Artemisia Gentileschi
A “master of edgy realism” who brought a sense of personal involvement to her work
Covid-19 has cancelled countless exhibitions, said Waldemar Januszczak in The Sunday Times. Blockbuster shows devoted to Warhol, Gauguin and Titian have been closed or delayed, but the “exhibition that blows the biggest hole in the calendar” is an event at the National Gallery dedicated to a less famous figure – the 17th century Italian artist Artemisia Gentileschi. Its indefinite postponement is a great “blow”: Gentileschi (1593-c.1654) “can be bluntly described as the first great female painter”, an artist who – at a time when women were excluded from artistic training – was easily the equal of her male contemporaries. The daughter of a respected artist, Orazio Gentileschi, she was “a master of edgy realism” who, often using herself as a model, brought a sense of “personal involvement” to her work. Look at her Self-portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria, in which her “tender, involving, tricky gaze” reaches across from 1617 and “grabs us by the lapels”. Yet until recently, she was seen as a novelty; the retrospective would have enshrined her as a major talent in her own right.
Gentileschi was a “cursed artist”, said Jonathan Jones in The Guardian. Aged 17, she was raped by fellow painter Agostino Tassi, who worked with her father. In the trial that ensued,
Gentileschi “had her name blackened by Tassi and his defence witnesses”, and underwent torture with thumbscrews to “verify” her testimony. It’s possible that the horrendous experience fed into her art: her extraordinary painting Judith beheading Holofernes (c.1612-13) depicts two women attacking a man with a violence not seen in other contemporary depictions. Further misfortune followed: the summit of her career came when Charles I appointed her as a court artist, just before the English Civil War broke out; she was forced to leave, though not before completing her “great” Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (1638-39), now in the Royal Collection.
At her best, Gentileschi is “a match” for Caravaggio, said Rachel Spence in the FT. Yet although she was the most famous, she was far from the only female artist of the Renaissance. Others, including Fede Galizia (1578-1630) and Plautilla Nelli (1524-88) are now getting due recognition. During her lifetime, Gentileschi was “fiercely possessive of her reputation”. She defended her prices and refused to lend her drawings, for fear they would be copied. While male artists “rarely bothered” to sign their works, she made a habit of doing so. Sadly, her fear of erasure was borne out. But now, at last, “the winds of change” are on her side.