Have you ever tried to name five or more female artists off the top of your head? How did you fare?
I hope you thought of Georgia O’Keeffe and Frida Kahlo. Did you remember to include Mary Cassatt? Who else made the list?
I added Artemisia Gentileschi to the list of female artists I know when I attended a lecture on her at the Minneapolis Institute of Art about 20 years ago. Artemisia was an Italian painter who lived from approximately 1593 to 1653. Her father, Orazio, was a respected artist who taught all of his children to paint, but only Artemisia showed real talent. Her legacy is overshadowed by the story of how her perspective tutor, Agostino Tassi, raped her and how she was tortured during his trial. Her paintings of active, powerful women are frequently viewed through the lens of the rape and trial, causing some people to see them as revenge fantasies.
During the lecture, we explored her first painting of Susanna and the Elders, which illustrates a critical moment in a story from the apocrypha of the Bible. Briefly, the story involves Susanna, a virtuous married woman who was accosted by two Jewish elders who hid in her garden and caught her bathing alone. They offered her a choice: she could have sex with them, or they would say that they caught her with a young man, and she would be put to death. Susanna chose death, but after she was accused of adultery, the young Daniel questioned the elders separately and discovered that their stories conflicted. Susanna was saved, and the elders were executed.
Many painters have captured the moment when Susanna was first confronted by the elders. A few have shown her reacting violently to their suggestion, but in many cases she only appears mildly distressed, and in others she even seems to welcome their attention.
Artemisia’s first take on the subject, painted before her rape, shows a woman who is clearly repulsed by the elders. The image is powerful, because she brings a woman’s point of view to the story. It’s not that a male painter is incapable of expressing empathy for Susanna; the problem is that few men seem to have tried to imagine how she felt about the elders’ proposition.
Besides this rendition of Susanna and the Elders, Artemisia is most famous for her four paintings of Judith, also from the Bible’s apocrypha. Judith was a wealthy Jewish widow who saved her people from the Assyrian general Holofrenes by beheading him in his own tent as he lay in a drunken stupor. Two of Artemisia’s pictures show Judith and her maid in the act of beheading Holofrenes, and two are set after the fact.
Like Susanna, Judith was a popular subject of paintings. One of the most famous renditions of the beheading is by Caravaggio. In his painting, Judith keeps her distance from her victim, and the look on her face seems to be one of both concentration and disgust. That may be realistic enough for a wealthy woman who never had killed a man before, but the actual beheading seems unreal.
Artemisia’s Judith, while she requires the help of her maid to pin Holofrenes to the bed, is powerful and active. She sets about doing what must be done with no fear of the blood she is shedding. Caravaggio is a master, but I find Artemisia’s Judith more believable and heroic. (The Judith below was painted between 1614 and 1620.)
Artemisia had a long and successful career as an artist, keeping busy until around the time of her death. She worked in Rome, Florence, Naples, and the court of King Charles I of England. She married another painter (the marriage was arranged shortly after the rape trial ended) and had one daughter, whom she taught to paint.
If your knowledge of female artists did not include Artemisia Gentileschi, I encourage you to search for her paintings online. Her art is often powerful and masterful. For those qualities alone, Artemisia is worth your time.