ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book describes the interdisciplinary study of nation and gender and presents the valuable contribution that art history can make. It explores particular conjunctions of nation, gender and visual representation in seven countries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book shows how visual art has been employed both to help constitute, and occasionally to challenge, the way that nations claim internal unity. From the nineteenth century to the present, the nation-state has been the most significant form of political organisation world-wide, and much representational and performative labour is necessary to underpin the structures of power among and within nations. The book draws attention to the complex history of relating representations of women to those of nationality and nation, and to the possibilities of resistance within patriarchal structures.
