Artemisia Gentileschi Women Analysis

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Renowned for her brutal renderings of Biblical scenes with female protagonists, Artemisia Gentileschi was one of the most prominent artists of the Baroque movement, backed by the patronages of the House of Medici and Charles I of England in a time especially hostile toward woman artists. Yet, despite her death in the seventeenth century, misogyny persists even in contemporary scholarship of Gentileschi. In both of their articles, Whitney Chadwick and Mary D. Garrard deliberate how gender and sexuality factors in Gentileschi’s artistic agency and her work. Through how they discuss Gentileschi as an artist herself and their visual analysis, both affirm Gentileschi’s influence as a woman art, however, both differ in their approaches with Chadwick …show more content…
As one of the few women artists of the seventeenth century in Italy, most of her works featured women. Despite her achievements, it is her gender and sexuality that dictate scholarly discussion. Still, it would be irresponsible to deny how both to some extent influenced Gentileschi and her work. Both Chadwick and Garrard acknowledge her significance in art history as Gentileschi consistently demonstrated her artistic aptitude in spite of rampant sexism, yet where they ultimately differ is in the attention paid to her as an artist. Throughout her article, Chadwick heavily draws upon both male influences and peers in relation to Gentileschi’s artistic development. One example is the subject matter itself; seventeenth century naturalism’s preference in images of heroic women was, according to Chadwick, conceived in the circles of Carracci and Reni whose own development were deeply influenced by Caravaggio. She even astutely points out that “the mythology of women of power and courage was, however, a male mythology” (100) carefully maintained by male painters for the agendas of powerful institutions headed by men, such as the Catholic Church in the Counter Reformation. Though it is crucial one discusses the influences and context of an artist, it becomes clear that Chadwick centers more on the influences of men as if Gentileschi were a passive recipient herself, with extensive references to a multitude of male …show more content…
In her visual analysis, Chadwick references gender politics between men and women in Gentileschi’s works, particularly in Susanna and the Elders. By comparing works from male counterparts such as Tintoretto’s version, Chadwick scrutinizes both pieces to affirm Gentileschi’s divergence from gendered formulas, such Tintoretto’s garden symbolizing female fertility in contrast to Gentileschi’s “isolated figure against a rigid architectonic frieze” (Chadwick 97). Most particularly, these gender politics reflect in the figures’ physical forms themselves. Chadwick remarks that “rape and seduction were closely linked in the eyes of the Renaissance viewer” (97), an observation that can be seen in Tintoretto’s Susanna and the Elders. The elders, Susanna’s threats, are tucked in the corner, as if blended into the fertile garden. Susanna in Tintoretto’s painting appears to be oblivious; Chadwick even states that the painter’s intention based on Renaissance sensibilities was to convey Susanna’s own complicity in her own abuse, with her drapery evocative of consensually sexual scenes such as Titian’s Pastoral Symphony. Thus, the scene is devoid of all the fear and dread that this picture of sexual harassment should entail. Yet, in Gentileschi’s, Susanna is clearly

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