March 4, 2015 • 29 mins
She's often called the greatest female painter of the Baroque period, though there were only a few to compare her to. Her work is extraordinary, and reflects the influences of her father Orazio Gentileschi and Caravaggio.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to steph you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tray py View Wilson. When
today's topic is often called the greatest female painter of
the Baroque period. But that's kind of one of those
(00:22):
things that makes me chuckle because there weren't very many
many women painters to speak of during that time, though
there were a couple of others in addition to today's topic,
but today's subject it was quite extraordinary. We've had a
couple of requests for this one, but the most recent
one came from mother and daughter Shelley and Annie and
also Um. Interestingly enough, right before we came into the
(00:44):
studio today, I got another one from another listener named Sophie.
I believe I'm going from memory, so apologies if that
is wrong. So we're talking about Artemisia Gentileski and I
have to issue a trigger warning because this episode does
talk about sexual assaults and it's not something we can
kind of skip through really quickly because it's part of
(01:04):
an event in the artist's life that was quite significant.
Uh So, if that is a topic that you would
rather not hear or share with younger listener to be advised,
this may not be the episode for you. We're also
gonna do something a little bit different here, and before
we actually get into Artemisia's story, we're going to talk
about her father, uh a Razzio Gentileski, because he was
(01:25):
a vital part of his daughter becoming a painter. He
is an important figure in art history in his own right,
and because the pair did collaborate. Uh, we just wanted
to give you a little bit of context on him,
because he is referenced a good bit and he's uh,
as we said, pretty important. So we're gonna start with
Razzio's story. A Razzio was born a Razzio Nomi in
(01:47):
fifteen sixty two in Pizza, Italy, and when he was
still a young man, so not a child anymore, Lomi
moved to Rome. And the timing of this move is uncertain,
but most UH historians will date it somewhere around the
late fifteen seventies or early fifteen eighties. He would have
(02:07):
been roughly twenty at this time. As a caveat sort
of going forward with this episode, almost any date that
we mentioned without with a few exceptions are going to
be approximated. Uh and we'll talk about that some a
little bit later. But any time you look up the
work of Ratio or Artemisia, when you see their works painted,
they're always circa these years or these years, So just
(02:29):
know we'll use some specific years, but it's really kind
of a it was around this time. Uh So Razzio,
like we said, would have been about twenty when he
moved to Rome in the fifteen seventies or early fifteen eighties,
and this is also roughly the time when he started painting.
Early on in his time in Rome, Arazzio worked on
church frescoes and collaboration with Agastino Tassi. Tassi was a
(02:53):
really well known landscape painter, and together the pair decorated
the walls of the Santa Maria, Maggiore, San Giovanni, La Terrano,
and Santa Nicola. We're not quite sure exactly when Arazzio
Lo Lomi changed his name to Gentile Asci, but he did,
and in the early seventeenth century he became heavily influenced
by Caravaggio, and of course Caravaggio is known for his
(03:15):
use of contrast. He offset light areas by deepening the
shadows around them, and this is known as tenebrism, and
this created incredibly dramatic paintings. Yeah, there are many other
things that Caravaggio is known for, but that's kind of
one of the things that when you're doing a quick
art history course, they'll mention his use of light and
dark in contrast to create great drama. Uh. And right
(03:38):
around sixteen hundred, when Ratio was thirty seven and his
daughter at this time would have been about seven, Caravaggio
completed two paintings that would create this significant shift in
the art world and give rise eventually to what was
called the Baroque style. The Calling of St. Matthew and
The Martyrdom of St. Matthew, which are two paintings that
he did roughly at the same time, introduced this signature
(04:02):
signature style of light and shadow that were juxtaposed for
both dynamic tension and also a high level of realism.
Arrazzio Gentileski was mesmerized by Caravaggio, and the two of
them became friends and drinking buddies for a while. Their
camaraderie didn't really last though both of the men had
reputations for being really hot headed, but Arazzio's work from
(04:25):
this period shows Caravaggio's way in his style. Arrazzio's paintings
David and Goliath, St. Cecilia and an Angel, and his
sixteen o nine piece Madonna and Child really bear a
clear mark of his admiration for Caravaggio, And of course
razzio style did continue to evolve, and while that Caravaggio
(04:46):
influence remained in his work, the paintings that Gentileski produced
going forward started to favor this sort of lighter color palette,
and it also reintegrated the Mannerist style that he had
studied when he was younger. In sixty three, he painted
what's considered to be his masterpiece. It was called The Annunciation.
(05:08):
This painting features the Virgin Mary and the angel Gabriel,
and there's still a level of drama and immediacy about
the composition, but it's less visually heavy than the two
that we mentioned a moment ago. And just a few
years after he painted The Annunciation, Arrazzio was invited to
England by King Charles, the first to become court painter,
(05:31):
to finish out his artistic career. Razzio worked alongside his
daughter Artemisia on a huge project in the Queen's House
in Greenwich. Throughout sixteen thirty eight. The father daughter team
painted the ceiling panels there. You know, we'll talk about
those a little bit more later. Uh. And that's just
like I said, a quick mini biography of Razzio, And
(05:52):
before we get into Artemisia's specific story, do you want
to have a word from a sponsor? Yes, I do so.
Razzio's daughter, Artemisia Gentileski was born in Rome, Italy, on
July eighth, fifteen ninety three. Too. Of course, her father
Rozzio and her mother, Prudentia Montoni. When Artemisia was twelve,
(06:13):
which was in sixteen o five, her mother died in childbirth,
and at that point it seemed likely that she was
probably going to send to be sent to a convent
to become a nun. But over the next several years,
Razzio became aware that his daughter had artistic leanings and
he started to teach her how to paint. Yeah, he
also had sons, and he was kind of teaching all
of his children, but Artemisia was really the one that
(06:34):
stood out as having a real talent for this, and
she produced her earliest signed work in sixteen ten at
the age of seventeen, and that's called Susannah and the Elders.
In this painting depicts the biblical story of Susannah who
rejected two men and is then accused by them of
adultery in retribution for her unwillingness to be with them.
