Review: [untitled] Author(s): Richard E. Spear Reviewed work(s): Artemisia Gentileschi: Ten Years of Fact and Fiction Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 82, No. 3 (Sep., 2000), pp. 568-579 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3051402 Accessed: 13/10/2009 20:36 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=caa. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. College Art Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Art Bulletin. http://www.jstor.org Book Reviews ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI: TEN YEARS OF FACT AND FICTION "I find myself with a female daughter and three other sons, and this daughter, as it pleased God, having been trained in the profession of paint- ing, in three years has become so skilled that I dare say she has no equal today, for she has made works that demonstrate a level of understanding that perhaps the leading masters of the profes- sion have not attained." With these words, in mid-1612 Orazio Gentileschi (1563-1639) as- sured Cristina di Lorena, the Dowager Grand Duchess in Florence, of the talent of eighteen- year-old Artemisia (1593-ca. 1653). "In the proper time and place," he added from Rome, he would show Her Serene Highness that what he said was so.1 Nearly four centuries later, art historians, novelists, playwrights, and filmmakers remain focused on issues raised by Orazio's brief pledge: the father-daughter relationship; Ar- temisia's artistic education; whether she was a prodigy and thus capable of painting on her own a Susanna and theElders inscribed with her name and dated 1610; her standing compared to the leading (male) masters; Orazio's man- aging of her career; and, above all, what Orazio emphasized through redundancy, that, although an artist, Artemisia was " unafigliuola femina," a woman. What he did not mention, however, has proven to be even more captivat- ing in the modern mind: the rape of Artemi- sia a year earlier by Orazio's artist-associate, Agostino Tassi; the resultant trial that was still under way when Orazio was writing to Flor- ence; and Artemisia's penchant for painting powerful, often-nude female protagonists. Among the various myths surrounding Artemi- sia Gentileschi is that she was badly neglected by writers of her time (as this essay attests, there has been a compensatory outpouring during the past decade thanks to the women's movement, so 1 Artemisia Gentileschi. ca. 1620. 1.99 x 1.625 m. Oil on much so that attention can be given only to Judith Decapitating Holofernes, canvas. Florence, Galleria Uffizi. representative titles).2 It is true that she was not degli discussed by Mancini, Scannelli, Bellori, or Pas- and that she deserved mention because she seri, two-thirds of his attributions to her (generous tal "New Documented Chronology," pub- worked for some clients in prominent Rome, allowance must be made for the primitive lished in thisjournal a generation ago.5 A few and London. But it is Florence, Naples, impor- state of research on Italian Baroque painting years later, six of her best pictures were se- in mind as a she tant to bear that, woman, then), and especially that his discussion of lected for the exhibition WomenArtists: 1550- predictably painted no frescoes and scarcely any Artemisia's work, as Laura Benedetti recently 1950 (1976), which for the first time offered in or altarpieces (not one Rome Florence)-that emphasized, was full of sexist criticism, nota- the modern public an opportunity to see what is, those works that were the most obvious signs of bly with regard to her dramatic versions of a good painter Artemisia could be.6 a history painter's significance and success. Other Judith DecapitatingHolofernes (Fig. 1): "This is a Mary Garrard's Artemisia Gentileschi: The biographers-Baglione, Sandrart, Baldinucci, terrible woman! How could a woman paint all Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art and De Dominici-nevertheless took notice of this? We beg for mercy.... Unbelievable, I tell appeared a decade ago and changed the her career. Thereafter little of substance was you!" and more such ranting.4 discourse entirely. Except for Ann Sutherland written until Roberto Longhi devoted a youthful In time, Longhi's primitive catalogue of Harris's perceptive entries in Women Artists: essay (1916) to "Gentileschi padre e figlia."3 Artemisia's work was slowly corrected and 1550-1950 and a section of Germaine Greer's It is ironic, if seldom noted, that Longhi, enlarged, often by Longhi himself, although a The Obstacle Race (1979), the art historical who is credited with resurrecting Artemisia firm documentary basis for understanding literature on Artemisia had been fundamen- from scholarly oblivion, was mistaken in fully her career awaited Ward Bissell's fundamen- tally conventional, meaning that it dealt fore- BOOK REVIEWS 569 most with attributional, chronological, and Rome ca. 1611-12, that is, shortly after the Psychoanalysis. Then their approach can be iconographic problems from a traditional per- assault (May 1611), possibly while the trial was contrasted with more recent studies. spective, and was biased by androcentric, still under way (March-October 1612), and The central idea, advanced by Marcia often misogynist, rather than feminist values. before Artemisia married Pierantonio Stia- Pointon in the first of these articles, is that Garrard overthrew that tradition by adopting tessi (November 1612) and moved with him "Artemisia reorganized Caravaggio's composi- what she called "a line of investigation ... to Florence (most likely in early 1613). This tion in such a way as to render the murder of whose premise [is] that women's art is inescap- later version is the image that disturbed Holofernes through the imagery of child- ably, if unconsciously, different from men's, Longhi so much, whose defensive sarcasm birth." Her argument hinges on what she calls because the sexes have been socialized to and thinly veiled sexism in referring to its a V-shape formed by Holofernes's arms, which different experiences of the world." painter as "Signora Schiattesi" fits the sexual is "characteristic of the 'V' formed by the Working from the premise that Artemisia's dualism underlying Garrard's reductive view open thighs of a woman at the point of giving reflects her and more imagery gender specifi- that "the most dangerous and frightening birth." Holofernes's "gaping mouth" be- her of sexual harassment and cally suffering force on earth for Man [is] women in control comes a vagina surrounded by a "mass of Garrard traditional connois- rape, replaced of his fate."9 And it fits Agnes Merlet's script- beard-like pubic hair." Judith attends to the with what be called seurship might "gendered ing of Tassi's lawyer at the trial, who first "delivery," while her maid Abra "appropri- as an attributional basis. expression" Thus, exhibits Artemisia's "lewd" drawings of naked ately exerts pressure on the abdomen. Their "while the formal differences between Artemi- men as evidence of her wanton sexuality positions ... are precisely those of midwife sia and her father are subtle, the expressive (Orazio interrupts, claiming that they are by and assistant." Viewers thus become "wit- differences are vast. Hers is an art of energy him instead, but the defense declares, "it's nesses to this shocking conjunction of birth and drama, not mood and silence. And poetic not the work of a painter, but of a woman!"). and death." Artemisia's female characters although may Judith and Holofernesthen is displayed as other With good reason Bissell characterized this resemble those of Orazio, they superficially incriminating evidence, for obviously Tassi is interpretation as a misreading of the visual and act in an different respond entirely way."7 cast as Holofernes, Artemisia is and evidence, because there is no real From this essentialist on human Judith, essentially perspective hence she is a criminal, a traitor, and Tassi is to with.14 This of the one can V-shape begin aspect behavior, theoretically distinguish "the victim of her "Who is the of arms over Holofernes's between narratives men and scheming." design-a crossing designed by by victim of whom?" asks Tassi's in the inverted was derived from a women. lawyer head-probably film. lost Rubens (where Ho- Another characteristic of Garrard's method, painting by anyway The operative assumption here, which is at lofernes's arms are more spread open), and which is noted only as background for discus- the core of most, but not all, modern thus was not invented a woman. Still