Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi in London

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery on the years Artemisia Gentileschi and her father Orazio spent in London working for the royal court.

Desmond Shaw-Taylor, Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures, talked about Artemisia’s 2 years in London and Orazio’s turbulent 13 when he seemed to argue with lots of people. He looked at how their Italian style suited Henrietta Maria, who had known Italian art when she was being brought up at the French court and had an Italian mother, Marie de Medici. Her husband, Charles I, seemed to favour the more flamboyant Dutch and Flemish artists.

He discussed how their work fitted with others in her collection which formed a cohesive style. She liked their sparse style with relatively few figures and a controlled palette as in Orazio’s “The Finding of Moses” as well as the added allusion to the senses eg in Artemisia’s “Self-Portrait as La Pittura” it is all about looking, she looks into the light and works on an unfinished picture to be looked at. She also seems to have like works which imply an ordinary reality within their vast subjects such as Potiphar’s wife’s torn dress in the work by Orazio.

I loved the the speaker used Shakespeare quotes to show that a lot of the ideas weren’t exclusive to painting.

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