(06:57):
And in Gentilewski's version, the two men are very conspiratorial.
One is whispering in the ear of the other, and
while Susannah, who's unclothed, holds up her hands as if
to shield herself from their words. The next year, and
back to the warning that we had at the top
of the podcast, would turn into a really harrowing one.
(07:19):
On May six of sixteen eleven, Artemisio was raped by
her father's colleague, uh Agostino Tassi. That's the same landscape
painter that her father worked on church frescoes with. For
historical context, at the time, rape was not really viewed
(07:39):
quite the same way we do today. It was not
so much considered an affront to the female victim or
a brutalization of her. It was looked at a little
bit more as an insult to her family. So uh.
The retribution that Razzio demanded was that Tassi must marry
his daughter. This is actually not uncommon in sort of uh,
(08:01):
the kind of sexual interactions of the day, that a
man would take a woman by force and eventually end
up married to her as part of an agreement with
the family. And initially Agustino Tassi agreed to this, he
was actually already already married. There's some question marks around that. Uh.
And he apparently used this promise that he was going
to marry Artemisia as leverage to continue his sexual relationship
(08:25):
with her, but eventually he backed out of the deal
and said he was not going to marry her after all.
Passie's reversal on the matter sent Arazzio into a fury.
He sought legal action against his associate and this resulted
in the episode of Artemisia's life that often eclipsed her work.
It was a trial that dragged on for nearly eight months,
(08:45):
and the transcript of this trial still exists, and it's
more than three hundred pages long. Uh. And I will
confess I did not read it because it is an
Italian but I read various excerpts in translation. Just f y.
I uh. And even though we mentioned it at the
top of the episode and Tracy mentioned it again just
a moment ago, I really feel like I should issue
(09:05):
a quick warning before we get into sort of talking
about the testimony, because it's very upsetting, not just for
the actual event that happened, but how the victim was
treated in the process of all of this. So Artemisia
had to testify repeatedly during these proceedings, and in her account,
she said that Tossi stormed into her father's studio while
(09:26):
she was painting. And because her father was a working
painter with a studio at his home, people did come
and go all the time, and according to her testimony,
she said that Tassi came in yelling not so much
painting repeatedly, and then he took her tools from her
and threw them on the floor and then proceeded to
attack her. She fought back, but she was overpowered. She
(09:48):
actually turned a knife on him. After it was over,
it wasn't enough that she gave this testimony. The veracity
of her statement had to be tested. It was tested
by torture using thumbscrews to see if she would change
her story. Sorry, under duress, she remained steadfast in her
account and eventually referred to the torture device when yelling
at her attacker, this is the ring you gave me,
(10:09):
and these are your promises. It's very hard for me
to think about that, especially because Augustino Tassi faced no
such torture when it came to his testimony, even though
he had at best a checkered history, and he gave
obviously contradictory testimony. UH records indicate that the judge would
even stop him periodically and go, wait, that's completely different
(10:31):
than what you said before. UH. He had been imprisoned
prior to this for incest, and he had told multiple
witnesses that he had been sleeping with Artemisia, But then
during the trial, even though those witnesses had had testified
to those conversations, he said that he had never had
a sexual relationship with her and that he would only
visit the house to protect her virginity from other would
(10:52):
be rapists. So this story kept changing, and he also
claimed that she had slept with her father, and that
her mother and her aunt, who were women that he
did not know, were in fact horrors, and he insinuated
that prostitution was something of a family tradition, and even
at one point suggested that her father had sold her
to other men. In short, he was utterly vile and
(11:14):
just said horrible things, and he did not have to
face this horrible torture that she did. We didn't even
have to really face his sentence. He was found guilty
and exiled from Rome for five years, but it appears
that his exile was not enforced, uh, and not on
the timeline. We're going to jump back a little bit
and talk about that painting that we mentioned earlier. So,
(11:35):
because the dates of Arnemisia's paintings are generally all approximated,
some people place her painting of Susannah and the Elders
in different positions, suggesting slightly different interpretations of the work.
So scholars that place it as being painted just prior
to the rape suggest that she may have been expressing
a scenario in which she had been fending off the
(11:58):
advances of her father's friends for a while already, and
we do know some of that was going on. There
was another man in addition to Agastino Tassi, named Cosimo Corli,
who had been pretty sexually aggressive with her and had
perhaps even attempted to rape her as well. So the
idea of the two men in the painting being Corley
and Tassi is certainly one possibility and is a popular interpretation. Alternately,
(12:22):
when scholars placed the painting of Susannah concurrently on the
timeline with the trial or just prior but after the rape,
it's perceived more as a statement about her defense of
her virtue having been taken from her and her being
innocent in all of it. After the Tassi ordeal, Artemisia
did marry, and she married another painter. This is a
(12:43):
match that was arranged by her father. Her husband, par
Antonio davich Enzo uh Stiatse, was also a painter, and
the couple left Rome and headed to Florence. Harazzio had
already written to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany on his
daughter behalf, asking for a patronage. The patronage was granted,
(13:04):
and Artemisia and her husband stayed in Florence for almost
a decade. While she was there, she was producing works
for the Grand Duke of Tuscany close Demdici, and she
became really ingrained in the art world there, and she
made a lot of friends. She even became friends with
famed astronomer Galileo. One of the paintings that Artemisia worked
on during her time in Florence, with Judith slaying Holofernes,
(13:26):
and as with Susannah and the Elders, that focuses on
a female character, and in this case that's Judith and
she's killing the Assyrian military leader Holofernes to save the
Jewish people of Bethulia, and this painting is quite graphic.
Her paintings shows Judith cutting the general's throat with the
assistance of a handmaiden, and in a follow up painting
(13:49):
entitled Judith and her maid Servant, the two women are
depicted after the general's defeat, carrying the head of Holophernes
in a basket. A popular theory about these paintings pecularly.
The first is that this was part of how Gentleleski
was working through her experience of having been sexually assaulted
and then having to go through the horror of that
(14:10):
long trial, and that depicting a woman enacting such brutal
violence on a male figure with something of a revenge
statement when the painting was unveiled. This, of course, is
all speculative, though it's all art interpretation. And also as
a counterpoint, there are scholars who are quick to point
out that there's definitely a taste for violence and gore
amongst art patrons at the time, so she may well
(14:32):
have just been making lucrative decisions about her work subjects.
