German painter Georg Baselitz is bogged down by macho notions of art as destruction

His claim that women are always bad painters is pure nonsense

We should sympathise with Baselitz – his Oedipal complex is burdensome.

The German painter’s comment that female artists are not recognised because they simply “don’t paint very well” is dependent on old-fashioned macho notions of creativity as a kind of war.

He told Der Spiegel that painting demands “brutality against the thing itself, against what already exists”.

This is art as destruction – anathema to the “natural” feminine tendency to nurture, love, and care for both children and husband, who will presumably be too busy making a masterpiece to help out with the housework.

Baselitz patronisingly remarks of fellow artist Rosemarie Trockel: “There is a lot of love in her art, a lot of sympathy.” But for Baselitz, it would seem Trockel’s art doesn’t contain sufficient brutality. The violent paint-brush thrusting necessary to metaphorically kill one’s artistic forebears is simply lacking in a woman’s nature.

If a woman does feel the need to violently thrust, she is clearly not a natural woman.