Artemisia Gentileschi is one of the rare women taken seriously in the history of art. Although she was neither the first nor the only woman painter in history (just think of Lavinia Fontana), she’s perhaps the most famous. Suffice it to say that, in the painting world of the 1600s, her style and her personal story made her famous even abroad.
Yes, because in seventeenth-century Italy Artemisia Gentileschi managed to pull off a real miracle, in a field that has (almost) always been dominated by men.
Did you know that, in 1616, she was the first woman admitted to the prestigious Florentine Accademia del Disegno?
Her life, however, was not at all simple. At just 12, after her mother’s death, she became the “woman of the house”. And only 7 years later, her life was marked forever by a terrible drama.
Artemisia Gentileschi was in fact brutally raped by Agostino Tassi, her perspective teacher and a collaborator of her father’s at Palazzo Pallavicini Rospigliosi in Rome.
Who knows, perhaps it was precisely this episode of her life that shaped her art. The fact is that in the works of Artemisia Gentileschi you’ll notice a fierce determination in almost all the female figures.
So, do you fancy learning a little more about this talented Italian painter?
Read on to discover the life and art of a painter who became a genuine icon of modern feminism!
Let’s go!
Artemisia Gentileschi’s debut
Artemisia Gentileschi was born in Rome in 1593: her father Orazio Gentileschi, a friend of Caravaggio, already had his own workshop and was an esteemed painter of the time. The eldest of five children and the only girl in the family, Artemisia grew up doing her apprenticeship alongside her younger brothers at her father’s side, in an environment that was highly stimulating for a young painter.
You may already know this, but the Rome of that era was one of the most flourishing artistic centres of the moment.
Why?
The whole city was an immense open-air building site: thanks to the recent Catholic Reformation, countless works were being restored. Several urban projects had also been launched to make the city more modern than in the past, with new commissions that involved a great many artists and workshops of the day.
Thanks to her father’s workshop, Artemisia Gentileschi thus had the chance to meet and mix with artists and men of letters and, of course, to be influenced by them.
The young woman’s gifts were not slow to show themselves: her first known painting, Susanna and the Elders, dates from when she was 17, a balanced synthesis of the realism of Caravaggio and the forms of the Carracci.
But did she really paint it herself?
Today some historians find it hard to believe that this work was entirely made by the girl. It seems her father may have worked on it too. The fact is that Orazio, starting precisely from this painting, seized every chance to promote Artemisia’s art, telling and writing to the most influential figures about his daughter’s talent.
Artemisia Gentileschi: the rape trial
Young Artemisia’s determination was such that it pushed her father to invest in his daughter’s talent by entrusting her to Agostino Tassi. He was already known in Rome for having had some trouble with the law, but he was also one of the most important perspective masters of the time. Moreover, at that very moment, he was working with Orazio on the loggetta of the Casino delle Muse hall at Palazzo Rospigliosi.
What happened next, sadly, was the greatest tragedy of Artemisia Gentileschi’s life.
Tassi became infatuated with the young woman and made several advances, all rejected by the young artist. So it was, in 1611, with the complicity of a colleague and a friend of Artemisia’s own, that he managed to rape her in her own home. What followed was a real ordeal for the artist. Tassi in fact managed to establish a genuine relationship for about a year, with the promise of marrying her, until it was discovered that he was already married to another woman.
And so what happened?
Simple: despite the “dishonour” and the gossip that would follow, Orazio reported the matter to the authorities and took the case to court.
Here’s how it ended.
The conclusion of the rape trial
Artemisia Gentileschi’s deposition was given under torture, while her fingers were being crushed. As a painter, we can only imagine how gruelling it must have been for her to have to recount such a thing while risking permanent damage to her own hands!
The rawness with which she recounted the facts makes the whole affair even more terrible. There still exist today pages of her testimony in which the young woman describes the events with extreme frankness.
Sadly, in the meantime, much gossip circulated about Artemisia. Imagine that she was even subjected to a gynaecological examination to establish that she was no longer a virgin. But this only fuelled rumours of incestuous relations with her father Orazio, of having numerous lovers and of an unseemly conduct.
Fortunately justice took its course and, only a year later, Agostino Tassi was sentenced to choose between five years of hard labour and banishment from Rome. He chose exile, which, however, was never actually enforced: Tassi soon returned to work in the city. Artemisia, instead, was forced to leave Rome and to marry a little-known Florentine artist, Pierantonio Stiattesi. This marriage was, of course, arranged only to silence the rumours and rehabilitate the young woman in the eyes of society.
