Artemisia Gentileschi

Introduction

Two years ago I went to an exhibition in Milan titled: “Artemisia: storia di una passione” (“Artemisia: history of a passion”). The exhibition was sponsored by the Assessorato alla Cultura of the Comune of Milano and curated by Roberto Contini and Francesco Solinas, with the scenographic and theatrical work of Emma Dante.

Artemisia Gentileschi (Rome 1593 - Naples 1652/53) was a Roman painter, daughter of the painter Orazio Gentileschi and Prudenza Montone (who died when Artemisia was twelve). First of six children (all males), at a very early age was initiated to painting by her father, a follower of Caravaggio.

In 1612 began the rape process, marked Artemisia’s entire life. She was fifteen years old and her rapist, Agistino Tassi, was about 32. At the beginning of the year Artemisia declared that the previous year, at his home in via della Croce, her perspective teacher had raped her. Agostino Tassi, after the rape, had deluded to marry her - causing the girl to behave more uxorio - but when she discovered the deception, she informed his father that made an appealed to the justice. To confirm the accusations she had to undergo further questioning under torture. Tassi was convicted and he spent eight months in prison in Corte Savella, but in the end the case was dismissed. Later on Agostino and Orazio Gentileschi reunited, forgetting what happened. Apparently the threshold of tolerance of violence against women was very low in the society of the time.

Undoubtedly Artemisia made a big effort to rehabilitate from the story of the rape through a combined marriage, but especially through her career. Unfortunately, the episode clouded part of the artistic achievements of Artemisia, who was long considered a “curiosity...

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...stablished herself as an artist in the 17th century, thing that for a woman was not so trivial!

Works Cited

• GRISELDA POLLOCK, review of “Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art”, THE ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 1990 VOLUME, LXXII NUMBER

• MARY D. GARRARD, “Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art”, Princeton, Princeton, University Press, 1989.

• RODERICK CONWAY MORRIS, “Artemisia: Her Passion Was Painting Above All Else”, New York Times, Published November 18, 2011

• CELESTINE BOHLEN, “Elusive Heroine Of the Baroque; Artist Colored by Distortion, Legend and a Notorious Trial”, New York Times, Published February 18, 2002

• DEBORAH SOLOMON, “Out of the Past, An Ur-Feminist Finds Stardom”, New York Times, Published May 3, 1998

• JORG ZUTTER, “REVIEW OF EXHIBITION”, Renaissance Studies Vol. 27 No. 1