Books, Arts & Manners: A Star Is Reborn

The larger world has not yet heard of Artemisia Gentileschi, but soon that may change. For some time, this seventeenth-century woman painter has inspired the devoted attention of feminist artists, critics, and art historians. But only now, with the appearance of Anna Banti’s novelization of the artist’s life, Artemisia (Nebraska), newly translated from the Italian, and of Mary Garrard’s full-dress monograph, Artemisia Gentileschi (Princeton), does the artist finally appear poised to go into orbit.

For many feminists, Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1652) is a fully contemporary champion of their interests, dispatched by some miraculous expedient back into the male-dominated morass of Counter-Reformation Rome. In biographical terms, she appeals as a thoroughly independent woman who, in a colorful and picaresque life, traveling unescorted through Italy and England, triumphantly overcame the prejudices and intrigues of jealous male rivals to win the esteem of kings and councilors. Above all, her rape at the age of 16 and the dramatic lawsuit that followed have turned her into a kind of feminist proto-martyr.

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James Gardner

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The larger world has not yet heard of Artemisia Gentileschi, but soon that may change. For some time, this seventeenth-century woman painter has inspired the devoted attention of feminist artists, critics, and art historians. But only now, with the appearance of Anna Banti’s novelization of the artist’s life, Artemisia (Nebraska), newly translated from the Italian, and of Mary Garrard’s full-dress monograph, Artemisia Gentileschi (Princeton), does the artist finally appear poised to go into orbit.

For many feminists, Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1652) is a fully contemporary champion of their interests, dispatched by some miraculous expedient back into the male-dominated morass of Counter-Reformation Rome. In biographical terms, she appeals as a thoroughly independent woman who, in a colorful and picaresque life, traveling unescorted through Italy and England, triumphantly overcame the prejudices and intrigues of jealous male rivals to win the esteem of kings and councilors. Above all, her rape at the age of 16 and the dramatic lawsuit that followed have turned her into a kind of feminist proto-martyr.