GENTILESCHI, Artemisia

(1593-1652/53)

Artemisia Gentileschi was the first female Italian artist determined to compete with the male artists of her time; she claimed to have "the spirit of Caesar" in the soul of a woman. Artemisia deserves recognition as a transmitter of Caravaggio's* ideas to Florence, Genoa, and Naples.

Artemisia, the daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, a follower of Caravaggio, en­joyed the benefits of having as her teacher a painter of significant stature. Draw­ing on mythological subjects and biblical themes, Artemisia's paintings often feature unusually striking depictions of female nudes. The subject for which she has been most celebrated is her dramatic study of Judith and Holofernes.An intense focus on individual characters is a hallmark of Artemisia's pictures. Her most successful paintings, executed prior to 1630, incorporate Caravaggesque realism and chiaroscuro, a painting technique using varied tones of light and dark paint for dramatic intensity. While Artemisia's contemporaries praised her skill in portrait painting, only one portrait remains today that can be attributed with confidence to Artemisia: Portrait of a Condottieri (1622).

In 1612 Artemisia had to endure what became a sensational trial when her father accused Agostino Tassi, the artist he had hired to teach his daughter perspective, of repeatedly raping her. After five months of being subjected to periodic torture from metal rings being tightened around her fingers to extract a confession of guilt from her, Artemisia refused to recant her story. Tassi spent eight months in prison, but he was ultimately acquitted of all charges. When the trial ended, Artemisia married a Florentine by the name of Pietro Antonio di Vincenzo Stiattesi to avoid further shame. The couple probably moved their household to Florence shortly after being married. Ultimately, the marriage proved to be a failure, and Artemisia with characteristic determination struck out on her own.

Throughout her career, Artemisia used her unique position as a woman, al­lowing her ready access to female models, to great advantage. A lucrative com­mission to paint a nude figure, The Allegory of Inclination (c. 1615), for Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger suggests his admiration and recognition of Artemisia's talent in depicting the female nude.

While Artemisia was in Florence, she also enjoyed the patronage of the Med­ici family, the dynastic rulers of Florence. Artemisia's aristocratic patrons prob­ably facilitated her ready acceptance into the Florentine Accademia del Disegno, originally founded by the artist Giorgio Vasari* and others in 1563. Artemisia became an official member of the academy in 1616, an extraordinary event since it had received no women as members since its inception.

Artemisia is believed to have spent time in Genoa when her father worked there between 1621 and 1624. She also executed commissions in Venice during the 1620s. By 1622 Artemisia had returned to Rome, where she remained work­ing on commissions until the end of the decade. In her surviving letters, Arte­misia claims to have executed commissions for the kings of France, Spain, and England. Artemisia is documented as taking up residence in England by 1638, where she helped her father complete work on Queen Henrietta Maria's palace, called the Queen's House, at Greenwich. After 1641, Artemisia would reside in Naples for the remainder of her life. While she produced many paintings during this period, most of them are less engaging than her earlier works.

Bibliography

M. D. Garrard, Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art, 1989.

N. Heller, Women Artists, 1987.

Debbie Barrett-Graves