Artemisia Gentileschi: Renaissance and allegory

1. An introduction to Artemisia Gentileschi: How many women in the history of art have come and gone without a scene or a plotting their achievements. In this short lesson, we will introduce one of the strongest female artists in the history of art. I'm talking about Artemisia Gentileschi. In a time when humanism et al, Newsome and anthropocentrism are making their way into the thinkers mind. The man is still a prominent figure. But artemisia comes to show how anyone with talent can make it in the royal coordinate. 16 hundreds. I hoped you enjoyed this lesson. 2. Gentileschi, the struggle of the female artist: Hi guys. This time around, I would like to play things a little differently rather than a larger history lesson I would like to show you two different short stories of two rather unknown artist in the world of art. They are both female. And this is not a coincidence. As we will see, how the world of art has changed for female artist. And what is the panorama that awaits those of us who are working nowadays? Today, we will start with Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the most important Italian artist of the 17th century and also one of the most unknown. We assume that being a woman did not work in your favor despite being clearly superior to my peers. Today, the artist is considered not only one of the most notable artists of the Italian Baroque, but one ahead of feminism. She knew how to paint and represent painting symbolically. She been an extraordinary effort of identity at a time when being a woman in the art world was a limitation. Biblical characters populate her paintings, a symbol of the struggle against patriarchy. Oh, and by the way, many of the facts that we're gonna talk about today, you can find it great book, road strokes by Bridget Queen. The base of this conversation is not artemisia herself, but the great master that came right before her. Michelangelo, Caravaggio, revolutionary painter, provocative artists, restless person of a certain quarrelsome character. A misunderstood genius and a violent tormented man who would almost single-handedly create the whole style of the Baroque that would influence all later art. Caravaggio had established a new visual language, one that marries the immediacy of naturalism with a heightened dramatic flair. He utilized that chiaroscuro using the bold contrast of light and dark to great effect. Pushing it to the point of tenebrism, which is the extreme of dominating darkness, piercing through the bright insistent spotlights. What did these create? The biggest drama that the art world had ever seen. I mean, the controversy was enormous. He was well-known for his young male assistance, who were probably also his lovers. His paintings, we can see Saints depicted as beggars, virgins as prostitutes, all of them dressed in contemporary clothing But the painter perfectly captures the psychological strength of these characters, highlighting their faces with intense light, and wrapping backgrounds in darkness. So it is not strange that we will refer to Artemisia as a Caravaggista a follower of Caravaggio in a sea of other kind Caravaggisti Mosley, a group of almost exclusively men who worked on the style of the great master. She was born in Rome for her father Orazio Gentileschi was already a reputable Baroque painter. He was of course, an early follower of Caravaggio and his revolutionary art. So she would follow the same path once she entered his workshop. She grew up in a family surrounded by painters and sculptors. And we have to consider these are the last days of the Renaissance, the turn of the century. So for an artist, this is the best possible city to be living in. The time it was almost unthinkable for a woman to exercise any trait, let alone being an artist. But Orazio believed in her, he was proud and knowing that the girl was already better than him, And the rest of the painters in Rome agreed to give her academic notions. I know did he take her education seriously By the age of 16 She was already able to prep canvases, mix paintings. She was proficient at life drawing and was very good at understanding the anatomy and the symbolism that painting required. 3. Gentileschi, the wounded painter: Her first signed painting when she was only 17, is Susana and the elders, depicting a scene from the Catholic Old Testament. In this story, Susana is taking a bath and then to elderman approach her and try to blackmail her to secure sexual favors. She then refuses. And risk death as a result, the fact that she's willing to face death before dishonor is a motif widely used in the world of art at the time. She's in then pardoned, at the last minute when it's discovered that the elders have light and then they are the ones who pay with their lives. The thing about a motif is that it allowed artists like Caravaggio to use a concept, an idea over and over again, trying to depict the same characters in different styles. Of course, following certain rules of symbolism that the church would not pass by. This Susana motif had long been used in popular, because there weren't many opportunities for depicting the female nude outside of Eve and other biblical characters. The important thing to notice in artemisia's Susanna, is where the power is lying. In many other examples of other artists, we see Susanna as a powerless, being in-between two characters or with a frightened look. But in Artemisia's case, we see a disgusted look, a sign of physical power. And also we see her standing on our side of the perspective with a frontier, a barrier between her and the other two characters. The female nude is perfectly represented as she had herself in other models as examples. When we take a lesson on Renaissance, we will see what a hard time artists like Michelangelo had when trying to depict the female nude as they didn't have any point of reference or an interest in actually getting the figure right. She's for the first time, Talking about the idea of the heroine a solid and not soft character. If this was her take on gender equality before tragedy struck, Imagine afterwards. As we were saying, Orazio recognized for talent. And she became a valued member of his workshop. As part of her training Orazio hired his colleague, Augustine Nazi, who specialized in illusionistic architectural paintings to instruct Artemisia in the details of perspective. But instead of doing this, he slipped into her apartment. And raped her We have to consider that at that time, the concept of rape was not a thing. You could only hear of defloration or theft of Artemisia's father property. That is, he had a stolen he's only daughter's virginity. So the offense didn't actually occurred to her. According to Tassi He had broken an unspoken agreement of respect with her father. So at that time he knew he was in trouble and he promised artemisia to marry her. It was the only thing she could do considering Italian law and church and society of the time, it was the only way of not being totally ruined as a female in the realm of the 16th hundreds. After a couple of months of this promise, it turned out that Tassi was already married. So Orazio , of course, sued But these put up her daughter for a very public scrutiny. It was a seven month trial and a very humiliating process for the female artist where she was the one who had to prove