There's a two thousand two interview with Smithsonian in which
Judith Man, who's a curator of early European art at
the St. Louis Art Museum at the time, and she
mentioned that while a lot is made of Artemisia's work
being vengeful in nature, fewer than a quarter of the
(14:54):
painter's works feature women in that vein. And before we
get to what happens to Artemisia after she leaves Florence,
do you want to have another quick word from a sponsor?
Let's do you want to start talking about history again?
So back to Artemisia. Around six she was ready to
leave Florence. She and her husband had had four children together,
(15:18):
but three of them did not make it past childhood.
They died, and moreover, her marriage was not a particularly
happy one. Pierre Antonio had a problem with spending money
more quickly than they were taking it in, and he's
alleged to have cheated on her repeatedly and just sort
of that. They had a contentious and unhappy union. So,
perhaps hoping for a fresh start, Artemisia, Parentonio, and their
(15:42):
surviving child, who was named Prudentia, moved to Rome, and
as have been the case in Florence, the painter made
friends within the art community, and this put a strain
on her already crumbling marriage. Parenttonio actually slashed the face
of one of Artemisia's male acquaintances, and not long after
that he left the marriage for good, leaving behind his
(16:04):
daughter as well. So uh, roughly ten to twelve years
after she had painted the image of Judith and her
main maid servant carrying the severed head of Holofernes, Artemisia
revisited that same subject of Judith again in her work,
and this was somewhere around sixteen twenty three or sixteen
twenty five, so it was during her time in Rome,
(16:26):
and the painting that she created at this point was
Judith and her maid servant with the head of Holofernes.
This time it's still a depiction of two women and
again after the beheading, and it's in a way that
creates tension and urgency, the seen as lit by candle light,
and that candle light itself as part of the composition.
The light and shadows she creates around that light source
(16:48):
are just incredible. Even the gossamer fabric that's draped over
one of Judith's shoulders is affected by the light of
the flame in a way that makes the candle almost
seemed like it must be flickering. There's also a less
This is also a less brutal representation of the story
than the earlier works. There's a lot less gore. Yet
(17:09):
it feels a little bit more like it is less
about the murder and more about the two women, if
that makes sense. I will be pinning all of these
on t interest, and then our listeners can go and
kind of get a sense of what we're talking about
and decide for themselves how they feel like it looks
um And while she was not the toast of Rome
the way that she had been in Florence, and this
(17:31):
was largely due to shifting tastes among art patrons, uh
Genteinski did receive a commission from King Philip the fourth
of Spain in six seven. In this particular project provided
her enough money that she could stay afloat and also
support her daughter. In sixteen thirty the Bubonic plague took
a huge toll on Veness. It killed a third of
(17:53):
the people there, and to escape the sickness, Gentileski moved
to Naples. Yeah. Just other than a brief for a
elsewhere which we're about to talk about, Naples really became
her home for the rest of her life. Around sixty
eight or sixteen thirty nine, depending on when you look,
but most favored sixteen thirty eight, she went to London
(18:15):
to work with her father on the Queen's House for
Queen Henrietta Maria, and she had resisted several requests to
go to London prior to this, in part because she
did not want to work for the Anglican king, although
Queen Henrietta Maria was Roman Catholic. Uh but frankly, her
work had really dried up in Italy. She was having
trouble making ends meet, so she finally acquiesced on this
(18:37):
trip to London. During the work on the house at Greenwich,
Arazzio died, and that was in February of sixteen thirty nine.
Artemisia stayed in London for a couple of more years,
but as soon as she had work back in Italy,
she went back to Naples. Yeah, and she continued to
work for the rest of her life. But she died
in Naples around sixteen fifty two. She would have been
(19:00):
approximately fifty nine at that time, and while she had
been painting, uh really, most art scholars kind of regard
her earlier works as her best work. So for a
long time, Artemisia's works were actually attributed to other artists.
And this wasn't part due to the fact that her
father had been her primary teacher, as well as the
(19:21):
fact that she was a woman, and there are even
sort of ongoing debates about this um. We mentioned earlier
that Susannah and the Elders was her first sign painting,
and that was in about sixteen ten. But there is
another piece called Madonna and Child from sixteen o nine
that is sometimes credited to Artemisia and sometimes to her father.
We mentioned it earlier as one of her father's pieces,
(19:43):
but that continues to be some debate about it. Even
though Susannah and the Elders has her signature on it,
it was long believed to be her father's work because
a lot of people found it really difficult to believe
that a young woman of seventeen can paint with that
much maturity, And also because she was a woman, that
rape that had so affected her life we mentioned earlier
(20:06):
sometimes really overshadowed her abilities in her work, and having
been part of a rape trial basically cast out on
her sexuality and her honor for her entire life. Even
though the aggressor had been found guilty, it's still just
kind of put a stain on her reputation. And even
prior to that assault, her reputation was constantly questioned because
(20:28):
of the open nature of her father's studio and the
men and women who often visited as both colleagues and models.
Just the idea that she was exposed to so many
people coming and going led to some some rumors about her.
So while her talent was really obvious, people really wanted
to talk about the possible scandals attached to her than
her amazing skill and the amazing work she was doing.
(20:51):
For her own part, she readily recognized and openly discussed
her struggles working in a field that was dominated by men.
