Artemisia Lomi Gentileschi (1593-1656) was an Italian Baroque painter and one of the most notable female artists of the time period.
She was introduced to painting by her father, artist Orazio Gentileschi, and both father and daughter were inspired by the style of Caravaggio. Artemisia became well-known for her style and technique in her own right, however. She became the court painter of the House of Medici, a position that earned her friends in high places, and eventually became the first woman to be a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence. She eventually moved to Rome, then Venice, and finally Naples.
Art historians often analyze Gentileschi's earlier work in the context of her rape by fellow painter Agostino Tassi, and a metaphorical Rape and Revenge theme has been attributed to the works in which women, in righteous fury, exact or wish to exact justice and vengeance against powerful men (Susanna and the Elders, Jael and Sisra, the Judith Slaying Holofernes series). Undoubtedly, much of her work features women from myths and legends. Many are portraits; others show them in the contexts of victimhood and power dynamics, often offering a woman's perspective on events that prior and contemporary male artists depicted differently. Her art is known for its rich hues, use of chiaroscuro, and realism.
Gentileschi's artworks:
Tropes in her works:
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Jael and Sisera depicts Sisera about to drive a tent peg into the neck of the sleeping Jael.
- Fainting: Esther before Ahasuerus, her portrayal of the biblical heroine Esther, depicts the moment where Esther faints after pleading the Jewish people's case to Ahasuerus.
- I Am the Noun: Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, depicting Gentileschi herself holding a brush and palette, was historically taken as a bold statement. Gentileschi was declaring herself the epitome of painting in an era where women were not usually independent.
- Reclining Venus:
- Danae shows the mythical woman, mother of Perseus, reclining nude against a couch as she is impregnated by Zeus in the form of a shower of gold.
- Played with in her take on Cleopatra. The famously beautiful queen is reclining horizontally on her bed, arm bent underneath her head — Cleopatra isn't posing seductively, she's dead and in the throes of rigor mortis.
- Off with His Head!:
- Gentileschi painted multiple versions of the apocryphal Biblical story of Judith and the Assyrian general Holofernes (scholars distinguish the two most famous ones with the years they were done and the cities in which they were painted — Naples, 1612-13 and Florence, 1620-21). These paintings show Judith and her maidservant Abra beheading Holofernes with a sword. Another painting, Judith and Her Maidservant, shows the two women absconding with Holofernes' head in a basket.
- Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist depicts the moment in the Biblical story where Salome is presented John's head on a platter.
- Wrongfully Attributed: Susanna and the Elders was thought for a long time to be the work of her father, Orazio.
