Warning: This post contains images of violence and nakedness and might not be appropriate for kids under ten.
You might not have ever heard of her, but Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – 1654) was a brilliant painter of the Baroque era. Honestly, she’s awesome. Right up there with Caravaggio. She was the first woman to be admitted to Florence’s Accademia del Disegno. Pursuing a career in a profession that was overwhelmingly male was hard enough, but she had to overcome some other fairly formidable challenges.
Artemisia grew up in a rough Roman neighborhood. Her mother died when Artemisia was 12, and Artemisia learned to paint from her father, Orazio Gentileschi.
Here’s a painting she did at age seventeen, which follows the timeworn tradition of nearly-totally-naked women interacting with fully-dressed men. Still, it’s an incredible painting. It’s called Susanna e I Vecchioni:
Yes, you read that right: age seventeen. Unfortunately, her father had a lot of unsavory friends. One day, in 1611, her father’s friend, Agostino Tassi, encountered 18-year-old Artemisia as she was painting alone in the studio. He raped her.
Tassi promised to marry her, but it turned out that he had a long record of violent crimes—and also a wife. Artemisia’s father pressed charges. Tassi went to trial.
This was a big deal. Women didn’t often prosecute their rapists during the Renaissance. In baffling Renaissance-era logic, by virtue of her honor having been violated, Artemisia’s word was suspect. She had to submit to torture by thumbscrew. But she stuck to her story. Tassi was sentenced to exile (although records indicate it was never enforced), and Artemisia’s father, after trying in vain to convince her to become a nun, married her off to an older man.
The couple moved to Florence, where Artemisia’s fame as an artist–notably her paintings of heroic women—grew. Here’s a painting she did the year after the trial, of Judith Beheading Holofernes. Subject matter a coincidence? I think not.
While becoming a renowned painter, she also, oh-by-the-way, managed to give birth to five children. I doubt Caravaggio had that life detail to deal with. (That was kind of mean, actually–Caravaggio had some serious demons of his own, and spent a lot of his time trying to stay one step ahead of the law. But certainly, having children didn’t figure into his career.)
Artemesia eventually dumped her husband and moved back to Rome. Only one of her children survived infancy.
Despite her humble social status, she was invited into elite artistic circles, making the acquaintance of the great Galileo and with a nephew of Michelangelo. She became the first woman artist to run a large studio with many assistants.
She seems to have used herself as a model in many of her paintings (models were expensive to hire). Here’s a self portrait. Told you she was awesome.
Leonardo da Vinci‘s brilliant mind was capable of imagining a wide range of inventions. He invented ways to divert rivers to prevent their flooding. He invented screw threads, transmission gears, hydraulic jacks, things that swivel. He built a revolving stage, a canal system with locks. In his notebooks he designed a submarine, a flying machine, solar power, a calculator, plate tectonics, a flush toilet.
Here’s a new word for you: claquer. It comes from the French word, meaning “to clap.” A claquer is a professional applauder.
The practice spread to Italy, Vienna, London, and New York, and in some circumstances became a form of extortion, when singers were obliged to pay a fee to the claques before a debut to ensure they weren’t booed.