Perhaps it’s a coincidence, or simply the epilogue of this affair, but it’s precisely in these years that Artemisia Gentileschi painted what is considered one of her most important works: “Judith Slaying Holofernes” (there are two versions, one at Capodimonte and one at the Uffizi).
Some thoughts on Artemisia’s rape
The affair, to this day, is not entirely clear.
Some think it was all a manoeuvre by Orazio to discredit his colleague Agostino, and others say it was a plot hatched by the other painters against the young woman to discredit her. Some claim that by stuprum was meant sexual relations, even consensual, outside marriage. According to this theory, Artemisia Gentileschi would have consented, believing Tassi’s promises of marriage, and would have invented the violence only in the hope of obtaining compensation.
Most critics, however, consider Artemisia’s deposition to be truthful. Indeed, neither she nor her father would have brought such a trial, knowing they would be placed at the centre of a scandal that could compromise their careers, if it had not really happened.
Artemisia Gentileschi’s incredible career
At the start of her career, Artemisia Gentileschi was appreciated above all as a portraitist and for her biblical heroines, but no one ever commissioned great frescoes or important altarpieces from her. So, around 1630, she moved first to Venice and then to Naples.
It was probably her perseverance and her talent that allowed her to achieve great results.
In Naples she obtained her first commission for a church, the cathedral of Pozzuoli. Then, in 1638, she was in London, where her father had become court painter in the service of Charles I. The two worked together on the ceiling fresco of the Queen’s House at Greenwich, for Queen Henrietta Maria.
But that’s not all.
Despite the scandals, Artemisia managed to build relationships with the most influential figures of her time, starting with Cosimo II de’ Medici. She was a friend of Galileo Galilei, with whom she kept up a long correspondence, and she was engaged by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, great-nephew and namesake of the great Michelangelo, who commissioned from her the Allegory of Inclination for the ceiling of the Casa Buonarroti in Florence.
She was also a beautiful woman, and had many admirers. Of course, because of her “masculine” work and her independence, malicious rumours about her conduct continued to circulate throughout her life and even afterwards.
Her enterprise and ambition drove her to leave her husband in 1621 and return to Rome with her two daughters.
Artemisia’s art
Thanks to her talent and her ability to maintain excellent relationships with important figures of her time, she reached major milestones. She also managed to create a style of her own, following in Caravaggio’s footsteps: her figures are monumental, expressive, lively, almost theatrical.
But that’s not enough!
Some of her paintings have even been read from a psychoanalytic point of view: in her first work, Susanna and the Elders, some see her father and her attacker, Tassi. In Judith and Holofernes, a work of great violence, some read the woman’s desire for revenge against her rapist.
Finally, as for her biblical heroines, often flanked by friends and handmaids, one can find her disappointment at the betrayal of Tuzia, who allowed the violence and then accused her in court.
But despite her personal troubles, what is certain is that she was an extraordinary painter, able not only to stand out but also to innovate.
It’s no accident, then, that Artemisia Gentileschi became a genuine symbol of feminism. She was a strong, determined woman who rebelled against the violence she suffered, as well as an independent and emancipated artist.
Not by chance, in her most famous and programmatic painting, the Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (now in the British Royal Collection), Artemisia portrayed herself as Painting itself: a gesture of pride that no male colleague could have made.
Artemisia spent her last years in Naples, where she went on receiving commissions at least until 1654. She probably died there around 1656, in the years of the terrible plague that wiped out an entire generation of Neapolitan artists.
Where to see Artemisia Gentileschi’s works
Artemisia’s works are scattered across museums around the world. Here’s where to find the most important:
- The famous Judith Slaying Holofernes is at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence (a first, even rawer version is at the Capodimonte Museum in Naples).
- Judith and her Maidservant and other works are at Palazzo Pitti, also in Florence.
- The youthful Susanna and the Elders is in Germany, at Schloss Weißenstein in Pommersfelden.
- The Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting is in the Royal Collection, in London.
A tip: if you go to Florence, the Uffizi are one of the most crowded museums in Italy. It’s worth booking a skip-the-line ticket for the Uffizi Gallery in advance, so you avoid hours of queuing and go straight to her Judith.
And you, did you already know the story of this extraordinary painter?
