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Artemisia Gentileschi

Biography and Artwork Analysis of Judith & Maidservant

By Jane Doe for Art 206-901

Artemisia Gentileschi

Born: 1593 in Rome, Italy

Died: 1652/3 in Naples, Italy

As a child, her father, Orazio Gentileschi, encouraged her talent and taught her to be a painter like him.

When she was older, her art tutor, Agostino Tassi, raped her continuously, promising to marry her when her father confronted him about it.

Tassi refused, and Gentileschi’s father sued him. She was made to discuss her rape in front of the court room, and her reputation was publically smeared.

Her father found her a husband, and she quickly married Pierantonio Stiattesi after the trial, moving to Florence, Italy.

Their 2 daughters both became painters.

In 1616, she was the first woman to be accepted into the Florentine Academy of Fine Arts, where she continued her artistic education.

During this period, Gentileschi was held in high esteem by both the royal court and scholars. She even became friends with Galileo, the famous astronomer!

Later, Gentileschi and her husband separated, and she enjoying a freedom and independence known to few of her female contemporaries as the head of her household.

Artemisia Gentileschi (Continued)

She and her daughters often moved around Italy for career opportunities and to accommodate patronage that included the wealthy and highly political Medici family and King Charles I of England.

In 1641, Gentileschi relocated to Naples where she lived until her death in 1652/3.

While Gentileschi was a recognized painter in her lifetime, many of her artworks were attributed to Caravaggio or to her father after her death.

Only now has she become recognized for retelling biblical stories from the perspective of a woman such as Judith Beheading Holofernes (1612) and The Conversion of Magdalene (1615-16)

Judith & Maidservant

with the Head of Holofernes

Themes: religious and portrait, because it shows a scene from a biblical story in a portrait form.

Realistic subject matter depicting the story of Judith and her maidservant directly after Judith cut off the offending man’s head, which can be seen on the bottom of the picture plane.

Judith stands gesturing perhaps with her hand for her servant to stop.

She is dressed as a lady and carries the weapon, a sword.

Her maidservant crouches at the bottom of the picture holding Holofernes’ head with both of her hands.

c. 1623-1625, 72.44” x 55.75”,oil paint on canvas

The setting appears to be in Holofernes’ bedroom at night. One can see the bed curtains at the top right and a side table on the left holding a single lit candle. This candle is the only source of light within the artwork, illuminating only the two characters while leaving the background in shadow.

The focal point of this artwork is the standing Judith, and maybe more specifically, her raised hand in front of the candle light. The focal point is created by dressing her in the brightest, eye-catching tint of yellow, having her stand while the maid sits, and illuminating her most over everything else.

Judith & Maidservant

(Analysis Continued)

Visual Elements Found in Artwork:

Judith, her maidservant, and Holofernes are all organic shapes, because they come from nature. The people are also considered positive shapes, while everything in the background is considered negative shapes.

There is an implied line that leads the viewer’s eyes from the crouching maid up towards Judith’s head and hand. Gentileschi created it by aligning the heads of the two women. The red bed curtain also helps highlight this diagonal, implied line.

There are cross-contour lines in women’s dresses which move across their bodies to create a 3-dimentional appearance. The bed curtain holds cross-contour lines, too, creating the illusion that it is draped between two bedposts.

Visual Elements (Continued):

There is realistic, visual texture in the folds of the clothing and curtain which can only be seen, not touched.

The illusion of space is created through overlapping the people in front of the background. Shallow space is used to push the subject matter to the foreground in order to help the viewer feel as if she is witnessing the scene or even within it.

It employs the dramatic lighting tool called tenebrism, which uses a single light source, making the subject matter appear like actors on a stage with a spotlight. The subject matter is lit, but nothing else.

The artist used both warm and cool colors to help create the illusion of depth. The warm colors of red and yellow tend to come forward, while the cool colors of green and blue tend to recede into the background.

Primary colors red, blue, and yellow are used. Judith’s dress is yellow, her maidservant’s dress is blue-violet, and the bed curtain is red.

Principles of Design found in artwork:

Gentileschi used unity through proximity by placing the people and objects close together. She also created unity through the repetition of women as the subject matter.

Asymmetrical balance helps construct the diagonal, implied line that runs through the artwork from the bottom right corner to the top, left. Asymmetrical balance is uneven. It places more visual weight to one side of the painting than the other.

Emphasis and subordination are employed to help create the focal point of the piece. The two women, the table, and the bed curtain are all areas of emphasis which stand out above the dark background, covering the areas of subordination.

Context of Judith & Maidservant:

The context, or meaning behind the artwork derives from the artist’s own life and how it relates to the biblical story of Judith. The Book of Judith tells the story of a female heroine who outsmarted a tyrannical general and saved her people.

The tale states that “Nebuchadrezzar, king of Assyria, sent his general Holofernes on an expedition against Palestine. At the siege of the Jewish city of Bethulia, a general named Achior warned Holofernes of the danger of attacking the Jews.”

“A beautiful Jewish widow named Judith left the besieged city in pretended flight and foretold to Holofernes that he would be victorious. Invited into his tent, she cut off his head as he lay in drunken sleep and brought it in a bag to Bethulia. A Jewish victory over the leaderless Assyrian forces followed.” (Encyclopedia Britannica)

Art historians believe that the strong, resourceful character of Judith appealed to Gentileschi because of traumatic events that happened in her past (her rape and subsequent public humiliation in court), concluding that she painted this subject matter frequently in order to process her experiences and feel some type of justice.

The Brooklyn Museum of Art: https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/place_settings/artemisia_gentileschi

Living with Art (textbook)

Resources:

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