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# 57 • APRIL 5 , 2015
# 57 •APRIL 5
read more about #Great Italians of the Past
GREAT ITALIANS OF THE PAST:
ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI
By Giovanni Verde
Artemisia Gentileschi was
born in Rome on July 8, 1593.
Since she is a child, she shows
to have an extraordinary talent
for painting, also pushed by
the stimulating Roman environment made by several artists friends of his father Orazio,
also a painter. The style of his
father was referring explicitly
to that of Caravaggio, thus also
Artemisia follows his footsteps
until getting to personally
know the great Lombard artist.
The influence of Caravaggio
is mitigated by the equally
strong influence of her father:
the apprenticeship in Orazio’s
studio represents for Artemisia
the only way to practice her art,
being prohibited for a female
painter to attend art schools.
As a matter of fact, at that time
a woman could not even work,
but she had to live just out of
her family status; women's
work was not officially recognized, so it was done illegally.
The first artwork attributed to
the seventeen years old Artemisia, albeit aided by her father, determined to improve
and promote her early artistic
talent, is “Susanna e i vecchioni” (Susanna and the Elders)
of 1610. It is impossible not to
associate the pressure exerted by the two characters to
Susanna in the painting to the
complex relationship of Artemisia with hers father and with
Agostino Tassi, the painter
who in May 1611 will rape her.
The process that follows ends
for Tassi with a mild sentence,
and is extensively documented: the rawness of Artemisia’s
reporting is shocking, and it
will have a great influence to
understand in a feminist way
the figure of Artemisia Gentileschi, which will be rediscovered only in the second half of
the twentieth century.
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2015
venge against the violence she
suffered.
After the conclusion of the
process, in the November of
1612 Orazio combines for Artemisia a marriage with Pierantonio Stiattesi, a modest
Florentine artist, which will be
instrumental for Artemisia, raped, deceived and denigrated
Artemisia becomes a symbol by Tassi, to come back to a soof international feminism. The cial status of sufficient "integriestablishing of such a strong ty". Shortly after the marriage
image is helped by her cha- the couple moves to Florence,
racter of being a woman firm- where they have four children:
ly committed to pursuing her but only the daughter Prudenindependence and her artistic zia lives long enough to follow
statement against the many the mother back to Rome and
difficulties and prejudices en- then to Naples. Leaving Rome
countered in her troubled life. is almost obligatory: the painFor a woman in the early se- ter has lost the favor and the
venteenth century, to paint - appreciation from the other
as Artemisia did - represented artists, overshadowed by the
a choice neither common nor scandal.
easy.
The story of Artemisia GentiThe painting which depicts leschi is then revalued in the
“Giuditta che decapita Olo- following centuries. In recent
ferne”
(Judith times, many associations and
slaying
Holo- clubs have been entitled to
fernes) in 1613, the great Italian painter, symstored at the Na- bol of a kind of woman who, in
tional Museum years of great difficulties, has
of Capodimonte been able to make her own hinear Naples, is story with determination and
impressing for courage.
the violence of
the scene it depicts, and it has
been
psycho- 1: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
commons/3/32/Artemisia_Gentileschi_Selfporlogically
and trait_Martyr.jpg
psychoanalyti- 2: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/
commons/4/4e/Artemisia_Gentileschi_-_Judically interpreted th_Beheading_Holofernes_-_WGA8563.jpg
as a desire for re- 3: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Artemisia_Gentileschi_-_Self-Portrait_as_a_Lute_Player.JPG
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