Artemisia Gentileschi was much more than a vengeful heroine of painting
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593, Rome -1653, Naples) is today recognized as one of the most prominent female Italian painters in art history, and without a doubt, the most significant of the 17th century. The exhibition “Artemisia Gentileschi: Heroine of Art” at the Jacquemart-André Museum until August 3, offers a fresh take on the artist’s work. Showcasing around 40 paintings, including four recently discovered masterpieces, the exhibition proves that even for a well-established female artist like Gentileschi, there are always new insights and revelations about her work.
Among the newly found works is a signed portrait of a knight from the Order of St Stephen, thought to have been painted circa 1619-1620. When it was first published in the mid-20th century, the painting was mistakenly attributed to Justus Sustermans. However, it actually bears the faded signature of Artemisia.
Another recently unearthed work on display is the“Cleopatra”, a theme that Gentileschi revisited often. Until recently, scholars only knew of this painting through a black-and-white photograph in a 1999 monograph.
Artemisia was a great artist. The fact that she is known by her first name, much like the great masters of the Renaissance such as Leonardo and Michelangelo, attests to this.
In this painting, Gentileschi portrays the Queen of Egypt in despair following the suicide of her beloved Mark Antony, moments before she ends her own life with a poisonous snake hidden in her left arm.
The artist appears drawn to the eroticism of the scene: Cleopatra, half-naked, tilts her head back as the snake’s fangs pierce her chest.
Artemisia likely stands as the sole artist of her era to evade the fate of painting commissioned portraits of children and still lifes of beautiful flowers. Instead, she tackled subjects traditionally approached by male artists and thus perpetually presented through the male gaze.
To these subjects, she introduced an unusual “gentleness” to the female figures, who “conspired” with bravery and resolve for their liberation from phallic domination. As a result, these female figures emerged more as survivors of the patriarchal condition rather than its victims.
A statement often attributed to her, loosely translated into Greek, reads: “I will demonstrate to your gracious authority what a woman can achieve.” In essence, she possessed a proto-feminist “sting,” a trait both rare and suppressed, and unexplored in her time. During her era, the primary – if not the only – way for a woman with painting talent to progress in her art was to have a father or husband who was a recognized painter. This allowed her to practice and work in his studio without jeopardizing her honor by straying from the family or marital home and oversight.
But above all, Artemisia was a remarkable artist. This is evident even in the fact that she is known universally by her first name, much like the great masters of the Renaissance, including Leonardo and Michelangelo.
She worked in Rome, her birthplace in 1593. She then moved to Florence, Venice, London, and finally Naples, where she passed away. Her art enraptured the most significant and discerning patrons in Europe, including the Duke of Tuscany and King Philip IV of Spain.
She was the eldest of five children – and the only daughter – of the painter Orazio Gentileschi, who also served as her teacher.
The first work Artemisia created is titled “Susanna and the Elders”. She was just 16 years old at the time.
The artwork depicts the devout Susanna of Babylon, seated naked on the edge of a stone cistern in her house’s courtyard, fresh from her bath. Two elderly men can be seen leering at her from the boundary of her garden, their voyeuristic gaze unwelcome and intrusive.
Ironically, this piece foreshadowed a horrifying event that would occur to its creator a year later. The painter, Agostino Tassi, a friend and collaborator of her father, would rape her. Her father had entrusted Tassi with teaching his daughter perspective. She insisted on pressing charges against her assailant, and with her father’s consent, the infamous trial took place in 1612. The proceedings were well-documented, with detailed transcripts recently uncovered in Italy’s General State Archives.
Tassi, who had deflowered Artemisia, a euphemism commonly used to describe the violent assault of a 17-year-old girl, was sentenced to exile from Rome. However, due to his collaboration with Pope Cosimo Quorli’s high-ranking delegate, the sentence was never enforced.
Subsequently, Artemisia was forced into marriage with Pierantonio di Vincenzo Stiattesi, a relatively unknown and perhaps less talented painter. This union necessitated her relocation to his hometown, Florence. Despite having five children there, Artemisia managed to establish herself as an independent artist. In 1616, she became the first woman to join the Academy of the Arts of Design, thus gaining recognition in the art world.
Her work from this period is often considered autobiographical. She frequently used her own figure in her pieces, either in self-portraits or as models for characters from mythology or religious tradition. It’s believed that she did this to make her image as recognizable as possible to the art world and potential patrons.
Artemisia was a strikingly beautiful woman, and she had no qualms about using her own figure in her work. This approach was not only practical but also well-received by the public. Many believe that the depiction of the woman in her works from this period is what makes them so captivating to viewers.
