Artemisia: Painting to Survive

Lovely evening at the National Gallery for members with a preview viewing of a new Sky Arts documentary on Artemisia Gentileschi followed by a discussion with the director, the assistant curator of the current Caravaggio exhibition and the art critic Jonathon Jones.

The film is fantastic. It is done as a docu-drama with wonderful reactions of an artist’s life in the period and some of the pictures she painted. At times some of the language felt quite flowery but it turned out all the first person pieces were Artemisia’s own words from letters and her testimony in court. Alongside the drama were good interviews by art historians and descriptions of how her pictures reflected her life.

Artemisia had difficult life having been raped by one of her tutors and a friend of her father. Her father brought the case to court and we have a transcript of the hearing but oddly not the verdict! The programme discussed how this may have influenced her art, with an emphasis on strong female figures often involved in violent acts. A lot of the programme was taken up with discussion on the case and yet it concluded that we mustn’t view her purely in the light of this which seemed a slight contradiction.

It was a shame that Griselda Pollock, the feminist art historian, who had been sue to be on the panel had been unable to be there in person but she had sent a nice illustrated short talk. Oddly it took a less feministic view point than the film arguing that Artemisia should be viewed as an artist of her time and that her subject matter wasn’t that unusual. Jonathon Jones reacted to her talk but it was a shame she wasn’t there in person to get a discussion going. The director was very insightful particularly about looking for an actress to play Artemisia as she had very little dialogue and needed to convey emotion with a look.

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