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Personal Biography in Art Historical Analysis | Artemisia Gentileschi
In the study of art history, personal biography can add layers of meaning and lead to perhaps a deeper understanding of an artist’s work. I have provided two sources about the artist, Artemisia Gentilleshi. Please read the article below and also the one from the link provided to Khan Academy.
Write a thoughtful essay about how the details of an individual’s life informs their work focusing on Gentilesci’s painting, Judith beheading Holofernes. Alternatively, You could also write effectively about how biographical information and analysis based on the artist’s personal life could impact interpretation in a negative way.
Have an opinion. Bring your voice into the discussion. Art History is about forming your own ideas with the provided context. This should only be about two pages typed.
Feel free to email with any questions.
And this one from the NY Times
Artemisia was born in Rome in 1593. Her father Orazio was the son of a Tuscan goldsmith. Artemisia learned to paint from her father and quickly mastered his style with such assurance that there has been no end of confusion as to the authorship of some works produced in her teenage years.
Artemisia Gentileschi grew up in a rough, sometimes violent, household. Her "Allegory of Fame," painted between 1630 and 1635.Credit...Robilant+Voena, London-Milano
A key picture is the brilliant “Susannah and the Elders” now in the Graf von Shönborn Collection in Pommersfelden in Germany, painted when she was 17 and now widely agreed to be by her. For the nude figure, Artemisia clearly used herself as a model, as she was to do many times.
In May 1611 Agostino Tassi, an artist with whom Orazio was collaborating on frescoes at the papal Palazzo Quirinale, found Artemisia alone painting in the family studio-home and raped her. Afterward he promised to marry her.
Orazio had a number of unsavory friends — at least one other had tried to rape his daughter — but Tassi had a record of violent crimes committed in several other Italian cities and had been sent to the galleys for a time. Among the charges brought against him were incest and an attempt to have his wife, a prostitute, murdered. When it emerged that Tassi’s wife was still alive and he was therefore in no position to marry Artemisia, Orazio brought the rape charge against him.
Initially, far from serving to restore his daughter’s honor, it exposed her to numerous false accusations of immorality. Having lost her virginity while still unmarried she was regarded as dishonored and therefore not a reliable witness. But under torture by thumbscrew, she stuck to her story. Tassi was condemned to exile, but the sentence was never carried out.
Orazio, who had tried more than once to force Artemisia to become a nun, hastily married her off to an older man, Pietro Stiattesi, with whom she soon left for Florence.
In the period leading up to this, Orazio had come under the influence of the rising star Caravaggio, which in turn had a marked effect on Artemisia’s canvases. But it is unlikely that Artemisia would have seen Caravaggio’s “Judith Beheading Holofernes” before painting, in around 1612, the first version of her still astonishing interpretation of the same scene.
The testimonies at the Tassi trial show that she was seldom allowed out of the house and Orazio was too fringe a figure to have any access to Rome’s cultural elite.
In any case, Artemisia’s picture differs markedly from Caravaggio’s in depicting a dramatic struggle, in which Judith’s maid plays an active part, holding the frantically resisting general down as the heroine’s sword slices into the victim’s neck, his blood running in rivulets across the sheets and down the head of his bed. That the extreme violence of the scene derives from Artemisia’s responses to her rape, as has been suggested, is conceivable but unprovable.
The first and second version, from around 1620-21, of what was to become her most celebrated image are the opening and closing canvases, on loan from Naples and Florence respectively, of the current exhibition.
The move to Florence marked the beginning of Artemisia’s independent life as an artist. Admiration for her talents overcame her humble social status and gave her access to intellectual circles such as the one that gathered at the Buonarotti house. There she met not only Galileo and other leading figures, but also Francesco Maria di Niccolò Maringhi, who became her life-long lover and financial supporter. In 1614, with the backing of powerful patrons and fellow artists, Artemisia was the first woman to be admitted to Florence’s Accademia del Disegno.
Gentileschi's "The Nymph Corisca and the Satyr." The artist had to overcome not only the professional challenges of pursuing a career in a man’s world, but also personal adversity and scandal.Credit...Private Collection. Luciano Pedicini, Naples
Despite giving birth four times in five years, Artemisia displayed an unbending passion for painting. Her highly erotic nudes probably had an added cachet in that the figures bore a close resemblance to her own, as is the case with her “Danae” from the Saint Louis Museum here, with its abandoned pose, silky white thighs and calves, dimpled knees and orgasmically clenched fist.
Heroic women, often nude, nearly nude or with generous décolletage — Susanna, Judith, Bathsheba, Lucretia, Cleopatra — were an Artemisia trademark. Her Mary Magdalens, such as the one here from Palazzo Pitti in Florence, were some of the most sensual ever painted.