Despite her success, Artemisia was forced to return to Rome in 1620 due to creditors. She stayed there for the next decade, with the exception of a trip to Venice in 1628. From 1630, she resided in Naples, where her studio thrived. In 1639, she briefly visited London to assist her ailing father with the decoration of the ceiling of the Queen’s House in Greenwich. She returned to Naples the following year, where she remained until her death. The exact date and location of her death remain unknown. However, based on various records that were relatively recently uncovered, it is widely accepted that she passed away in 1654.
The transcripts from the trial against Agostino Tassi are primarily written in Latin, with the responses from the court parties preserved in Italian. During the trial, she was forced to confront her rapist in the Tor Di Nona prison in Rome. Interestingly, the judges, despite showing a somewhat favourable attitude towards Artemisia and her father, proposed a widely accepted but cruel practice known as ‘judicial torture’. This involved torturing a witness to test the veracity of their testimony under severe physical pain.
Artemisia agreed to the torture, realizing it was necessary for her to obtain justice. She was subjected to a rope torture method, where ropes were looped around her fingers and stretched to cause excruciating pain. She accepted the risk of permanent damage to her hands, which might have rendered her unable to paint, in her pursuit of justice. As the ropes tightened around her fingers, she insisted on the truth of her testimony, eventually convincing the judges. She also screamed at Tassi, who was present, “These ropes are the wedding ring you promised me.”
It is crucial to highlight that this was her choice, as it is often portrayed as if the court arbitrarily decided to torture her. The fact that she willingly underwent such a horrific ordeal underscores her determination to seek her moral – if not anything else – vindication at any cost.
Her demeanor should have been far more poignant than if she had been subjected to an excessively harsh and unjust demand by the judges.
This serves as a significant catalyst, making one recognize and value the fragility of her position, as well as her own resourcefulness, and the concurrent resilience paired with her capacity to swiftly take control whenever faced with a daunting challenge.
One of her most renowned works is ‘Judith Beheading Holofernes’. The composition is interpreted as an allegory of retaliatory murder. Two young women are seen attacking a man lying on a bed. It’s a collaborative effort: Judith slashes Holofernes’ carotid artery while the other woman – her maid – restrains him on the bed. Both women, depicted as full-bodied, are far more composed than one would anticipate, as if they are meticulously executing a routine task, devoid of any emotional turmoil.
Judith, as Artemisia’s fictional alter ego, slits the throat of Holofernes, a formidable Assyrian general. He remains conscious, but is now utterly defenseless.
His blood seeps onto the white sheets of his bed, against his will.
This alone is sufficient to perceive the composition as an artistic transformation of a revenge fantasy, triggered by Tassi’s intrusion into Artemisia’s life.
Generally, the violence in her works takes the viewer by surprise. This is even more evident in another composition inspired by a Jewish biblical myth from the Book of Judges: the virtuous Israeli woman Yael, with the aid of a seemingly heavy hammer, drives a thick nail into the temple of a Canaanite troop commander.
A new surge of blood is on the horizon.
Whenever Artemisia revisits the theme of a woman taking revenge on a man who has dishonored her or misused his power against her, a primal hunger seems to awaken.
It is therefore not incorrect to suggest that her works often carry a hidden intention to shock, presenting brutal truths with unflinching honesty.
Her letters, discovered in 2011 within the historic Frescobaldi archive, were predominantly addressed to her long-term lover, the Florentine compatriot Francesco Maria Maringhi.
Until this discovery, the only known letter from her was dated 1630 and addressed to her patron, Cassiano dal Pozzo, in Florence, in which she requested a permit for her assistant to carry arms.
Through her letters to Maringhi, scholars have gained insight into her life and work from her own perspective. They reveal her struggle to support her family due to her husband’s inability to find work as a painter, her grief over the loss of her children, her mounting debts, and her strained relationship with her father.
In broader terms, these letters show that despite her considerable talent and dynamic temperament, Artemisia Gentileski was a woman who faced a life marked by what we would today describe as relentless misfortune.
Even when she was in England, under the patronage of Charles I, her luck did not improve. Shortly after he appointed her to a position among the court artists, a war broke out and Parliament decided to execute him.
Indeed, Artemisia’s life was marked by a series of beheadings, both literal and metaphorical, that continued throughout her life.
Some might even draw parallels between her tumultuous life and that of Caravaggio, whom she possibly met as a child. It is certain that she was deeply influenced and inspired by his work, particularly the intense “darkness” of his compositions, which were piercingly illuminated by sudden bursts of light.
Interestingly, Artemisia, like Caravaggio, was largely forgotten in the 18th and 19th centuries, only to be rediscovered around the mid-20th century. This resurgence was largely thanks to the efforts of Italian art historian Roberto Longhi and his wife Anna Banti, who penned a novel titled “Artemisia,” now considered a classic of the neorealist period.
However, unlike Caravaggio, who was quickly “rehabilitated” after his rediscovery, it took many more years for Artemisia’s work to be widely accepted and taken seriously, well into the end of the 20th century.
