Happy Birthday Artemisia Gentileschi !!

Artemisia Gentileschi, (born July 8, 1593, Rome, Papal States [Italy] - died 1652/53, Naples, Kingdom of Naples), Italian painter, daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, who was a major follower of the revolutionary Baroque painter, Caravaggio.

She was an important second-generation proponent of Caravaggio’s dramatic realism.

A pupil of her father and of his friend the landscape painter Agostino Tassi, she painted at first in a style indistinguishable from her father’s somewhat lyrical interpretation of Caravaggio’s example.

Her first known work is Susanna and the Elders (1610), an accomplished work long attributed to her father.

She also painted two versions of a scene already essayed by Caravaggio (but never attempted by her father), Judith Beheading Holofernes (c. 1612-13; c. 1620).

She was raped by Tassi, and, when he did not fulfill his promise to marry her, Orazio Gentileschi in 1612 brought him to trial. During that event she herself was forced to give evidence under torture.

Shortly after the trial she married a Florentine, and in 1616 she joined Florence’s Academy of Design, the first woman to do so. While in Florence she began to develop her own distinct style.

Unlike many other women artists of the 17th century, she specialized in history painting rather than still life and portraiture. In Florence she was associated with the Medici court and painted an Allegory of Inclination (c. 1616) for the series of frescoes honouring the life of Michelangelo in the Casa Buonarotti.

Her colours are more brilliant than her father’s, and she continued to employ the tenebrism made popular by Caravaggio long after her father had abandoned that style.

Artemisia Gentileschi was in Rome for a time and also in Venice.

About 1630 she moved to Naples, and in 1638 she arrived in London, where she worked alongside her father for King Charles I. They collaborated on the ceiling paintings of the Great Hall in the Queen’s House in Greenwich.

After Orazio’s death in 1639, she stayed on in London for at least several more years.

According to her biographer Baldinucci (who appended her life to that of her father), she painted many portraits and quickly surpassed her father’s fame.

Later, probably in 1640 or 1641, she settled in Naples, where she painted several versions of the story of David and Bathsheba, but little is known of the final years of her life. | © Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Artemisia Lomi Gentileschi (Roma, 8 luglio 1593 - Napoli, tra il 1652 e il 1656) è stata un pitttice barocca Italiana.

La Gentileschi è considerata tra gli artisti più affermati del XVII secolo, lavorando inizialmente nello stile di Caravaggio.

Ha prodotto lavori professionali all'età di 15 anni.

In un'epoca in cui le donne avevano poche opportunità di perseguire una formazione artistica o di lavorare come artiste professioniste, Gentileschi fu la prima donna a diventare membro dell'Accademia di Arte del Disegno di Firenze ed aveva una clientela internazionale.

Pierre Dumonstier (French artist, 1545-1610) | The right hand of Artemisia Gentileschi, holding a brush, 1625

Molti dei dipinti della Gentileschi raffigurano donne provenienti da miti, allegorie e dalla Bibbia, comprese vittime, suicidi e guerrieri.

Alcuni dei suoi soggetti più noti sono Susanna e i vecchioni (in particolare la versione del 1610 a Pommersfelden), Giuditta che uccide Oloferne (la sua versione del 1614-1620 è nella Galleria degli Uffizi) e Giuditta e la sua serva (la sua versione del 1625 è nella Galleria di Detroit Institute of Arts).

Gentileschi era nota per essere in grado di rappresentare la figura femminile con grande naturalismo e per la sua abilità nel gestire il colore per esprimere dimensione e drammaticità.

Simon Vouet (French painter,1590-1649) Portrait of Artemisia Gentileschi, 1623-1626

I suoi successi come artista furono a lungo oscurati dalla storia di Agostino Tassi che la violentò quando era una giovane donna e che Gentileschi fu torturata per testimoniare durante il processo.

Per molti anni, Gentileschi è stata considerata una curiosità, ma la sua vita e la sua arte sono state riesaminate dagli studiosi nel XX e XXI secolo, con il riconoscimento del suo talento esemplificato da importanti mostre presso istituzioni d'arte stimate a livello internazionale, come la Galleria Nazionale di Londra.