Feminists Don’t Bake Bread

I think it’s kinda sad that the most defining thing about Artemisia Gentileschi is that she was raped. I studied her both in history class and in Art History, and the whole rape-trial thing seems to be the defining stuff. She was raped by her mentor and teacher, who, upon finding out she was a virgin, told her he’d marry her. She continued to be taught by him and have a consensual sexual relationship with him on that promise (well, consensual here isn’t necessarily the word I’d use - she apparently felt she was so shamed that she had to have him marry her, and he kept promising he would). Her father found out, and her mentor was tried for rape. Artemisia was tortured quite violently and refused to recant the accusation. Her rapist was convicted and banished for life, which meant about four months in reality since he had friends in high places. She left Rome, taking a friend who agreed to marry her to protect her honour, and made an attempt to move on.

But the thing that makes Artemisia interesting to me is that, in a time when women weren’t encouraged to be artists, and when those who were artists were primarily portrait painters, she was famous and well known enough to be part of the Accademia dell’Arte del Disegno - the first woman to be accepted. She painted Old Testament women (see: Judith over there on the left) at a time when religious art depicting women focused on Mary Mother of God and Mary Magdalene. She returns to Judith time and again, a story in itself which is very violent and out of character for women in the Bible.

(To sum up Judith in a few sentences, she was a Jewish woman during the time of a war against the Jews. The leader of the other side was Holofernes, and he was the key to the other side’s power. Judith went to his tent and offered herself to him as a concubine. He accepted, and they had sex. As soon as she was certain Holofernes was asleep, she cut off his head. Shortest story ever, I know. Go read up on it, it’s interesting.)

Artemisia was a friend to Galileo, and had Cosmo de Medici as a patron. She worked with Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, who was related to the famous Michelangelo, and helped with the ceiling paintings on a celebration of Michaelangelo’s work. She was well-respected in the art world of Florence, until her debts ran too high and her patron died. She returned to Rome some years later and was lauded there as an outstanding painter, with more high-level patrons. Eventually she numbered Charles I of England amongst them, who commissioned her to paint important ceilings in his court.

The frustrating thing about her career, as fascinating as it is, is how much it was completely ignored after her death. There was little mention of her art for centuries of study afterwards. After her death, verses were written about sexual scandal, but not about her abilities as an artist (”By painting one likeness after another/ I earned no end of merit in the world/ While, to carve two horns upon my husband’s head/I put down the brush and took a chisel instead.”). Her work was attributed to her father or to her mentors, but rarely to her. It’s only in recent decades that her art is being recognised as hers.

Artemisia is, I think, where Women’s History really starts to fall down. As I said, I studied her in two different classes, but most of what I could remember about her without any checking was she had been raped, and she painted Judith a lot. It’s a classic example of people pushing a woman into a history class without really knowing where to put her or how to emphasis her. She was an amazing artist at a time when women in the industry were few and far between, and what matters about her is she was raped? I think not.

What matters about Artemisia is she was an amazing artist who painted strong women well.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 19:12 and is filed under History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.