Quest for Artemisia

Lively online discussion from the National Gallery on Artemisia Gentileschi.

It brought together Michael Palin, who had done a documentary on her a few years ago, Alexandra Lapieere, who wrote a fictionalised biography and Letizia Treves, curator of the current exhibition to re-examine her life.

Although this was generally ground that I had gone though a few times in lectures, it was interesting to hear different opinions from people very close to the subjects. I loved Palin’s quote on Artemisia as a personality that today “She’d have been on the Graham Norton Show”. Now that’s a programme I would watch!

It did make me go an watch Palin’s programme, which the BBC has shown again recently. It was wonderful to see the story told in the buildings which she would have known and to illustrate points with scenes of life in Italy in modern times. It gave her a contemporary feel.

Tv programme 

 

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