauvet Cave in France. After the 1994 discovery of the cave, it was closed to the public to prevent the sort of deterioration that occurred at the Lascaux Cave in the Dordogne region of southwestern France. Creation of the $62.5 million facsimile of this Paleolithic art from the Aurignacian period has been the occupation of hundreds of scientists, simulators, artists, conservators and more.

Some people conjecture that the art in Chauvet Cave represented an evolutionary leap for humankind. Certainly it demonstrates the power of the human imagination, a power that has been used for both good and evil. Though we will never know or fully understand what led to the development of representational art, the replica provides an opportunity for contemporary humans to meet and converse with our ancestors.

Reverence and Distain for Feminine Art

Judy Chicago, The Dinner Party, 1979, Collection Brooklyn Museum,
Gift of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation

When Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1979, five thousand people attended the opening and 100,000 viewers saw the show. However, the power of this monumental installation celebrating 1038 women's contributions to Western Civilization created such controversy that the scheduled tour collapsed as the American art establishment shunned it. It took a grassroots movement of feminists to locate nontraditional spaces, raise funds, and mount The Dinner Party in venues across the United States and the world.

Entry Way Banners heralding the darkened chamber where
The Dinner Party is installed.

It was my privilege to experience The Dinner Party in an abandoned and renovated warehouse in Chicago in the early eighties. Viewing this incredible installation of tapestries, ceramics, china painting, needlework, heritage panels, and multi media documentation of the hundreds of volunteers who assisted Chicago in creating The Dinner Party was a knockout moment in my life. It coalesced my angst and struggle with the male-dominated culture in which I was born. It confirmed what I had intuitively known, that women are so powerful that it frightens men to their core.

Primordial Goddess and Fertile Goddess
place settings in Wing One of The Dinner Party

After over five years of personal research, Judy Chicago's evolving conception of a visual feminine history coalesced into a vision of a triangular table with place settings for 39 women who have primarily been written out of western history. It was female archeologists such as Marija Gimbutas who began to uncover the buried  history of goddesses that preceded contemporary male gods and Judy Chicago enshrined some of these ancient goddesses on the first wing (From Prehistory to Rome) of The Dinner Party.

In addition to the once obscure reality of goddesses, many of the women selected for Wing Two (From Christianity to the Reformation) are likely unfamiliar to many of us. Are you familiar with Theodora, circa 500-548, a Byzantine empress who made it possible for women to study in Salerno, Italy? Or with another Italian woman named Trotula di Ruggerio who wrote extensively on gynecology and obstetrics?

Place setting in Wing Two of The Dinner Party - Trotula di Ruggerio,
professor of medicine in Salerno, Italy, died 1097. 

Heritage Panels containing brief history of 999
women included on the heritage floor of The Dinner Party

It took a team of researchers working with Judy Chicago for a couple of years to find and curate the 999 women whose names appear on the porcelain tiles that make up the floor of the triangular table. Arranged around each place setting, the names of these women remind us that we stand on the shoulders of those who went before us.

Sojourner Truth place setting in Wing Three
of The Dinner Party

Virginia Wolf and Georgia O'Keefe place setting in
Wing Three of The Dinner Party

Some women on Wing Three (From the American Revolution to the Women's Revolution) may be familiar. But others such as Elizabeth Blackwell, the first American woman to graduate from medical school and become a licensed female physician, are hardly household names.

Judy Chicago after the installation of The Dinner Party in the Elizabeth A. Sackler
Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York. 

For a long time it looked as though Judy Chicago herself might be written out of history. After touring in six countries, The Dinner Party spent a long time boxed and stored before finding a permanent home at the Brooklyn Museum in 2007. While not the 30,000 years it took for the art in Chauvet Cave to be rediscovered, through the intervention of Elizabeth A. Sackler, The Dinner Party is now accessible to new generations of people. It has its own ritual space where humans can give respect and reverence to the feminine principle in western civilization.

From: www.judychicago.com

The Dinner Party (1974-79)

The Dinner Party is a monumental work of art, triangular in configuration, that employs numerous media, including ceramics, china-painting, and an array of needle and fiber techniques, to honor the history of women in Western Civilization. An immense open table covered with fine white cloths is set with thirty-nine place settings, thirteen on a side, each commemorating a goddess, historical figure, or important woman. The table rests upon an immense porcelain floor comprised of 2304 hand-cast, gilded and lustred tiles on which are inscribed the names of 999 other important women. These names are grouped around the place settings to symbolize the long traditions of women’s achievements.

Through an unprecedented worldwide grass-roots movement, The Dinner Party was exhibited in 16 venues in 6 countries on 3 continents to a viewing audience of over one million people. The Dinner Party - which has been the subject of countless books and articles - is now permanently housed in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum where it draws thousands of visitors from all over the globe.

Photo Credits

Chavet: Stephane Compoint

Installation: Donald Woodman

Panels, Judy Chicago: Through the Flower