Online Paintings

Women artists have been concerned in making art in most times and places, even though difficulties in training, travelling and trading their work, and gaining recognition. In the West the Middle Ages were possibly a better period for women artists than most of the early modern period; the later introduction of drawing from life models made it far harder, for reasons of decorum, for women to obtain the specialized training required for a professional artist.

In the latter part of the 20th Century, historians have endeavored to rediscover the artistic accomplishments of women and to give these artists their due place in the narrative of art history.

There are no records of who the artists of the prehistoric eras were, but the studies of many early ethnographers and cultural anthropologists indicate that women often were the principal artisans in the cultures considered as Neolithic, creating their pottery, textiles, baskets, and jewelry.

Collaboration on large projects was typical. Extrapolation to the artwork and skills of the Paleolithic follows the same understanding of the cultures known and studied through archaeology. Cave paintings exist that bear the handprints of women and children as well as those with the handprints of men.