In a letter to a page friend later in her life,
she described the tiresome nature of trying to defend her
work as her own, and the fight to get a
fair price for it. She wrote, you feel sorry for
me because a woman's name raises doubts until her work
(21:13):
is seen. If I were a man, I can't imagine
it would have turned out this way. But it's also
important to note that, um, there was also a lot
of acclaim for her in her lifetime, and in fact,
some scholars have suggested that because of the huge scandal
when she was seventeen, it actually kind of opened the
door for her to be able to paint some of
(21:34):
her uh more sort of gory and graphic pieces. Uh
That it was more accepted for her at that point
to be able to do those things, but still again
an issue of debate. Uh. In sixty five, though, she
wrote this note to her friend Galileo quote, I have
seen myself honored by all the kings and rulers of Europe,
(21:54):
to whom I have sent my works, not only with
great gifts, but also with most favored letters, which I
keep with me. Those feeling panels that she and her
father worked down together in London were removed from the
Queen's house, and now they're in Barbara House in London
and in two thousand two, so it's more than a
decade ago, but uh quite neat. Uh. The New York
(22:18):
Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted an exhibit entitled Razzio and
Artemisio Gentileski, father and daughter painters in Baroque Italy, and
the works of both of the artists were featured together,
which is kind of a lovely way is to sum
up there their lives and how they affected one another.
And we'll link to we have one of the catalogs
(22:40):
from that exhibition was one of my um sources, so
we'll have a link to that in the show notes.
And it's worth a look because it's it's very interesting
to see sort of the lineage and development of style.
You can see like the Caravaggio style and a lot
in her father's work, and then it evolves in his work,
and then her work kind of evolves it some more.
It's it's pretty interesting to look at. If you're in
art history, do you also have listener mail? I do? First?
(23:03):
I have listener mail. I actually have a few, uh
and uh they are about our narcilepsy episodes. And we've
read one listener mail about narcalepsy in a previous episode,
but we've gotten so many and people have been really
so kind to share their experiences with us that I
wanna try to give voice to as many of them
(23:24):
as I can. One of the things that I really
appreciate is that I mentioned at the end of the
second episode. I think that I have known a couple
of people with an earcalepsy in my life, but neither
of them had cataplexy. So hearing people describe what that
is like is a whole other universe of information. UM.
I won't read the whole letter, but our listener, Ashley
(23:46):
wrote us and she was appreciative of it, and she
mentions that she has an earcalepsy and catoplexy, and her
description of it, I think is lovely. She says the
latter I always describe as a doll losing its ball joints. Temporarily,
I lose the ability to speak clearly, often sounding drunk.
My knees buckle, and my neck does as well. It
obviously never lasts long, but it is quite embarrassing. Um.
(24:10):
I hate that she has to be embarrassed by it,
but I understand. But it's a that's a really good
way to put it. I think for people that maybe
have never seen it or certainly don't have it, that's
a It's an indicator of how like your body just
kind of crumples on you and you you really don't
have any uh way to deal with it. Our next
email is from our listener Catherine, and she uh makes
(24:34):
a little plea that I think is a good one.
So she mentions, the day before Part one of the
History of Arcalypsy was released, I was in attendance at
the New York and Arcaleptics meetup group, which I'm pretty
sure I posed the question when do people start having
a word for an arcalepsy lo And behold the very
next day stuff you missed an industry class delivered. I'm
glad for that accidental timing. Uh. Catherine says she's had
(24:55):
an earcailepsy since her preteens, and she was diagnosed as
a junior in high school. She's an thirty two, so
she spent the vast majority of her memorable life with
the condition, and she uh is giving us a couple
of paragraphs about her personal history, and she says, as
a teenager, I fell asleep in class every day but
I didn't have cataplexy or any other symptoms which might
have indicated that something was wrong other than me being
(25:17):
a lazy student. I was deeply frustrated and embarrassed by
what I thought was my lack of willpower to stay awake,
but never considered that my inability to be alert might
be linked to a sleep disorder. I was lucky in
that my mother, who has sleep troubles of her own,
described my symptoms to her sleep doctor, who suggested I
come in for testing. In retrospect, I can easily say
that getting diagnosed with narcilepsy was one of the best
(25:39):
things that has ever happened to me, because it resulted
in my gaining access to drugs which substantially reduced my symptoms.
I often look back and wonder what would have happened
to me if I had never been diagnosed and received
treatment for minarcilepsy. I think I would have struggled a
great deal in college, and I would have found it
nearly impossible to hold down a regular job. I think
I would have grown increasingly angry and unhappy as I
(26:00):
older without developing the ability to function as a quote
unquote responsible adult. The ability to control the behavior of
one's own body is elemental to personal safety, to social
and professional acceptance, and perhaps most importantly, to one sense
of self respect. The imaginary version of me who never
found out about her condition is someone who would be
suffering today on all of those fronts. It may be
(26:22):
too late to influence your plans for recording episode two.
It was we already had it recorded. But if it isn't,
she says, I beg you to incorporate something along the
lines of this brief p s A. A lot of
people have narcolepsy and don't know it. If you have symptoms,
it is worth it to get yourself tested. That I
think is a really good message that um, you know,
we hadn't thought about. It's kind of inherent. We would
(26:43):
hope that once people are aware of a possible thing,
they may be able to interpret something that's going on.
But that is a really good point, I think. And
several of the people that wrote us mentioned that they
had those feelings of like being angry and frustrated and
feeling like they were trying so hard to do things
and they could before they were diagnosed. So I imagine
there are a lot of people undiagnosed that are going
(27:04):
through those really negative emotions that don't really have to.
Uh So, if you think you might follow Catherine's advice,
get somebody, get a professional to investigate the situation. And again,
thank you to everybody who has been sharing their their
emails and their stories with us. It's really incredible and
I'm certainly very appreciative that you guys have all been
very open about your struggles and sort of what you've
(27:25):
gone through. So thank you for that. Uh. If you
would like to write to us, you can do so
at History Podcast at how stuff Works dot com. You
can also connect to this at Facebook dot com slash
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(27:47):
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think of you'd like to research a little bit relate
into what we're talking talking about today in sort of
a bigger arcing kind of sense. You can go to
our website, our parent website, hows to Works. Type in
the word art, then you will get an article on
(28:10):
how art works. Uh, and that will give you some
very broad stroke discussion of what art is, so that
you can kind of can textualize to toe Leski's work
and all the way from Caravaggio down to her and
how that sort of all plays out. Uh. If you
would like to visit us at our websites that has
missed in history dot com and we have show notes,
we have all of our archived episodes, we have the
(28:33):
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(28:55):
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Welcome to steph you missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tray py View Wilson. When
today's topic is often called the greatest female painter of
the Baroque period. But that's kind of one of those
(00:22):
things that makes me chuckle because there weren't very many
many women painters to speak of during that time, though
there were a couple of others in addition to today's topic,
but today's subject it was quite extraordinary. We've had a
couple of requests for this one, but the most recent
one came from mother and daughter Shelley and Annie and
also Um. Interestingly enough, right before we came into the
(00:44):
studio today, I got another one from another listener named Sophie.
