Customer Reviews

Artemisia Gentileschi

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If you want to travel into the mind of Artemisia Gentileschi, as Garrard obviously did, this book is an incredible asset to your journey. She takes you through Artemisia's life (Rome, Florence, Naples etc.) from the very first information to her death. Garrard has her ideas, but they are hardly overtly feminist or out of context. The intelligent reader goes beyond the author anyhow and reads the paintings. This book has copies of every known letter to have been written or received by Artemisia and most of her artwork, her complete rape trial, along with comparisons to her father's work and other artists that she had contact with. It is extremely fascinating and a more complete anayalis of an artist's life that I have yet seen. ...and about Susanna- don't tell me for a minute that the woman who painted that strength of repulsion wasn't being threatened (not necessarily by Tassi but likely Cosimo or even Francesco- think about it) have you ever seen a Susanna that genuinely apalled? Most renditions of the tale feature fear, surprise, or complete oblivion (allure even). Her Susanna is truly defensive and angry; horrified and disgusted.

You don't learn much about Garrard as writer from this work. Garrard lets the art do all the talking. I was a bit dissapointed in that fact since I want to learn as much as possible about the life of the artist. This is something you should own if you want to own good copies of some of the major works of the artist. The plates are of large size and good quality. This is an excellent companion to keep at hand when doing research on the artist. Garrard makes interesting and intelligent choices in what works represent the artist at each time in professional life.

It's entirely unfortunate that Garrard has come to be considered the be-all-end-all of Gentilleschi scholarship. While the hefty opus features a wealth of research and a moderately well-illustrated span of pages, Garrard's feminist arguments do not line up. Citing the artist's "rape" by Tassi as a motivating force in the creation of her paintings featuring strong female characters, Garrard corners much of her argument on the Susanna and the Elders Gentilleschi painted a full year before the encounter with Tassi. Further, Garrard casts a 20th century feminist eye, and an accusatory one at that, upon the artist and her situation. She hardly considers the psychology of the 17th century, nor the legal definitions, where "rape" and its current emotional and psychological ramifications were hardly present. Indeed, court documents and statements show the artist and her father suing for marriage to save the family name; not once is there a mention of emotional hardship, but instead purely economic. Other sources depict a heated, smitten Artemisia, who continued her affair with Tassi for a year before discovered by her father, exposed, and forced to bring legal action against tassi. Conlusion: 400 years ago, forced sexual acts had not the same social identification of today, the psychology was different, and, honestly, Garrard neglects to illustrate the other sides of Artemesia and focuses on one event defining a life of artistic creation that, while reasonable for a 20th century situation, is unfounded for a Baroque.

This monograph is partly responsible for the recent interest in Gentileschi's paintings and life. Artemisia was a Carravagisti, a follower of Carravagio. Her father, Oarazio, was also a painter and Artemisia benefited from his influence, giving her paintings a lushness (I know I am not being academic here, forgive me, I am not an art critic) that Caravagio's did not have. Since the first publication of this book there have been several shows of Artemisia's work in Florence. Unfortunately there has also been a very, very dishonest and badly made movie about her life, titled "Artemisia." The original edition of this book included the court transcriptions of Agostino Tassi's trial for raping Artemesia. She endured torture (thumbscrews) to verify her testimony. Tassi was convicted but released after seven months. The movie portrays Artemisia as ingenue who chases after Tassi and begs for his love and forgiveness as she is tortured. Artemisia later married, had one child and eventually moved to England to live with her father, where he was a court portrait painter.