Artemisia Gentileschi

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Pages: 7

Born in Rome, Italy, the Baroque painter, Artemisia Gentileschi is considered to be one of the most important women in the seventeenth century. Artemisia Gentileschi depicts art before her time as she represents the feminist perspective through heroism and biblical representations. In addition, Artemisia Gentileschi creates her life and views through symbolism in her artwork such as in Judith and Holofernes, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting, Susanna and The Elders, and Madonna and Child. Some would say, “Feminist studies increased the interest towards Artemisia's artistic work and life. Such studies underlined her suffering of rape and subsequent mistreatment, and the expressive strength of her paintings of biblical heroines…” (Art …show more content…
One critic would say that, “Artemisia depicted herself… accompanied by several, though not all attributes of the female personification…” (Garrard, “The Art Bulletin”). Additionally, these attributions included a gold chain, wild hair, free mouth and garments that indicates an imperfect look that does not show the ideal women that would match with society standards, “Her mouth is free and in the painting offers the idea that she is breaking the rules of what a women of the Renaissance should be.” (Harper, “A Self-Portrait of Remarkable Strength”). Furthermore, not only does Artemisia Gentileschi painting represents a different appearance of women, but also conveys that no male artist had the ability to represent a metaphorical female figure, “The fact is, no man could have painted this particular image… and thus only women could identify herself with the personification.” (Garrard, “The Art Bulletin”). However, although Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting represents the aim towards a divergent of stereotype of women. Her next artwork exemplifies the life of a women living in a male dominated world through a biblical