I believe I'm going from memory, so apologies if that
is wrong. So we're talking about Artemisia Gentileski and I
have to issue a trigger warning because this episode does
talk about sexual assaults and it's not something we can
kind of skip through really quickly because it's part of
(01:04):
an event in the artist's life that was quite significant.
Uh So, if that is a topic that you would
rather not hear or share with younger listener to be advised,
this may not be the episode for you. We're also
gonna do something a little bit different here, and before
we actually get into Artemisia's story, we're going to talk
about her father, uh a Razzio Gentileski, because he was
(01:25):
a vital part of his daughter becoming a painter. He
is an important figure in art history in his own right,
and because the pair did collaborate. Uh, we just wanted
to give you a little bit of context on him,
because he is referenced a good bit and he's uh,
as we said, pretty important. So we're gonna start with
Razzio's story. A Razzio was born a Razzio Nomi in
(01:47):
fifteen sixty two in Pizza, Italy, and when he was
still a young man, so not a child anymore, Lomi
moved to Rome. And the timing of this move is uncertain,
but most UH historians will date it somewhere around the
late fifteen seventies or early fifteen eighties. He would have
(02:07):
been roughly twenty at this time. As a caveat sort
of going forward with this episode, almost any date that
we mentioned without with a few exceptions are going to
be approximated. Uh and we'll talk about that some a
little bit later. But any time you look up the
work of Ratio or Artemisia, when you see their works painted,
they're always circa these years or these years, So just
(02:29):
know we'll use some specific years, but it's really kind
of a it was around this time. Uh So Razzio,
like we said, would have been about twenty when he
moved to Rome in the fifteen seventies or early fifteen eighties,
and this is also roughly the time when he started painting.
Early on in his time in Rome, Arazzio worked on
church frescoes and collaboration with Agastino Tassi. Tassi was a
(02:53):
really well known landscape painter, and together the pair decorated
the walls of the Santa Maria, Maggiore, San Giovanni, La Terrano,
and Santa Nicola. We're not quite sure exactly when Arazzio
Lo Lomi changed his name to Gentile Asci, but he did,
and in the early seventeenth century he became heavily influenced
by Caravaggio, and of course Caravaggio is known for his
(03:15):
use of contrast. He offset light areas by deepening the
shadows around them, and this is known as tenebrism, and
this created incredibly dramatic paintings. Yeah, there are many other
things that Caravaggio is known for, but that's kind of
one of the things that when you're doing a quick
art history course, they'll mention his use of light and
dark in contrast to create great drama. Uh. And right
(03:38):
around sixteen hundred, when Ratio was thirty seven and his
daughter at this time would have been about seven, Caravaggio
completed two paintings that would create this significant shift in
the art world and give rise eventually to what was
called the Baroque style. The Calling of St. Matthew and
The Martyrdom of St. Matthew, which are two paintings that
he did roughly at the same time, introduced this signature
(04:02):
signature style of light and shadow that were juxtaposed for
both dynamic tension and also a high level of realism.
Arrazzio Gentileski was mesmerized by Caravaggio, and the two of
them became friends and drinking buddies for a while. Their
camaraderie didn't really last though both of the men had
reputations for being really hot headed, but Arazzio's work from
(04:25):
this period shows Caravaggio's way in his style. Arrazzio's paintings
David and Goliath, St. Cecilia and an Angel, and his
sixteen o nine piece Madonna and Child really bear a
clear mark of his admiration for Caravaggio, And of course
razzio style did continue to evolve, and while that Caravaggio
(04:46):
influence remained in his work, the paintings that Gentileski produced
going forward started to favor this sort of lighter color palette,
and it also reintegrated the Mannerist style that he had
studied when he was younger. In sixty three, he painted
what's considered to be his masterpiece. It was called The Annunciation.
(05:08):
This painting features the Virgin Mary and the angel Gabriel,
and there's still a level of drama and immediacy about
the composition, but it's less visually heavy than the two
that we mentioned a moment ago. And just a few
years after he painted The Annunciation, Arrazzio was invited to
England by King Charles, the first to become court painter,
(05:31):
to finish out his artistic career. Razzio worked alongside his
daughter Artemisia on a huge project in the Queen's House
in Greenwich. Throughout sixteen thirty eight. The father daughter team
painted the ceiling panels there. You know, we'll talk about
those a little bit more later. Uh. And that's just
like I said, a quick mini biography of Razzio, And
(05:52):
before we get into Artemisia's specific story, do you want
to have a word from a sponsor? Yes, I do so.
Razzio's daughter, Artemisia Gentileski was born in Rome, Italy, on
July eighth, fifteen ninety three. Too. Of course, her father
Rozzio and her mother, Prudentia Montoni. When Artemisia was twelve,
(06:13):
which was in sixteen o five, her mother died in childbirth,
and at that point it seemed likely that she was
probably going to send to be sent to a convent
to become a nun. But over the next several years,
Razzio became aware that his daughter had artistic leanings and
he started to teach her how to paint. Yeah, he
also had sons, and he was kind of teaching all
of his children, but Artemisia was really the one that
(06:34):
stood out as having a real talent for this, and
she produced her earliest signed work in sixteen ten at
the age of seventeen, and that's called Susannah and the Elders.
In this painting depicts the biblical story of Susannah who
rejected two men and is then accused by them of
adultery in retribution for her unwillingness to be with them.
(06:57):
And in Gentilewski's version, the two men are very conspiratorial.
One is whispering in the ear of the other, and
while Susannah, who's unclothed, holds up her hands as if
to shield herself from their words. The next year, and
back to the warning that we had at the top
of the podcast, would turn into a really harrowing one.
