Artemisia Gentileschi
Born – Rome, Italy 1593
Died – Naples, Italy 1652
Artemisia Gentileschi worked mainly in Florence and later in Naples where she finally settled. She was taught by her father Orazioo, a follower of Caravaggio, who in turn engendered a Caravaggesque realism and feel for dramatic subject matter in his spirited daughter. Gentileschi joined her father in England and worked with him in the late 1630s on the decorations at the Queen’s House in Greenwich, London. She encountered a good deal of prejudice as a women artist in the seventeenth century – this was reinforced by the unusual and dramatic events of her life, including a much sensationalized trial in which she accused her teacher of raping her many times. The story of the Jewish heroine Judith decapitating Nebuchadnezzar’s general, Holofernes, after being offered as hostage was popular among Caravaggio’s circle. Gentileschi painted it herself several times. In this version, she portrays Judith as a courageous and determined women whose violent act is unromanticized. Criticized in her time for depicting heroines who failed to conform to prevailing notions of elegant and delicate feminity, Gentileschi’s contribution to art has only recently been properly recognized.
Masterpieces:
- Self-Portrait as La Pittura
- Susanna and the Elders.
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.