Women’s ART History Month–Artdog Images of Interest

I’m celebrating “Women’s ART History Month” this March, with a new kind of “Images of Interest.” I’ll feature some of my favorite women artists. I can’t represent all of them, at least not all this month. But maybe I can come back to this series later. At any rate, where else could I start, but with Artemesia Gentileschi?

All of these women made their mark in what has been for centuries a world that belonged mostly to men. People know some better than others, but I hope you’ll enjoy the work of all. Look for these posts at regular intervals throughout this month!

In this post I’ve gathered a small collection of paintings and a few biographical snippets about perhaps the grandmother of them all.

Who Was Artemesia Gentileschi?

Most experts now widely acknowledge her as “the most important woman painter” of her time. Artemesia stands as the only woman admitted to the Academia dell’Arte del Disgeno in Florence. Yet art scholars didn’t even recognize her paintings as her own until late into the 20th Century. This says much about the male chauvinism that ruled in this field for centuries.

It’s crazy to realize, but as far as we know, Artemesia’s first-ever solo show didn’t happen till 1991 (this is really pushing the idea of “better late than never” to previously-unimagined lengths).

Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger commissioned her to paint Allegory of Inclination (at left above) in 1615. People can still see it at Casa Buonarroti in Florence. She painted her Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting in 1638-39. I think it’s a rather appropriate choice for a masterful painter who struggled all her life for respect.

Artemesia’s Education as an Artist

Her father Orazio Gentileschi taught her to paint. Unfortunately a lowlife slime named Agostino Tassi also gave her painting lessons. Both Orazio’s work and that of his friend Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio strongly influenced Artemesia. This is clear from her marvelous use of the chiaroscuro technique, and of tenebrism in her paintings.

Infamously, the story of how she was a rape victim always seems to get a lot of play in her biographies. Partly this may be because it is one of the best-documented aspects of her life. The horrifying transcripts of the months-long trial have survived. But mainly it’s the sensational nature of the story that makes it endure. Many other facts about her life have faded into obscurity.

Artemesia’s View of Men

One thing that hasn’t faded, however is the vivid and poetically ageless revenge she took on men (especially in the person of Holofernes–could her model have been Tassi?) in her paintings. 

Judith and her maidservant really put their backs into their work, in Judith Slaying Holofernes, 1614-20. Artemesia included a glimpse of old Holofernes’s head and a rather badass-looking sword, when she accessorized Judith and her Maidservant, 1613-14, a year earlier.

According to one biography, she painted Judith Slaying Holofernes for Cosimo II de’ Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany. He hid the painting from view as he believed it was “too horrifying to behold.” I’ve got to say that the expression on Judith’s face probably does have a tendency to make the cojones shrivel.

Even before the sordid rape episode, her Susanna and the Elders (a masterwork produced when she was 17) makes it clear she already knew all too well what it felt like to be objectified. Anyone who doesn’t cringe in empathy with poor Susanna in Artemesia’s Susanna and the Elders, 1610, has only ever been on the oglers’ side of the interaction.

Artemesia’s The Penitent Magdalene, 1617-20, looks to me as if she might be having second thoughts. People sometimes call the color of her dress “Gentileschi Gold.” Artemesia signed the painting on the back of Mary’s chair; as she often did during this period, she chose to use her uncle’s surname, rather than that of her father or her husband.

An Artist of Skill and Range

A true survey of her artwork reveals, of course, that she panted a far greater range of subjects than the battle of the sexes. Indeed, her patrons dictated most of her subjects. But they still mostly feature rather-more-bold-than-usual women. The art critic Roberto Longhi wrote, “There are about fifty-seven works by Artemisia Gentileschi and 94% (forty-nine works) feature women as protagonists or equal to men.” Here are a couple more wonderful pieces, to give you a glimpse of her range.

Did Artemesia play the lute? Maybe. She appears to have a clue about fingering in this Self-Portrait as a Lute Player, 1615-17. Let’s wrap with another later work (below), Clio, the Muse of History, 1632. As well she should, Clio appears undaunted by the weight of history (“muse of,” after all). So too, Artemesia’s work has stood up quite well to the test of time.

As I noted above, this post is one of a series of “Women’s ART History Month” posts in March. The next one hightlighs the work of Rosa Bonheur. The third includes works Käthe Kollwitz, Dorothea Lange, and Tara Todras-Whitehall, in a post called “Kindred.”

IMAGE CREDITS:

Many thanks to Wikipedia and the Royal Collection of the British Royal Family for the self-portrait image of Artemisia painting. I’m grateful to Art History Archive, for the Allegory of Inclination image. I appreciate Wikipedia and the Uffizi Gallery in Florence for the image of Judith in her moment of gory triumph. And I also want to thank Wikipedia and the Palazzo Pitti in Florence for the image of the wickedly-accessorized Judith-plus-one. Thanks are due them as well as for the painting of Mary Magdalene in the golden gown.

Many thanks to Wikipedia and the Web Gallery of Art for the image of Susanna and the dirty old men. I also want to thank the same duo for the photo of the self-confident Clio. The painting is in the Cassa di Risparmio di Pisa, a savings bank in Pisa, Italy. Finally, many thanks to Wikipedia and The History Blog for Artemesia’s self portrait with the lute. The painting itself is currently in the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, CT.