(07:19):
On May six of sixteen eleven, Artemisio was raped by
her father's colleague, uh Agostino Tassi. That's the same landscape
painter that her father worked on church frescoes with. For
historical context, at the time, rape was not really viewed
(07:39):
quite the same way we do today. It was not
so much considered an affront to the female victim or
a brutalization of her. It was looked at a little
bit more as an insult to her family. So uh.
The retribution that Razzio demanded was that Tassi must marry
his daughter. This is actually not uncommon in sort of uh,
(08:01):
the kind of sexual interactions of the day, that a
man would take a woman by force and eventually end
up married to her as part of an agreement with
the family. And initially Agustino Tassi agreed to this, he
was actually already already married. There's some question marks around that. Uh.
And he apparently used this promise that he was going
to marry Artemisia as leverage to continue his sexual relationship
(08:25):
with her, but eventually he backed out of the deal
and said he was not going to marry her after all.
Passie's reversal on the matter sent Arazzio into a fury.
He sought legal action against his associate and this resulted
in the episode of Artemisia's life that often eclipsed her work.
It was a trial that dragged on for nearly eight months,
(08:45):
and the transcript of this trial still exists, and it's
more than three hundred pages long. Uh. And I will
confess I did not read it because it is an
Italian but I read various excerpts in translation. Just f y.
I uh. And even though we mentioned it at the
top of the episode and Tracy mentioned it again just
a moment ago, I really feel like I should issue
(09:05):
a quick warning before we get into sort of talking
about the testimony, because it's very upsetting, not just for
the actual event that happened, but how the victim was
treated in the process of all of this. So Artemisia
had to testify repeatedly during these proceedings, and in her account,
she said that Tossi stormed into her father's studio while
(09:26):
she was painting. And because her father was a working
painter with a studio at his home, people did come
and go all the time, and according to her testimony,
she said that Tassi came in yelling not so much
painting repeatedly, and then he took her tools from her
and threw them on the floor and then proceeded to
attack her. She fought back, but she was overpowered. She
(09:48):
actually turned a knife on him. After it was over,
it wasn't enough that she gave this testimony. The veracity
of her statement had to be tested. It was tested
by torture using thumbscrews to see if she would change
her story. Sorry, under duress, she remained steadfast in her
account and eventually referred to the torture device when yelling
at her attacker, this is the ring you gave me,
(10:09):
and these are your promises. It's very hard for me
to think about that, especially because Augustino Tassi faced no
such torture when it came to his testimony, even though
he had at best a checkered history, and he gave
obviously contradictory testimony. UH records indicate that the judge would
even stop him periodically and go, wait, that's completely different
(10:31):
than what you said before. UH. He had been imprisoned
prior to this for incest, and he had told multiple
witnesses that he had been sleeping with Artemisia, But then
during the trial, even though those witnesses had had testified
to those conversations, he said that he had never had
a sexual relationship with her and that he would only
visit the house to protect her virginity from other would
(10:52):
be rapists. So this story kept changing, and he also
claimed that she had slept with her father, and that
her mother and her aunt, who were women that he
did not know, were in fact horrors, and he insinuated
that prostitution was something of a family tradition, and even
at one point suggested that her father had sold her
to other men. In short, he was utterly vile and
(11:14):
just said horrible things, and he did not have to
face this horrible torture that she did. We didn't even
have to really face his sentence. He was found guilty
and exiled from Rome for five years, but it appears
that his exile was not enforced, uh, and not on
the timeline. We're going to jump back a little bit
and talk about that painting that we mentioned earlier. So,
(11:35):
because the dates of Arnemisia's paintings are generally all approximated,
some people place her painting of Susannah and the Elders
in different positions, suggesting slightly different interpretations of the work.
So scholars that place it as being painted just prior
to the rape suggest that she may have been expressing
a scenario in which she had been fending off the
(11:58):
advances of her father's friends for a while already, and
we do know some of that was going on. There
was another man in addition to Agastino Tassi, named Cosimo Corli,
who had been pretty sexually aggressive with her and had
perhaps even attempted to rape her as well. So the
idea of the two men in the painting being Corley
and Tassi is certainly one possibility and is a popular interpretation. Alternately,
(12:22):
when scholars placed the painting of Susannah concurrently on the
timeline with the trial or just prior but after the rape,
it's perceived more as a statement about her defense of
her virtue having been taken from her and her being
innocent in all of it. After the Tassi ordeal, Artemisia
did marry, and she married another painter. This is a
(12:43):
match that was arranged by her father. Her husband, par
Antonio davich Enzo uh Stiatse, was also a painter, and
the couple left Rome and headed to Florence. Harazzio had
already written to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany on his
daughter behalf, asking for a patronage. The patronage was granted,
(13:04):
and Artemisia and her husband stayed in Florence for almost
a decade. While she was there, she was producing works
for the Grand Duke of Tuscany close Demdici, and she
became really ingrained in the art world there, and she
made a lot of friends. She even became friends with
famed astronomer Galileo. One of the paintings that Artemisia worked
on during her time in Florence, with Judith slaying Holofernes,
(13:26):
and as with Susannah and the Elders, that focuses on
a female character, and in this case that's Judith and
she's killing the Assyrian military leader Holofernes to save the
Jewish people of Bethulia, and this painting is quite graphic.
Her paintings shows Judith cutting the general's throat with the
assistance of a handmaiden, and in a follow up painting
(13:49):
entitled Judith and her maid Servant, the two women are
depicted after the general's defeat, carrying the head of Holophernes
in a basket. A popular theory about these paintings pecularly.
The first is that this was part of how Gentleleski
was working through her experience of having been sexually assaulted
and then having to go through the horror of that
(14:10):
long trial, and that depicting a woman enacting such brutal
violence on a male figure with something of a revenge
statement when the painting was unveiled. This, of course, is
all speculative, though it's all art interpretation. And also as
a counterpoint, there are scholars who are quick to point
out that there's definitely a taste for violence and gore
amongst art patrons at the time, so she may well
(14:32):
have just been making lucrative decisions about her work subjects.
