| The Western canon of art contains those works considered to have the most enduring influence on cultural ideals. It sustains the representation of gender as seen through a history of depicting accepted cultural standards, which support ideology that privileges white, heterosexual males. Excluded from the canon are works of art that do not conform to the accepted ideology, such as those produced by women and minority artists. Feminist epistemology seeks to redefine knowledge by challenging the authenticity of ideological knowledge claims, proving their instability by examining the evidence, and showing their susceptibility to change. One such form of evidence is art. Based on the male nudes painted by Sylvia Sleigh and Alice Neel, feminists make various knowledge claims, the most fundamental of which is that these paintings subvert the ideology of the Western canon of art. |
