This video is about some of the female
painters that worked in the late Renaissance and Baroque periods.
These are paintings that, for a long time, were very much under studied,
but have received quite a bit of scholarly attention just in the last few
decades.
So, we'll be focusing in on a few key works: two by Sofonisba Anguissola
and one
by Artemisia Gentileschi. But I also wanted to mention Lavinia Fontana because
these are three
painter from the periods that are getting the most attention
today and in art historical scholarship [about Italian women artists].
What we see here are three paintings where
where they are representing themselves in self-portraits. This probably had to
do with the fact that
a female painter really was an unexpected
marvel or wonder at this time. It was very unusual for
females to work as artists. It was very unusual for females have a profession at
all at this point.
So, here we see women who are showing themselves as painters, who are
representing themselves as painters.
And this would have been something that would have been desirable at least in
the case
of Sofonisba Anguissola and Artemisia Gentileschi.
Obviously, Lavinia Fontana is showing herself at the piano, so showing herself
with with an additional skill, so that's an interesting comparison, as well.
So, again, we'll be focusing in on Sofonisba and Artemisia,
So this is a work by Sofonisba Anguissola.
This is a work that represents her three sisters.
She essentially is the fourth member fourth, or fourth
sister at this table. And then we see their nurse, or basically like their
babysitter or nanny
off to the side. Sofonisba Anguissola came from a noble family, a
wealthy family,
and her father insisted that she and her sisters all be educated,
including training in the arts so that's how she learned how to paint.
We can also see that they're a very intellectual, very smart group so we
can see that one of her sisters --
the older sister is making a move on the chess board
and the other sister is realizing she's going to lose, so this moment of
checkmate, and then you can see the youngest sister laughing at this very
moment
at that this dramatic loss is occurring.
And then the nanny or nurse is just kind of overseeing
things. So, this painting tells us a number of things:
yes, definitely, Sofonisba comes from a very wealthy family. We can see from
their clothes at they're very well
dressed. They have a beautiful rug covering up the table
that speaks to their wealth, as well. We can also see that this
is an educated group, so when we think about chess, we think about
an intellectual game of strategy, and it was actually quite common in the
Renaissance
to represent male figures in portraiture
playing a game of chess. So here Sofonisba's taken that idea,
but is using it for her younger sisters, so it's interesting that she
giving them this role as intellectual
or as intellectuals. Eventually, a young brother comes [or is born], so we do see quite a few
representations of the brother. We know the brother was very important to the
family,
but it is nice that when there were these four girls that
the father definitely prioritized educating them and
emphasizing their educational training.
So, next, let's have a look at
her training as an artist -- one of her teachers. So, this is Bernardino
Campi painting a portrait of Sofonisba
Anguissola. But it is by Sofonisba Anguissola, so it's a portrait
within a portrait: a self-portrait within a portrait.
So, what we see here is that Bernardino Campi is painting her.
And we first look at this image we definitely get the sense that
he essentially creating her, and so we wonder, is this Sofonisba telling us that
he created her as an artist, and that she's paying homage to him? So that's one
possibility.
But then as we look at it a little bit more closely, we can see a few
things that tells us maybe she's trying to to inform us that
she's the better artist. So, first off, she's larger than he is, so
at her shoulders are broader, her head is up higher,
so she definitely standing out in the image both in terms side and also in terms of
brightness,
so maybe she's trying to say I that she's better
than he is. Another way she may be doing that is if we look at the two representations
he looks much more lifelike than she does -- and this may be her strategy for
creating a difference between
what's in the painting what's actually space to be
alive -- but, perhaps, she's saying
"you paint in it older style making me look a little bit flatter
less lifelike; I paint in a a newer style where I incorporate
modeling or shadowing to create this illusion
of life or this more realistic illusion of life. So it's interesting if we compare
the way to figures are represented,
where her version of Bernardino looks very lifelike,
and then what he's painting looks a little bit less
so. Then a final element is that he's holding a mahl stick,
which is that stick supports his hand. And this is a way
that artists would ensure that their hands wouldn't slip, that it would remain
steady.