Keeping up appearances and lavish living incurred mounting debts, which obliged Artemisia to flee to Rome in 1520 where, undaunted, she found new patrons. She took advantage of new opportunities to develop her reputation as a portraitist. Among the most striking here is of a proudly self-confident “Lady With a Fan” from a private collection.
Artemisia was in Venice in the late 1620s. By this time her more distant royal patrons included Philip IV of Spain. She went to Naples in 1630, where the Viceroy Fernando Enríquez Afán de Ribera bought many pictures from her. She also received some substantial church commissions, among them one for the large canvases for the Cathedral of Pozzuoli on show here.
In the late 1630s she traveled to London, where Orazio had been court painter to Queen Henrietta since 1626. It has been assumed that she went there to assist her aging father in completing some ceiling paintings at the Queen’s House in Greenwich, though it is perhaps more probable that she was invited on her own account by Charles I.
The first woman artist to run a large studio with many assistants, Artemisia was to spend much of the rest of her life in Naples, a city she did not much like, according to some of her letters. She died there in 1654.
- ANSWER
Judith beheading Holofernes
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Artemisia Gentileschi was a famous painter from Italy whose controversial works founded on Biblical heroines distinguishing her from her male contemporaries leading. Although it is generally believed that Gentileschi owes her father Orazo and Caravaggio for the great works she has done, her works laid a lot of emphasis on realism as opposed to those of her predecessors. However, the most outstanding reason why her works were inspiring is that they were informed by her delicate and rough teenage life that was marred by sexual violence, repression, and injustices, unlike her predecessors. It seems that most of her works permeated her paintings, and the only way to get over the trauma was through retribution and redress through her works.
The extent to which her terrible childhood informs Gentileschi's works are wholly communicated in her artistic works. For instance, at 17, she was raped by her father's close associate called Tassi while working in her father's studio. Upon realization that his wife, who he wanted dead, is still alive, Tassi abandoned any plans to marry Gentileschi as per the social dictates of the time (Camara, n.d.). She feels betrayed by her female chaperone who, according to her had colluded with Tassi so that she can be defiled. An analysis of the first version of Judith beheading Holofernes is meant to give a glimpse into Gentileschi's life as a victim of sexual abuse. The memory of the ordeal clearly relates with the story of Judith. For instance, in the painting, Judith is being assisted by her maidservant called Abra as opposed to Gentileschi's chaperone, who left her to suffer alone in the hands of Tassi. In Gentileschi's painting, Judith is seen wearing a bracelet that is believed to be associated with Artemis, a goddess of both chastity and hunt. In other words, Artemis sanctioned the death of Holofernes because she cherished chastity.
During Gentileschi times, Italy was characterized by repression of women, and she was no exception. Men demeaned women, and any injustices meted on them were not addressed seriously by the authorities. Looking at the ancient Italy, it seems rape was allowed on condition that the victim gets married to the offender going by Tassi's promise that he will marry Gentileschi and later withdrawing on the realization that his conspiracy to kill his wife was not successful. Furthermore, women were treated unfairly as opposed to men when it came to matters of chastity. For example, when Gentileschi loses her virginity to Tassi during the rape ordeal, she is considered immoral and dishonest because she lost her virginity before marriage and cannot be listened to. Gentileschi is part of the mistreatment and repression women underwent back then. Gentileschi's painting of Judith beheading Holofernes comes in as a game-changer meant to change the status quo and liberate women(Lazzeri,2016). The portraits represent women's power as she asserts her power as an artist with the freedom to choose subjects she deems fit. Abra, the maidservant, is portrayed as a strong woman who actively participates in the killing. The portrait conveys a revolutionary message which encourages women to come together and protest the iron-fist rule subjected to them by men. Furthermore, this can be seen Gentileschi's way of revenging by slaying Holofernes, who, in this case, represents Tassi.
To wrap up, the paper has provided an analysis of Gentileschi's works and demonstrated that the past indeed informs some artworks of the artist. For instance, she contrasts her chaperone and Abra who betray and cooperate respectively. In her painting, the bracelet Judith is wearing represented goddess of chastity and hunt, meaning she(goddess) endorsed Holofernes's death. Lastly, the slaying of Holofernes by two women is intended to portray women's power, and also a show of revenge for sexual abuses Gentileschi suffered as a teenager.
References
Camara, E. (n.d.). Gentileschi, Judith slaying Holofernes (article). Retrieved from https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/renaissance-reformation/baroque-art1/baroque-italy/a/gentileschi-judith-slaying-holofernes
Lazzeri, D., Castello, M. F., Lippi, D., & Weisz, G. M. (2016). Goiter in portraits of Judith the Jewish heroine. Indian journal of endocrinology and metabolism, 20(1), 119.