There's a two thousand two interview with Smithsonian in which
Judith Man, who's a curator of early European art at
the St. Louis Art Museum at the time, and she
mentioned that while a lot is made of Artemisia's work
being vengeful in nature, fewer than a quarter of the
(14:54):
painter's works feature women in that vein. And before we
get to what happens to Artemisia after she leaves Florence,
do you want to have another quick word from a sponsor?
Let's do you want to start talking about history again?
So back to Artemisia. Around six she was ready to
leave Florence. She and her husband had had four children together,
(15:18):
but three of them did not make it past childhood.
They died, and moreover, her marriage was not a particularly
happy one. Pierre Antonio had a problem with spending money
more quickly than they were taking it in, and he's
alleged to have cheated on her repeatedly and just sort
of that. They had a contentious and unhappy union. So,
perhaps hoping for a fresh start, Artemisia, Parentonio, and their
(15:42):
surviving child, who was named Prudentia, moved to Rome, and
as have been the case in Florence, the painter made
friends within the art community, and this put a strain
on her already crumbling marriage. Parenttonio actually slashed the face
of one of Artemisia's male acquaintances, and not long after
that he left the marriage for good, leaving behind his
(16:04):
daughter as well. So uh, roughly ten to twelve years
after she had painted the image of Judith and her
main maid servant carrying the severed head of Holofernes, Artemisia
revisited that same subject of Judith again in her work,
and this was somewhere around sixteen twenty three or sixteen
twenty five, so it was during her time in Rome,
(16:26):
and the painting that she created at this point was
Judith and her maid servant with the head of Holofernes.
This time it's still a depiction of two women and
again after the beheading, and it's in a way that
creates tension and urgency, the seen as lit by candle light,
and that candle light itself as part of the composition.
The light and shadows she creates around that light source
(16:48):
are just incredible. Even the gossamer fabric that's draped over
one of Judith's shoulders is affected by the light of
the flame in a way that makes the candle almost
seemed like it must be flickering. There's also a less
This is also a less brutal representation of the story
than the earlier works. There's a lot less gore. Yet
(17:09):
it feels a little bit more like it is less
about the murder and more about the two women, if
that makes sense. I will be pinning all of these
on t interest, and then our listeners can go and
kind of get a sense of what we're talking about
and decide for themselves how they feel like it looks
um And while she was not the toast of Rome
the way that she had been in Florence, and this
(17:31):
was largely due to shifting tastes among art patrons, uh
Genteinski did receive a commission from King Philip the fourth
of Spain in six seven. In this particular project provided
her enough money that she could stay afloat and also
support her daughter. In sixteen thirty the Bubonic plague took
a huge toll on Veness. It killed a third of
(17:53):
the people there, and to escape the sickness, Gentileski moved
to Naples. Yeah. Just other than a brief for a
elsewhere which we're about to talk about, Naples really became
her home for the rest of her life. Around sixty
eight or sixteen thirty nine, depending on when you look,
but most favored sixteen thirty eight, she went to London
(18:15):
to work with her father on the Queen's House for
Queen Henrietta Maria, and she had resisted several requests to
go to London prior to this, in part because she
did not want to work for the Anglican king, although
Queen Henrietta Maria was Roman Catholic. Uh but frankly, her
work had really dried up in Italy. She was having
trouble making ends meet, so she finally acquiesced on this
(18:37):
trip to London. During the work on the house at Greenwich,
Arazzio died, and that was in February of sixteen thirty nine.
Artemisia stayed in London for a couple of more years,
but as soon as she had work back in Italy,
she went back to Naples. Yeah, and she continued to
work for the rest of her life. But she died
in Naples around sixteen fifty two. She would have been
(19:00):
approximately fifty nine at that time, and while she had
been painting, uh really, most art scholars kind of regard
her earlier works as her best work. So for a
long time, Artemisia's works were actually attributed to other artists.
And this wasn't part due to the fact that her
father had been her primary teacher, as well as the
(19:21):
fact that she was a woman, and there are even
sort of ongoing debates about this um. We mentioned earlier
that Susannah and the Elders was her first sign painting,
and that was in about sixteen ten. But there is
another piece called Madonna and Child from sixteen o nine
that is sometimes credited to Artemisia and sometimes to her father.
We mentioned it earlier as one of her father's pieces,
(19:43):
but that continues to be some debate about it. Even
though Susannah and the Elders has her signature on it,
it was long believed to be her father's work because
a lot of people found it really difficult to believe
that a young woman of seventeen can paint with that
much maturity, And also because she was a woman, that
rape that had so affected her life we mentioned earlier
(20:06):
sometimes really overshadowed her abilities in her work, and having
been part of a rape trial basically cast out on
her sexuality and her honor for her entire life. Even
though the aggressor had been found guilty, it's still just
kind of put a stain on her reputation. And even
prior to that assault, her reputation was constantly questioned because
(20:28):
of the open nature of her father's studio and the
men and women who often visited as both colleagues and models.
Just the idea that she was exposed to so many
people coming and going led to some some rumors about her.
So while her talent was really obvious, people really wanted
to talk about the possible scandals attached to her than
her amazing skill and the amazing work she was doing.
(20:51):
For her own part, she readily recognized and openly discussed
her struggles working in a field that was dominated by men.
In a letter to a page friend later in her life,
she described the tiresome nature of trying to defend her
work as her own, and the fight to get a
fair price for it. She wrote, you feel sorry for
me because a woman's name raises doubts until her work
(21:13):
is seen. If I were a man, I can't imagine
it would have turned out this way. But it's also
important to note that, um, there was also a lot
of acclaim for her in her lifetime, and in fact,
some scholars have suggested that because of the huge scandal
when she was seventeen, it actually kind of opened the
door for her to be able to paint some of
(21:34):
her uh more sort of gory and graphic pieces. Uh
That it was more accepted for her at that point
to be able to do those things, but still again
an issue of debate. Uh. In sixty five, though, she
wrote this note to her friend Galileo quote, I have
seen myself honored by all the kings and rulers of Europe,
(21:54):
to whom I have sent my works, not only with
great gifts, but also with most favored letters, which I
keep with me. Those feeling panels that she and her
father worked down together in London were removed from the
Queen's house, and now they're in Barbara House in London
and in two thousand two, so it's more than a
decade ago, but uh quite neat. Uh. The New York
(22:18):
Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted an exhibit entitled Razzio and
Artemisio Gentileski, father and daughter painters in Baroque Italy, and
the works of both of the artists were featured together,
which is kind of a lovely way is to sum
up there their lives and how they affected one another.