So that's a final moment happening here
or a final thing to point out that
indicates that she's commenting on his skill
as an artist, so that's something to think about.
Alright, our next artist will be Artemisia Gentileschi,
who is the most famous of the female artists at this time.
She's more firmly established in the Baroque period.
So, this later period where we tend to see dark backgrounds,
tenebrism: this dramatic play of light and dark. So, Sofonisba would
be considered more of a late Renaissance artist,
also Lavinia Fontana [is late Renaissance], and then Artemisia would be
a Baroque artist, so if we look here we can see that
Artemisia tended to favor representing Old Testament heroines,
that is women that a did something heroic and virtuous
in stories of the Old Testament. So, for example, we see representations of
"Susanna and the Elders" and then we also see
representations Judith beheading Holofernes. So this is a story of
a virtuous woman, who goes against an
Assyrian General, who was attacking her people or going after people.
He gets a little drunk one night, and she
is there seeing him, and, once the moment is right, she strikes,
and she decapitates him. She was a widow.
Many men wanted to marry her after this [virtuous and brave act], but she remains a virtuous widow after
that.
So, it's an interesting story of a very, very virtuous woman.
So, if we look at the scene, we can see it's very violent. There's a lot of blood
moving through the sheets there. We can also see the determination
of Judith and her maid, as
they are driving the sword across the neck of Holofernes, so a very violent
scene,
emphasizing the strength of the female figures
in the story, and, if we compare it, for example, to
the Judith beheading Holofernes of Caravaggio, we can see some
very dramatic differences where see a real emphasis on female
agency in this example.
So, just some background, because this story
was painted right after or right during the time
that Artemisia had a trial going on, and this relates to
something that was happening in Artemisia's personal life. So
Artemisia was the daughter of an artist -- that was how she became an artist
her father's name was
Orazio Gentileschi, and he hired an artist named Agostino Tassi,
who was a painter, to teach Artemisia perspective.
Tassi and Artemisia seemed to have had a couple of romantics
encounters, and, at one point, he raped her and refuses to marry her.
So, this is problem,
Orazio then sues Tassi, as he's take Artemisia's reputation essentially.
This results in a seven-month trial, during which Artemisia is
tortured to confirm the truth of her testimony, and eventually Tassi is sentenced
to one year in jail
but never serves the time. So, with this in mind, when we look back at the image
of Judith beheading Holofernes,
many scholars have read this more biographically,
considering some of the trials Artemisia went through in life,
and then thinking about how she was able to
perhaps represent them in her artworks.
So for both Sofonisba and Artemisia, they had a number
of difficulties in their work. Obviously,
it was hard to get work sometimes, hard to get patrons,
but Sofonisba actually ends up going off to work for the King of Spain.
Artemisia Gentileschi ends up being accepted into the Art Academy of
Florence.
So, in the end, we have a few examples of women who were able to be successful,
but they're very much few and far between. A few final notes
on early modern female artists. So if you wanted to be a female artist, there were
two ways that it was a
little bit easier and one was to be from a family of artists, and that was the case
with
Artemisia Gentileschi, and another case was if you're from a wealthy family or a
noble family,
and that's the case with Sofonisba Anguissola. Certain cities appear to have
been a little bit easier for women to work:
Rome and Bologna were perhaps a bit more open.
However, the the major arts centers that tended to have more closed
artistic ranks, like Florence and Venice, were a little bit more difficult.
There was some flexibility in subject matter, but female artist often focused
on
female subjects, so things that were considered appropriate for women
and then at self-portraits, a little bit more than their male counterparts,
because people maybe had wanted to self portrait
where women painting were these marvels of nature. It seemed so strange to
people.
Well known female artist would, unfortunately, continue to be a rarity through the 19th
century,
and female artist today continue to receive on occasion less attention and
publicity than their male counterparts. So
a lot of women continue to push for more
female artists to be at the forefront in the art
world. Just something to think about in today's art world, as well.