Artemesia Gentileschi Essay, Research Paper

Artemesia Gentileschi was very different from other artisis of her time. Being a woman painter was all but unheard of during the High Renaissance. She had the style of Caravaggio, while at the same time bringing in women’s characters who were in the position of power. Throughout art history, an idea that women are present solely for men to look at has been shown. This could be abecause men have generally been the target audience, and naked women the subject. In her paintings, Gentileschi shifted the focus to women and showed them as real people. She was both praised and scorned by the critics of her time. She was thought a genious, yet terrible because she was a woman in what was thought to be a man’s area of expertise.

Like many other women artists of her time who were banned from apprenticeship with successful artists, Gentileschi was the daughter of a painter. She was born in Rome on July 8, 1593, the daughter of Orazio and Prudentia Monotone Gentileschi. Her mother died when Artemesia was only twelve. Her father trained her as an artist and introduced her to some of the artists of Rome, including Michaelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, whose chiaroscuro style (contrast of light and shadow) greatly influenced Artemesia Gentileschi’s work. Other than artistic training, she had little or no schooling. She did not learn to read or write until she was an adult. However, by the time she was seventeen, she had produced one of the works for which she is best known, her beautiful version of Susannna and the Elders (1610).

Orazio worked with a Florentine artist, Agostino Tassi, whom Artemesia accused of raping her in 1612, when she was nineteen. Her father filed suit against Tassi with the help of family and friends attempted to be alone with her repeatedly, and raped her when he finally succeeded in cornering her innher bedroom. He tried to appease her afterward by promising to marry her. Tassi gained access to her bedroom (and her person) repeatedly, because of this promise. However, he always avoided following through with the actual marriage. The trial followed a pattern familiar even today. Artemesia was accused of not having been a virgin at the time of the rape and of having many lovers. She was examined by midwives to determine whether she had been “deflowered” recently or a long time ago. Perhaps more disturbing for an artist like Gentileschi, Tassi testified that her skills were so bad that he had to teach her the rules of perspective. This is awhat he said he was doing the day she claimed to have been raped by him. Tassi denied ever having sexual relations with Gentileschi and brought many witnesses to testify that she was an “insatiable whore.” One witness, atenant and friend of Gentileschi’s, Tuzia, supported Tassi in the age old defense of “seduction”. Orazio fought their testimony and brought countersuit for perjury. Artemesia’s accusations against Tassi were confirmed by Giovanni Battista Stiattesi. Stiattesi (a former friend or possible lover of Tassi’s bragging about his sexual abuse at Artemesia’s expense. Tassi was imprisoned earlier for insest with his sister in law and was charged with arranging the murder of his wife. Yet the trial ended with the charges against him being dismissed.

During and soon after the trial, Gentileschi painted “Judith Slaying Holofernes” (1612-1613). The painting is special, not only for the original way in which Gentileschi portrays Judith, who had long been a popular subject for art. One month after the long trial ended, in November of 1612, Artemesia was married to a Florentine artist, Pietro Antonio di Vincenzo Stiattesi, and they moved to Florence, probably the next year. While there, she had a daughter named either Prudentia or Palmira. In Florence, Gentileschi returned to the subject of Judith, completing “Judith and Her Maidservant” in 1613 or 1614. Again, Gentileschi’s treatment of the familiar subject matter was unexpected and original. Both she and her husband worked at the Academy of Design, and Gentileschi bacame an official member there in 1616. This was a remarkable honor for a woman of her day and was most likely made possible by the support of her Florentine patron, the Grand Duke Cosmo II of the powerful Medici family. During her years in Florence, he commisioned quite a few paintings from her, and Gentileschi left Florence to return to Rome upon his death in1621.

From there, she probably moved to Genoa that same year, accompanying her father who was invited there by a Genovese nobleman. While there she painted her first “Lucretia” (1621) and her first “Cleopatra” (1621-1622). She also had assignments in nearby Venice during this period and met Anthony Van Dyck, a very successful painter of the era. She may have also met Sofonisba Anguissola who was a generation older than Gentileschi and one of the handful of women who worked as artists. Gentileschi later had another daughter, and both are known to have been painters, though neither their work nor any record of it has survived.

During this stay in Rome, a French artist, Pierre Dumostier le Neveu, made a drawing of her hand holding a paint brush. He called it the drawing of the hand of the”excellent and wise noble woman of Rome, Artemesia.” Her fame is also evident ina commemmorative medal bearing her portrait made sometime between 1625 and 1630 that calls her pitrix cellebris or celebrated “woman painter.” Also at this time, Jerome David painted her portrait with the inscription calling her “the famous Roman painter”.