And we'll link to we have one of the catalogs
(22:40):
from that exhibition was one of my um sources, so
we'll have a link to that in the show notes.
And it's worth a look because it's it's very interesting
to see sort of the lineage and development of style.
You can see like the Caravaggio style and a lot
in her father's work, and then it evolves in his work,
and then her work kind of evolves it some more.
It's it's pretty interesting to look at. If you're in
art history, do you also have listener mail? I do? First?
(23:03):
I have listener mail. I actually have a few, uh
and uh they are about our narcilepsy episodes. And we've
read one listener mail about narcalepsy in a previous episode,
but we've gotten so many and people have been really
so kind to share their experiences with us that I
wanna try to give voice to as many of them
(23:24):
as I can. One of the things that I really
appreciate is that I mentioned at the end of the
second episode. I think that I have known a couple
of people with an earcalepsy in my life, but neither
of them had cataplexy. So hearing people describe what that
is like is a whole other universe of information. UM.
I won't read the whole letter, but our listener, Ashley
(23:46):
wrote us and she was appreciative of it, and she
mentions that she has an earcalepsy and catoplexy, and her
description of it, I think is lovely. She says the
latter I always describe as a doll losing its ball joints. Temporarily,
I lose the ability to speak clearly, often sounding drunk.
My knees buckle, and my neck does as well. It
obviously never lasts long, but it is quite embarrassing. Um.
(24:10):
I hate that she has to be embarrassed by it,
but I understand. But it's a that's a really good
way to put it. I think for people that maybe
have never seen it or certainly don't have it, that's
a It's an indicator of how like your body just
kind of crumples on you and you you really don't
have any uh way to deal with it. Our next
email is from our listener Catherine, and she uh makes
(24:34):
a little plea that I think is a good one.
So she mentions, the day before Part one of the
History of Arcalypsy was released, I was in attendance at
the New York and Arcaleptics meetup group, which I'm pretty
sure I posed the question when do people start having
a word for an arcalepsy lo And behold the very
next day stuff you missed an industry class delivered. I'm
glad for that accidental timing. Uh. Catherine says she's had
(24:55):
an earcailepsy since her preteens, and she was diagnosed as
a junior in high school. She's an thirty two, so
she spent the vast majority of her memorable life with
the condition, and she uh is giving us a couple
of paragraphs about her personal history, and she says, as
a teenager, I fell asleep in class every day but
I didn't have cataplexy or any other symptoms which might
have indicated that something was wrong other than me being
(25:17):
a lazy student. I was deeply frustrated and embarrassed by
what I thought was my lack of willpower to stay awake,
but never considered that my inability to be alert might
be linked to a sleep disorder. I was lucky in
that my mother, who has sleep troubles of her own,
described my symptoms to her sleep doctor, who suggested I
come in for testing. In retrospect, I can easily say
that getting diagnosed with narcilepsy was one of the best
(25:39):
things that has ever happened to me, because it resulted
in my gaining access to drugs which substantially reduced my symptoms.
I often look back and wonder what would have happened
to me if I had never been diagnosed and received
treatment for minarcilepsy. I think I would have struggled a
great deal in college, and I would have found it
nearly impossible to hold down a regular job. I think
I would have grown increasingly angry and unhappy as I
(26:00):
older without developing the ability to function as a quote
unquote responsible adult. The ability to control the behavior of
one's own body is elemental to personal safety, to social
and professional acceptance, and perhaps most importantly, to one sense
of self respect. The imaginary version of me who never
found out about her condition is someone who would be
suffering today on all of those fronts. It may be
(26:22):
too late to influence your plans for recording episode two.
It was we already had it recorded. But if it isn't,
she says, I beg you to incorporate something along the
lines of this brief p s A. A lot of
people have narcolepsy and don't know it. If you have symptoms,
it is worth it to get yourself tested. That I
think is a really good message that um, you know,
we hadn't thought about. It's kind of inherent. We would
(26:43):
hope that once people are aware of a possible thing,
they may be able to interpret something that's going on.
But that is a really good point, I think. And
several of the people that wrote us mentioned that they
had those feelings of like being angry and frustrated and
feeling like they were trying so hard to do things
and they could before they were diagnosed. So I imagine
there are a lot of people undiagnosed that are going
(27:04):
through those really negative emotions that don't really have to.
Uh So, if you think you might follow Catherine's advice,
get somebody, get a professional to investigate the situation. And again,
thank you to everybody who has been sharing their their
emails and their stories with us. It's really incredible and
I'm certainly very appreciative that you guys have all been
very open about your struggles and sort of what you've
(27:25):
gone through. So thank you for that. Uh. If you
would like to write to us, you can do so
at History Podcast at how stuff Works dot com. You
can also connect to this at Facebook dot com slash
missed in History, on Twitter at missed in History, missed
in History dot toms are dot com, and at pentterest
dot com slash missed in History. We're gonna have so
many pretty things to pin after being episode. If you
(27:47):
want to get some missed in History goodies, you can
go to missed in History dot spreadshirt dot com for shirts,
took bags, uh, cool, phone cases, almost anything you can
think of you'd like to research a little bit relate
into what we're talking talking about today in sort of
a bigger arcing kind of sense. You can go to
our website, our parent website, hows to Works. Type in
the word art, then you will get an article on
(28:10):
how art works. Uh, and that will give you some
very broad stroke discussion of what art is, so that
you can kind of can textualize to toe Leski's work
and all the way from Caravaggio down to her and
how that sort of all plays out. Uh. If you
would like to visit us at our websites that has
missed in history dot com and we have show notes,
we have all of our archived episodes, we have the
(28:33):
occasional blog post. UH, you should come and visit us there,
or visit our parents site how staff works dot com
(28:55):
for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.