Artemisia had two enemies: Agostino Tassi and Holofernes.

It is Rome, Italy, and Artemisia Gentileschi is an adolescent artist, talented beyond expectations. She has trained at home under her father, Orazio Gentileschi, a notable Baroque painter and contemporary of the more famous Baroque artist of tenebrism and murder, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio.

When she became 16, her father hired Agostino Tassi, a local artist and teacher, as her tutor. 

Within a year, she was raped by Tassi.

Artemisia continued a relationship with him that promised marriage but after 9 months her father brought Tassi to trial accusing him of “theft of virginity”. The trial lasted 7 months with 300 still existing pages of testimony. Tassi was convicted and expelled from Rome, but the sentence was not honored.

Artemisia spent the rest of her life fighting the enemy – the powerful and oppressive male figure and the challenges of being female and professional.

Between 1612 and 1625 Artemisia created three masterful scenes of the Biblical account of “Judith Slaying Holofernes” (from the deuterocanonical Book of Judith). Strength, courage, fearlessness, and heroism are her subjects – also vengeance – against the Assyrian general who was about to attack Judith’s town. Judith, plotting with her maidservant, discovers his tent and teases him with promises of lust. Weakening under her charms, Holofernes becomes intoxicated and WHACK. 

She beheads him with his own sword.

This is her 1620 painting, “Judith Slaying Holofernes”, 6’6″ x 4’7″, now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the second in her cycle featuring Judith, but the first scene of the execution story.

Her style is dramatic, deliberate, and naturalistic, not idealistic. The tension and struggle in her use of the sword, and Holofernes’ semi-conscious resistance, is remarkably passionate and gripping, evoking the mystery of the night tent, illuminated by the single light from a candle or lantern that sheds a theatrical magnification.  This is the period of the Counter Reformation of the Catholic Church, intent on converting the faithful and the faithless through intrigue, energy, drama, skill while teaching Biblical history.

Her paintings are Baroque (approximately 1600-1660) in all senses. They are energized with twisting bodies in exaggerated movements of torture and resistance. They are  threatening. The lighting is bold, usually from just one source, the shadows dark, the chiaroscuro taut and the subject matter scoldingly violent.

Her third, according to date, in the trilogy is “Judith and her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes”, 1625. This scene, however, follows the beheading and is a few moments after the act.

 Judith hears a noise, and she gestures to her maidservant to quietly stuff the head in a sack as Judith watches and listens. There is an ominous element of the unknown. Is silence our friend or not? Is the noise from a companion in crime or another Assyrian who arose to the commotion, or is the noise just her imagination?

As in most Baroque paintings, the atmosphere is enhanced by the candle-lit beam and the need of a swift and intelligent decision – “Do we stay in the tent or run?”

There is a David and Goliath element here, a symbolism of youthful power, in this case feminine power, that conquers, not by David’s cunning virtue but by Judith’s deceit.

Artemisia’s  earliest painting in the series, but the last in the narrative, is from 1612-14, titled “Judith and Her Maidservant”. Judith is now leaving the scene of the crime. She is still watchful and carries the weapon as her maidservant balances the basket that holds the head of Holofernes.

We continue to see strong Baroque elements in its twisting posture, the elaborate and richly designed dresses, the facial expression of surprise, wonder, pride and escape – with booty.

Artemisia painted in a man’s world – Italy, Spain and England – in a style coveted by many of her contemporaries, and commissioned and purchased by the leading collectors of European royalty, including the Medici, Charles I of England and Philip II of Spain. 

She was the first woman admitted to the Accademia delle Arti Disegno in Florence. She left 28 letters, addressed mostly to her clients and close relationships, explaining that she had been cheated financially because she was a woman.

Her other subjects included the Roman heroine, Lucretia, also raped, and the Biblical victims, Bathsheba and Susannah.

Artemisia was a visual voice against male abuse and dominance. Her men were most often victims. She was married once, to a second rate artist whom she supported, and she had one daughter. She lived in Florence, Rome, Venice, London and Naples, traveling for commissions, to work along side her father, and to support her family.

Her heroines are self-portraits. She is the heroine. Forty-nine of her fifty-seven surviving paintings portray HER as the women protagonists – defiant, challenging, rebellious and victorious against prejudice, injustice, and perceived weakness. 

Some historical accounts record her death in 1654, but there is also evidence of a commission in 1656. Later research proposes that she died in the plague that swept Naples that year, 1656.

A retrospective of her paintings at the National Gallery of London, slated to open April 4, 2020, has been postponed due to the current plague.