While it may be challenging to interpret Artemisia’s art as a response to the traumatic events in her life, it is also hard to avoid doing so. This is because certain themes – the male voyeuristic gaze and female revenge – recur assertively and persistently in her works.
Her correspondence with Maringhi offers a glimpse into the happiness he brought her. Her letters reveal her strength and forthrightness, as she does not shy away from discussing deeply personal matters. In one such letter, she even advises Maringhi – perhaps jokingly – not to masturbate while looking at a painting of her that he owned.
Artemisia’s father, Orazio Gentileschi, spent 12 years in London, at the court of Charles I. In 2019, London’s National Gallery acquired an important painting of his, which had been in its permanent collection for the past 20 years as a loan from a private collector. The painting, titled “The Discovery of Moses” and measuring 2.5 by 3 metres, holds historical significance beyond its artistic value, as it was created to commemorate the birth of the first royal heir. The painting was purchased for approximately 22 million pounds sterling, with a substantial portion of the cost covered by private donations.
In 2017, the National Gallery acquired an Artemisia piece depicting her as St Catherine of Alexandria at a Paris auction. The painting, which had been forgotten for centuries in a French family collection, sold for four times its original estimate, costing the National Gallery €2.8 million.
Once secured within the foundation’s collection, “St Catherine” commenced a nationwide tour, proudly showcased in numerous locations and with particular fanfare on Women’s Day that year.
Charles I began his art collection in 1623, inspired by a trip to Spain where he admired the royal collection. He formed his own by purchasing the entire art collection of the Gonzaga family, the renowned art-loving dukes of the marshy Mantua region in Italy, known throughout the civilized world for their inherited knack for acquiring only masterpieces.
Charles I’s collection burgeoned to such an extent that the first official inventory made during his reign recorded approximately 1,500 paintings and 500 sculptures.
It is believed that his collection altered the way England perceived, appreciated, and valued art.
The collection also reveals the artistic preferences of influential figures of his era who were art connoisseurs and influenced the King’s artistic selections. In this regard, Charles I himself demonstrated a greater inclination towards Flemish artists, while his wife Henrietta-Marie of France showed a stronger affinity for Italian artists. These included Horatio Gentileschi, who was commissioned to paint the grand and ambitious ‘Finding Moses’, as well as the famed ceiling decoration in the Queen’s house, completed by Artemisia.
While newly discovered works by Gentileschi continue to emerge, scholars of her work, such as Patrizia Cavazzini, curator of the Paris exhibition, continue to bemoan some catastrophic losses. Some of her most ambitious, large-scale works – including a series of paintings she produced for the Grand Duke of Tuscany – are known to us only through archival documents.
For this reason, the curator was especially delighted to include in the exhibition a masterpiece from a private collection that had been previously documented but never displayed. The painting Odysseus recognizes Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes (c. 1640) portrays a scene from mythology. The provenance of the work – who commissioned it and when – remains a mystery, but it resurfaced on the Milan art market in 2005.
In recent years, it has become increasingly common for the sake of political correctness to augment the representation of female artists in public collections.
It’s perfectly understandable to try and amplify public interest in a significant female artist by weaving elements of her personal history into the narrative. The aim is to shape her into a timeless icon, a beacon of steadfastness and radiance, that transcends morals, values, and epochs.
“She is the 17th-century’s Beyoncé,” wrote Alastair Sooke, The Telegraph’s art critic, about her. With this comparison, he sought to demonstrate how Artemisia’s work resonates globally, likening her to a pop superstar.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with such a comparison. The real danger lies not in equating Artemisia with “Beyoncé,” but in her potentially becoming the next Frida Kahlo in the public’s affection.
With Kahlo – the quintessential “passionate in service after death” – her life story has been fictionalized to create a heroic symbolic figure whose dimensions exceed human limits. This has inflated her image to such an extent that it’s now nearly impossible to view her work clearly and without bias.
This suggests that while the initial intentions to boost interest in her were positive, the process lost all restraint. Now, we face a boomerang that comes hurtling back at us, threatening to shatter our fantasy of a sustaining “truth.”
Gentileschi clearly relished depicting scenes where women resist men, adding her unique spin on these themes. However, the Paris exhibition also seeks to illuminate fresh aspects of her work. Patrizia Cavazzini aims to draw focus to a less discussed but equally audacious facet of her work. “She knew how to use her body and her face, and she could be extremely seductive,” she says.
Gentileschi often incorporated self-portraits into her works and didn’t hesitate to project her own features onto nude female figures. A prime example is Allegory of Inclination (Allegory of Inclination, 1615-1617), a piece commissioned by Duke Michelangelo and typically displayed on the ceiling of the Casa Buonarroti in Florence. “It was a house where intellectuals gathered; if you enter the main salon and look up, you will see Artemisia naked.”
The exhibition “Artemisia Gentileschi: Heroine of Art” at the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris will run until August 3, 2025.
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