that she wasn't lying about the charges that were being held against Tassi. She endured two obstetrical exams to confirm the defloration with a court notary present, and the findings were recorded. Also to verify the truth of her grave account. Artemisia was subjected to torture in the form of the "sivile" a kind of thumb screw, where courts are fastened two rings around the fingers and then tied into excruciating degrees. It was basically the 17th century version of a lie detector test. Her account is heartbreaking. Lifting my clothes, which he had great deal of trouble doing. He placed the hand with the handkerchief at my throat and on my mouth to keep me from screaming. I tried to scream as best as I could. I scratch his face and pulled his hair. After he had done his business, he got off me. When I saw myself free, I went to the table drawer and took a knife and move towards Augustino saying, "I'd like to kill you with this knife because you have dishonored me." 4. The artist regaining power: Orazio and artemisia won the case. And Tassi was basically only banned from Rome. Something that didn't even happen As it was a very low grade crime. It is no surprise then that her next painting and the most important one till now is Judith decapitating Holofernes In which we can see two women efficiently assassinating a naked man in his bed. The women are a Jewish widow named Judith, her maid servant, abra And they are executing an Assyrian general name Holofernes, who will otherwise destroy their people. We can see that women are in control here. They hold all the power. They are both dressed, Judith is dressed lavishly in an elegant gown, while Holofernes is naked. And she's the only one holding a deadly weapon. While he has nothing. We can see drama and opulence and violence. And maybe it was to clean a bit of her reputation, But we really see implied revenge here. After the trial, artemisia was sent to marry a minor Florentine painter named Pierre Antonio Stiattessi. By 1614, they were already living in Florence and promptly had four kids. She was no longer her father's daughter, and she had this turn on her own, married as a professional and secure her own commissions. The good thing is that her work was really good and the Medici's became one of her biggest patrons. In the story of Judith the Jews are terrified of the general, Holofernes destroying their town. So Judith sneaks into the enemy camp with her maid servant Abra and seduces the general. She pretends to be willing. She gets him drunk, and when he reclines in his bed, she leaps upon him with a sword. Then, as we see in the second painting, Judith and Abra escape the enemy camp, bringing the head of Holofernes with them as evidence of their triumph. head in hand, They inspired their people to victory So of course, once again, weakness over might, after all, and in air quotes, Judith was just a woman. But now she's holding power Artemisia was of course, not the first artist to depict the story of Judith Caravaggio has also famous version, but we can see, for example, a much younger Judith with a disgusted look on her face. and wanting to take distance from the fact that she's killing a man. She seems to be beheading a man with no effort, which seems a bit unreal. Her maid servant is quite old. Long before that, also, Lucas Chranach had tried to depict a similar scene. If we go back in time, we see less and less action in the Canvas. Cranach's Judith has already committed the act, and she holds Holofernes head on a table, the sword, and her hands are clean and she has this pleased, easy going and expression on her face. We see the detail in the three different artists' depictions of this gruesome act. We see the expression of the victim We see the intentions in the hand of the killer or lack of in Cranach's version. You can do this comparison and this analysis with every single motif that was ever represented during the Renaissance and the Baroque, times when themes were repeated endlessly by different artists in different times and with a great variety of strength and artistic intention. Through her long and successful career in Florence, artemisia depicted a series of very strong female characters, like we see here, Lucretia and Maria Magdalena. As melancholy, she worked on commissions for various families. Although she wasn't free of critic. Some of them described her paintings as dreadful pictures, as proof of her genius, but atrocious at the same time. What does this mean? What would they have said if the painter was a man? Would they still find it too a strong, too revengeful, too manipulative? her influence was any way vast among her peers. And she was widely respected. But we have to consider the work it took for her to gain. This is standing 5. Gentileschi, the first feminist artist: Last but not least in this short story, I would like to show you this seemingly simple self-portrait. Artemisia paints herself as "La pittura", the painting, the allegory of painting. It is a female embodiment of art itself. But in this case, she was in a fortunate position because she was the only one around her who could actually embody painting herself. La pittura is not a muse. She's not a representation of an almost universally male artist. She has power. She's in this case, subject and object, creator and created She studies the ideal attributes of the embodiment of the iconography of painting. You can see a couple of examples here of other painters before her, things like a hair who appears to be undone, indicative of creative passion. She has a chain around her neck, but it is hanging on the side. It is not there to make her more beautiful or to call attention to her bossom she has a gown because she has to differentiate from other manual labors like Brick laying We see her hands, one holding her palette, and the other one, in tention in hard work raised, grasping a brush, we see a face that is full of intention and full of concentration. She doesn't flatter herself. She doesn't seduce the viewer. She's looking away hard at work. This is what I see. A woman that considers feminism not as the act of fighting men, but of being hard at work. Being able to give other women power and a new language to speak through continuous actions in life. Artemisia will never be quiet again. She wasn't intended to be the heroic center of her paintings. But she was anyway, she was elected to membership in the "academia dei disegno" The first woman member since its founding in 1563. So we can see she pushed whatever it is that women were able to do in the 17th century, which was not much. I hope you enjoyed this little lesson. We will be able to compare Artemisia's life and work with a modern artists of the 20th century, the photographer Diane Arbus. So we can analyze these differences not only in the world of art as a whole, but also between painting and photography, between symbolism now and then. And the meaning of what do we want to convey and represent. Thank you very much for being here and see you next time. 6. Reflecting on what we learned: In the class project today we will be talking about all 0s, Allegri, how artists to use it as a tool to represent abstract ideas in other forums. I invite you to download the document available here at the class resources and share with me your thoughts. Thank you very much for choosing to learn with me and see you next time.