| One
of the most memorable creative personalities of the Baroque age and
arguably the most forcefully expressive and influential woman painter
in history, the Roman-born Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1652/3) has
become the central figure in the recovery of the history of art produced
by women. Applying a rigorous methodology, this profusely illustrated
study with interpretative text and catalogue raisonné embeds
Gentileschi's pictorially and emotionally compelling pictures within
the actual sociocultural contexts in and for which they were created.
The interpretive text analyzes key pictures and primary literary
evidence to reveal the sweep of Artemisia's oeuvre, chart her travels,
define her standing with artists and patrons of the period, investigate
the links between her financial situations and the artistic decisions
that she made, and assess the validity of proposals regarding her
activity as a still-life painter, her access to professional organizations,
her level of literacy, and the nature of her subject matter. Exploring
the question of the interrelationships among Gentilesch's gender
and experiences as a woman, the state of her psyche, and her art,
the text also confronts—and often challenges—the widely embraced
feminist interpretation of her pictures.
Many of the conclusions in the text are supported by an extensive
register of archival documents and by the very core of the study:
the first and only catalogue raisonné of Artemisia's autograph
works, each of the fifty-seven pictures exhaustively investigated
as to basic factual information, condition and color, iconography,
history, documentation and dating, existing copies, and bibliography.
Catalogues of misattribued and lost paintings complete this comprehensive
volume. |
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