Artemisa Gentileschi

To commemorate the 25th of Novembre, the International Day for the Elimination of violence against women, we will learn about a great Baroque painter: Artemisia Gentileschi.

Artemisia Gentileschi, (born July 8, 1593, Rome; died 1652/53, Naples), Italian painter, daughter of Orazio Gentileschi. She was a pupil of her father and of his friend the landscape painter Agostino Tassi.

Adoration of the Magi. 1936-37

   "Women didn't have many career options in 17th-century Italy. Cultural norms funnelled most of them into one of two life paths: joining a convent or becoming a mother. What's more, laws dictated that the men in their lives (fathers, husbands, even sons) made decisions and purchases for them.

   Few women transcended these restrictions. But the skillful, strong-willed painter Artemisia Gentileschi managed to -against all odds. During her lifetime, from the late 16th-century until mid-1600s, she built a reputation as one of Europe´s most sought-after artists. Rich patrons, like the Medicis, and preeminent kings, like Charles I of England, commissioned her to create massive, expertly modeled compositions, chock full of her signature subjects: biblical and mythological scenes depicting assertive, authoritative women.

Judith and her maidservant. 1913-14

            Despite all of this, though, Gentileschi's legacy has been hard-won. After her death, 18th- and 19th-century scholars all but omitted her from art historical texts. Even when her work was rediscovered, in the early 20th century, literature on it was plagued with misattributions and overly sexualized interpretations that focused on Gentileschi’s assault rather than her artistry. 

   Despite these hurdles, the artist has more recently risen to the top of the canon as one of the first female artists to have a broad, incisive impact on the art of her time. She’s also influenced decades of artists after her—especially those looking for a masterful and tenacious heroine." (artsy)
  

   Why did we chose her to commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of violence against women? Keep on reading:
  "She was raped by Tassi, and, when he did not fulfill his promise to marry her, Orazio Gentileschi in 1612 brought him to trial. During that event she herself was forced to give evidence under torture.

   Shortly after the trial she married a Florentine, and in 1616 she joined Florence’s Academy of Design, the first woman to do so. While in Florence she began to develop her own distinct style. Unlike many other women artists of the 17th century, she specialized in history painting rather than still life and portraiture. In Florence she was associated with the Medici court and painted an Allegory of Inclination(c. 1616) for the series of frescoes honouring the life of Michelangelo in the Casa Buonarotti. Her colours are more brilliant than her father’s, and she continued to employ the tenebrism made popular by Caravaggio long after her father had abandoned that style." (Encyclopaedia Britanica)

Why we must eliminate violence against women

Violence against women and girls (VAWG) is one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating human rights violations in our world today remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma and shame surrounding it.
In general terms, it manifests itself in physical, sexual and psychological forms, encompassing:

• intimate partner violence (battering, psychological abuse, marital rape, femicide);
• sexual violence and harassment (rape, forced sexual acts, unwanted sexual advances, child sexual abuse, forced marriage, street harassment, stalking, cyber- harassment);
• human trafficking (slavery, sexual exploitation);
• female genital mutilation; and
• child marriage.