Pittura: A Gendered Template for Painting

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1654?) was one of the most prolific female painters of the Italian Renaissance; working for some of the most noteworthy patrons and rulers of Europe. Gentileschi’s success in such a male dominated field has made her somewhat of a feminist icon to modern scholars and commentators. Her early works adopting the style of the master Caravaggio seem to support this interpretation, depicting powerful women triumphing over weaker men, unapologetically violent and seemingly subversive within their patriarchal context. However, when taking into account the radically different style of Gentileschi’s later period and examining her oeuvre as a whole it is evident that these works do not adhere to any particularly subversive agenda. Instead, I argue that Gentileschi’s incredibly diverse body of work is symptomatic of her constantly shifting public persona, altered continually to best draw the attention of patrons and collectors. Utilising gender theory methodology particularly Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, this paper examines the artist’s correspondence with patrons and analyses her paintings within their socio-cultural contexts. I contend that Artemisia Gentileschi was incredibly versed in gender conventions and conceptions of the period, projecting either masculine or feminine traits in her works and letters in order to manipulate perceptions of her character, talent, and capability.

The Art Book, 2008

1980

In her Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-ca. 1652) made an audacious claim upon the core of artistic tradition, to create an entirely new image that was quite literally unavailable to any male artist. Her apparently modest self-image was, moreover, a sophisticated commentary upon a central philosophical issue of later Renaissance art theory, indicating an identification with her profession on a plane of greater selfawareness, intellectually and culturally, than has previously been acknowledged. In the Self-Portrait, which at present hangs in Kensington Palace (Fig. ),1 Artemisia depicted herself in the act of painting, accompanied by several, though not all, of the attributes of the female personification of Painting as set forth in Cesare Ripa's lconologia. These include: a golden chain around her neck with a pendant mask which stands for imitation, unruly locks of hair which symbolize the divine frenzy of the artistic temperament, and drappo cangiante, garments with changing colors which allude to the painter's skills. 2 In 1962 Michael Levey confirmed the identity of the artist through a comparison with other seventeenth-century images of Artemisia and connected the picture with Ripa's description of Pittura.J Levey's interpretation of the work as a self-portrait of the artist in the guise of Pittura has gained general acceptance.• Yet although his interpretation is iconographically correct, it remains iconologically incomplete, for the artist's unique artistic achievement has gone curiously unnoticed, a point best illustrated by Levey's remark that "the picture's real intention [might] have been earlier recognized if it had * This article is an expanded version of a paper delivered at the College Art Association meeting in Los Angeles in 1977. I am grateful to the American Association of University Women for a fellowship awarded me in 1978-79, which has facilitated my continuing study of Artemisia Gentileschi' s treatment of traditional themes. I would like to thank in particular Pamela Askew, whose insights generously offered at an early stage, and whose perspicacious advice provided later, helped to shape this study in an invaluable way. I am also indebted to Norma Braude for her thoughtful critical reading of the manuscript, and to H. Diane Russell and Law B. Watkins for many helpful suggestions and discussions. N.B.: A bibliography of frequently cited sources appears at the end of this article.

2020

Anecdotes about ancient artists found in the writings of Pliny and Plutarch have played a central part in the literature of art since the Renaissance. 1 Modern scholarship has devoted great attention to the historiographical importance of these anecdotes and, in various case studies, has analysed the numerous re-readings, transformations and tropes. Little is to be found, however, about arthistoriography's reception of ancient anecdotes on women artists, apart from the many essays on Pliny's account of the daughter of Butades (also known as Dibutades or Dibutadis). 2 This anecdote is perhaps one of the most cited and discussed passages in art history and also one of the most frequently depicted in painting. Found in the Natural History, it accounts for the uncertain origin of painting, invented by the daughter of Butades who traced the shadow of a man on a wall. Even though it consists of only a few lines, it raises issues such as absence and presence, light and shadow, male and female that have been discussed by artists, critics and historians ever since. Not only did it serve as a key argument for the importance of disegno as the father of all arts and for love as the origin of all inventive power, it also ascribed the invention of art to a woman. As Mark Ledbury 1 'From the very origins of art-historical accounts, from the fragmentary (but vastly influential) writings of Pliny on ancient artists about whom we know almost nothing else, through Vasari and all Vasari's imitators, histories of artists are saturated with anecdote.'

Burning Man Journal, 2016

The introduction to a series on artistic patronage and gender in the Renaissance - Women like suor Plautilla are often seen as the “magnificent exception” to the norm, but is it possible that there were far more female patrons, artists and artisans than previously supposed? And if so, how did their experience differ from that of their male counterparts?

Screen, 2007

Parergon, 2009

2013

The myth of the Roman heroine, Lucretia, celebrates feminine ideals of virtue and chastity and is considered pivotal to the establishment of the Roman Republic. Yet, her rape and suicide is also the fulcrum of uncomfortable tension about notions of female sexuality, morality, patriotism and heroism. My thesis is a comparative discussion of two intriguing and radically dissimilar paintings of Lucretia: Tarquin and Lucretia by Tintoretto and Lucretia by Artemisia Gentileschi. These paintings function as visual counterpoints that reflect the diverse literary and historical interpretations of her legend. Tintoretto and Gentileschi depict two different, yet pivotal and dramatic moments in Lucretia's story. Tintoretto portrays the chaos of the rape, juxtaposing erotic imagery and traditional iconography associated with female virtue. The disparate themes, female sexuality versus female chastity, create tension and ambiguity in interpreting Lucretia's legend. Tintoretto's image is compelling because he acknowledges the possibility of Lucretia's own complicity in her rape. By contrast, Gentileschi does not depict Lucretia's violation, but captures the psychological aftermath of the rape as she struggles with its implications and

The Art Bulletin, 1980

Author's first publication on Artemisia Gentileschi, later developed as a chapter in her 1989 book on the artist (Artemisia Gentileschi: The Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art, Princeton, 1989)..

By Her Hand: Artemisia Gentileschi and Women Artists in Italy, 1500–1800, 2021

Uncorrected draft