Artemisia Gentileschi: Life, Trauma, and Baroque Art

Introduction: Rediscovering Artemisia

In 1944, with the terrible storm clouds of World War II scorching the earth, scholar Anna Banti turned her mind to a very different subject, reaching back over the centuries to pen a biography of the Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Banti lost that manuscript during the chaos of the war, but in 1947 she began another book on the same subject. This second book, titled simply Artemisia, was written not as a standard biography or even a novel, but rather as a dialogue between herself and the artist. Banti's book — one of many written about the artist — was an attempt to understand for herself why she was so fascinated by this painter.¹ It is a question that has remained relevant for many students over the intervening decades, for the artist fascinates on a number of levels.

Her life story is extraordinary, and is made doubly so in the context of her historical era. But while her biography might well have drawn some admirers to learn more about her, she would not have acquired the following she did had she not produced a number of wondrous paintings. This paper examines the life and work of this extraordinary artist.

Feminist Scholarship and Artistic Reclamation

Artemisia is one of those figures who, at least in certain circles, can be referred to by only her first name. This degree of fame — not at the level of Madonna, of course, but certainly not insignificant among many artists, students, and feminists — was established in the late 1970s and 1980s, as feminist students and scholars began an effort to rescue female artists from the obscurity to which they had been consigned by the patriarchal forces of art worlds across centuries and in different places.² While it was true that most artists within the major European traditions were men, scholars acknowledged that there must surely have been some women who succeeded against the almost unimaginable odds they faced. The task these feminist scholars set themselves was to recover these artists and grant them in death the recognition that had been denied to them in life.

Artemisia was one of the great successes of this generation of feminist scholarly reclamation. Her life exemplified in nearly every detail the challenges faced by women who wished to succeed in an artistic sphere dominated by men who were often actively hostile to a woman's entering their realm — a point that Garrard notes was not sufficiently rigorously examined in the first works on the painter.³

Early Life, Training, and the Influence of Caravaggio

Artemisia might not have been able to overcome these challenges — despite her considerable talent — had she not had one important advantage over many other young women: she came from a family of artists, and her father was willing to teach her the basic skills of their shared profession. The first known work of the artist, painted when she was only seventeen, was a depiction of Susanna and the Elders (1610; titled Susanna e i Vecchioni in Italian). The work is important for several reasons.

First, it showed the important and enduring influence of the great painter Caravaggio on Artemisia. That she should be so influenced by him is hardly surprising: her father, Orazio, ran his painting studio — in which Artemisia's brothers also trained, though they were never as talented as she was — according to the principles established by Caravaggio, who was arguably the most influential Italian painter of the time. Even if her father had not been so deeply influenced by Caravaggio, it is entirely possible that Artemisia herself would have been.⁴

Artemisia was also influenced by the Bologna School of painting, which was somewhat softer and more lyrical than Caravaggio's more starkly realistic style. Her painting of Susanna reflected a common theme in Renaissance and Baroque painting but took an uncommon view of it.⁵ In her version, Susanna — covered only by a scrap of cloth — twists away from the Elders, who hover over her with all the menace of birds of prey circling their victim. While the Elders occupy the top of the composition, the perspective of the scene is clearly that of Susanna, who pulls away from the men and tries to press herself against a wall that proves to be a trap rather than a refuge.

Conclusion: Legacy and Disappearance

Artemisia worked for years as a successful painter before disappearing from history. How, where, or even when she died is not known, although some scholars believe she may have died in 1656 of the plague that swept through Naples that year. She might well have been lost to history forever had there not been those like Banti who heard whispers of her life and art and set out to discover how a woman of Artemisia's world could have succeeded in creating such extraordinary work.