Speaker 1: Before we get started, of warning that this episode discusses
Speaker 1: sexual violence. Hello for Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan
Speaker 1: and this is Womanica. Historically, women have been told to
Speaker 1: make themselves smaller, to diminish themselves. Some have used that
Speaker 1: idea to their advantage, disappearing into new identities. For others,
Speaker 1: a disappearance was the end to their story, the beginning
Speaker 1: of a new chapter of their legacies. This month, we're
Speaker 1: talking about disappearing acts. Today's Womaniquin was pushed to the
Speaker 1: margins of history in more ways than one. Not only
Speaker 1: was her legacies a brilliant painter eclipsed by her father,
Speaker 1: it was also simplistically attributed to a single life trauma.
Speaker 1: Despite her great artistic skill and success during her lifetime,
Speaker 1: the complicated story of the woman behind the canvas has
Speaker 1: only recently emerged. Let's talk about Artemisia Gentileski. Artemisia's story
Speaker 1: is out there if you look for it. There's a
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven French German Italian biopic about her life,
Speaker 1: and even a play from the early two thousands that
Speaker 1: premiered off Broadway. There are also plenty of articles, a novel,
Speaker 1: and even museum exhibits about her. But the thing about
Speaker 1: Artemisia's story that often gets obscured is that she was
Speaker 1: a talented and well regarded artist in her own right,
Speaker 1: not a small feat for a woman in seventeenth century Europe.
Speaker 1: So why was her story forgotten for so many years
Speaker 1: and why don't we know more about the artistic part
Speaker 1: of her life. The short answer is, as a teenager,
Speaker 1: she endured an assault, and that is the story that dominates.
Speaker 1: But let's back up. Artemisia was born in fifteen ninety
Speaker 1: three in Rome, Italy, around the end of the Italian Renaissance.
Speaker 1: She was the eldest of four children when her mother
Speaker 1: died in childbirth, and so Artemisia became the family's primary
Speaker 1: caregiver at a young age. Her father, Erasio, was a
Speaker 1: well respected artist who was greatly influenced by the painter Caravaggio.
Speaker 1: At first, Erazio had little interest in teaching his trade
Speaker 1: to his daughter, but from a very early age it
Speaker 1: was clear that Artemisia had a gift for drawing. As
Speaker 1: an aspiring female artist in a patriarchal society, Artemisia's opportunities
Speaker 1: were very limited. She wasn't allowed to go to many
Speaker 1: of the places that her male counterparts went to study art. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: she made use of what she had. She apprenticed at
Speaker 1: her father's studio and used his paintings to guide her practice.
Speaker 1: Her own body became the blueprint off of which she
Speaker 1: constructed portraits. Some scholars note that many of the people
Speaker 1: featured in Artemisia's paintings seem, in various ways to be
Speaker 1: versions of herself. In sixteen ten, at just seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: Artemisia painted one of her first and best known pieces,
Speaker 1: titled Susanna and the Elders. The painting is a depiction
Speaker 1: of the biblical character Susanna caught bathing nude by two men.
Speaker 1: In the image, the men leer at her from above
Speaker 1: as she turns away to avoid their gaze. This particular
Speaker 1: scene had been depicted by other painters before, but Artemisia's
Speaker 1: attempt was one of the first to center Susanna's experience,
Speaker 1: her fear and vulnerability. And then came the moment that
Speaker 1: overshadowed all the rest. In sixteen eleven, while Artemisia was
Speaker 1: at her father's studio, she was attacked and sexually assaulted
Speaker 1: by an artist named Augustino Tassi. After the assault, Arazio
Speaker 1: brought Tassi to trial. At the time, the biggest concern
Speaker 1: seemed to be the fact that Tassi wasn't married to Artemisia,
Speaker 1: a social taboo, rather than the sexual abuse she suffered
Speaker 1: at his hands. In fact, during the trial, Artemisia was
Speaker 1: forced to undergo a painful process to confirm she was
Speaker 1: telling the truth. In the end, Tassi was found guilty
Speaker 1: and was sentenced to a brief period of exile, but
Speaker 1: he completely ignored his punishment and left the situation relatively unscathed.
Speaker 1: Artemisia's father also tried to force Tossi to marry his daughter,
Speaker 1: but Tassi already had a wife, so after the trial,
Speaker 1: Artemisia married another man and moved to Florence with him.
Speaker 1: What often disappears in stories about Artemisia is what happened next,
Speaker 1: how she continued her career as an artist. During her
Speaker 1: time in Florence, she focused on honing her craft. She
Speaker 1: perfected her use of color, light and shadow. Even her
Speaker 1: father wrote that she has in three years become so
Speaker 1: skilled that I can venture to say that today she
Speaker 1: has no peer. In sixteen sixteen, she became the first
Speaker 1: woman to be admitted to the prestigious Academia de la
Speaker 1: Arte del di Signo. She even created paintings for the
Speaker 1: influential Medici family. Many of Artemisia's paintings depict women who've
Speaker 1: been wronged by men. In one of her other best
Speaker 1: known works, another Biblical woman, Judith brutally chops off the
Speaker 1: head of Holofernes. Halifernies was a general who was sent
Speaker 1: to capture Judith's city. She took matters into her own
Speaker 1: hands and seduced and killed him. Stories about Artemisia accentuate
Speaker 1: these depictions of female violence and attribute their brutality to
Speaker 1: her assault. But there was more to Artemisia's art than violence.
Speaker 1: For one, she was able to inhabit the female perspective.
Speaker 1: Unlike other artists at the time, Artemisia depicted women who
Speaker 1: were powerful, aggressive, and autonomous. She also painted women with
Speaker 1: great specificity and accuracy. Artemisia was able to capture the
Speaker 1: female body in a more realistic and naturalistic way by
Speaker 1: drawing on her own life experience. Scholars pointed the clearest
Speaker 1: stylistic difference between her work and her father's During this
Speaker 1: period of artists to growth, Artemisia simultaneously suffered significant personal
Speaker 1: and familial toil. Four of her five children died before adulthood,
Speaker 1: and her marriage unraveled. By the early sixteen twenties, she'd
Speaker 1: returned to Rome. She lived in nomadic lifestyle, traveling between
Speaker 1: different Italian cities, even venturing as far as England. Though
Speaker 1: much remains unknown about her later life, Artemisia is said
Speaker 1: to have settled in Naples. She continued to paint for
Speaker 1: wealthy and influential clients, many of whom were nobility. Though
Speaker 1: it isn't entirely clear when or how her life ended,
Speaker 1: it's likely that she died around sixteen fifty six. That year,
Speaker 1: a plague engulfed Naples and killed half of the city's population.
Speaker 1: Artemisia was a popular artist during her life, but after
Speaker 1: her death she remained largely unknown until she was rediscovered
Speaker 1: by feminist historians in the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: More recently, scholars have begun to highlight Artemuia as artistic
Speaker 1: brilliance beyond the constraints of her gender and trauma. All month,
Speaker 1: We're talking about Disappearing Acts. For more information, find us
Speaker 1: on Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Liz Kaflan, my favorite sister and co creator. Talk to
Speaker 1: you on Monday.