The Gender of Genius.

“Mr. Fitzgerald is a novelist and Mrs. Fitzgerald a novelty”- Ring Lardner, 1924

History is filled with brilliant men, who led brilliant lives and contributed to society and culture in such a profound way that, as repayment, we remember them with romance. In their pursuit of art, power, influence and all of those other eternal things, they treated the world and those around them with a degree of recklessness. At times, recklessness was a necessary by-product of rebellion. It was born from a brave spirit, and we do not condemn it too harshly. The artist is not accused of callousness– we call it curiosity, euphemistically perhaps. We thank the artist for the gifts that they left us, for these supersede the misgivings of their natural life. They are not buried with their corporeal body– but with a mythical one. They are larger than life, illuminated with nostalgia.

The female artist is another sort. We revel in her torture as much as her talent. She is the indulged. The dramatic. The whimsical. Her genius is a gift; she did not cultivate it, and ambition is not becoming. She did not seek her gifts, she stumbled upon them, like a glamorous victim. Her recklessness is remembered more clearly. Celebrity is awarded to the female artist, though fame lacking respect becomes parasitic in nature. Her male counterpart is reincarnated as a myth, whilst she, as a commodity.

When Zelda Fitzgerald famously reviewed her husband’s masterpiece The Beautiful and the Damned with an accusation of plagiarism, it was received with a sense of humour. “Mr. Fitzgerald — I believe that is how he spells his name — seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home”, she famously told the New York Herald, and the world laughed. It was taken as witty, charming, but never serious. The same can be said for her entire career. Save Me the Waltz is arguably a stronger novel than many of Scott’s late works. Yet people wanted to read about Zelda, not read her. She was an intellectual eunuch. It is well known that Scott’s leading ladies are Zelda in disguise, with borrowed character traits, neuroses and whole soliloquies. Scott would read over Zelda’s private diary and take as he saw fit. Daisy’s famous “I hope she’s a beautiful little fool” line is a Zelda original. When planning Tender is the Night, Scott compared Zelda and Nicole’s mental histories in a chart entitled “Classification of the Material on Sickness”. Scott sent her to an asylum, yet banned her from writing about it. It was his story, and he had the power to claim ownership. Scott’s genius was celebrated, thus his alcoholism tolerated. Zelda was not afforded the same privilege. When her eccentricities lost their charm, she was institutionalised. A career was made out of fetishising her hysteria. The career, however, was not her own.

We see Frida Kahlo’s art through the prism of “female art”, a brand of confessionalism embedded with autobiography. Her art, her creations, are rarely separated from her perceived personality, her celebrity; this is a problem male artists rarely encounter. We thus remember her self-portraits over her politics. We forget the title of one of her final paintings “Marxism Will Give Health To The Sick”. We remember her emotion, her obsessions and her pain; not universal, political, pain but personal, female. This is to ignore Frida’s bravery and individuality. It is to ignore her early feminist inclinations in 1920s Mexico– one of her earliest photographs is herself in a suit, posing defiantly. One of the few females in school, she refused to dress the part of the lady for the photo. This symbolic rejection of her femininity was a rejection of weakness, timidity and submission, the things femininity so often stood for. She demanded she be photographed like a man- proud, assertive. Diego Rivera, her partner and a Mexican icon, painted murals, political, universal. Big, public murals, requiring not just talent, but stamina. Philandering Diego, who could not be trusted even with Frida’s sister. We discuss these points quieter, for they are, rightfully, secondary to their creations. We rarely read about Picasso’s affairs, his tyrannical treatment of women, his very-very-very young mistresses, and in one’s case, her suicide. We know Guernica. The humanity of it, the genius. We remember Picasso as a maverick, a creator. And of course, we should. To turn artists into mortals is beside the point. We have their art, and it is far more beautiful, far more fascinating and far more profound than any life.

Yet we know Tracey Emin as “mad Tracey from Margate”. “Everyone focuses on the sexuality of my work. Why doesn’t anyone ask me about my thoughts on God?” Tracey asks. The obvious answer to this question is because, darling Tracey, you giant exhibitionist, there is so much sex in your work! You wanted us to see you like that.

Tracey gave us sex, and we stopped looking any deeper.

We took Zelda’s glamour, Frida’s fury, Sylvia’s melancholia.

I want my women as three-dimensional as any man. As strong as Diego. As visionary as Picasso. As enchanting as Scott. And as brave and bold as all of these women we appropriated.