Artemisia Gentileschi :
From Obscurity to Celebrity and Myth
“ I think Your Most Illustrious Lordship will not suffer any loss with me and that you will find the spirit of Caesar in this soul of a woman .” “ And I will show Your Most Illustrious Lordship what a woman can do .” Letters from Artemisia Gentileschi to her patron Don Antonio Ruffo , 1649
Artemisia Gentileschi ( 1593-1653 ) Susanna and the Elders 1610 oil on canvas 67 x 47 ” Schloss Weißenstein , Pommersfelden , Germany
Artemisia Gentileschi ( 1593-ca . 1653 ), an Italian Baroque artist , was the first woman elected to the Florentine Accademia del Disegno . She attained renown among noble and cultured patrons in Italy and abroad , and then faded into obscurity for 300 years after her death . All that began to change in the late 20th century when feminist art historians began to seriously address the neglect of women artists in art history , generally , and sparked especially Linda Nochlin ’ s seminal essay , “ Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists ?” ( 1971 )
The first I ever heard of Artemisia was after I found The Obstacle Race : The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work ( 1979 ) on the library ’ s new books rack . Author Germaine Greer entitled her chapter on Artemisia “ The Magnificent Exception ,” describing her as “ the great painter of the war between the sexes ” with her violent , bloody depiction of Judith Beheading Holofernes appearing on the facing page ( likely not by accident ). This identity as a protofeminist , or even an archetypal one , would attain mythic and heroic status in the popular imagination by the 21st century .
Witness a blurb promoting the 2015 television documentary Michael Palin ’ s Quest For Artemisia :
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