Artemisia Gentileschi - Auto-retrato como Alegoria da Pintura (La Pittura)
Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace
“Artemisia Gentileschi was an Italian painter, considered as one of the most accomplished and, most famous women painter, of the 17th century after Caravaggio. In an era when female painters were not easily accepted, she was the first female painter to become a member of the Accademia di Arti del Disegno in Florence.
Daughter of Caravaggio’s follower, Orazio Gentileschi, Artemisia moved to Florence to escape the scandal in Rome after the lawsuit for rape she brought against the landscape painter Agostino Tassi. Of this dramatic case, concluding predictably with the humiliation of Artemisia, documentation does exist and today is often taken as a symbol of the violence women have had to endure for centuries.
Unfortunately, those events often seem to overshadow her achievements as an artist and for long was regarded as a curiosity. Fortunately, today her work is being reevaluated and considered one of the most progressive of her generation.
In her work, Artemisia seems to have transferred her experience to canvas. Her paintings often have strong, suffering women from myth and the Bible – victims, suicides, warriors. She particularly seems to have like the Judith story, one of two paintings present at the Uffizi Gallery today.” - Texto de: http://www.uffizi.org/artworks/judith-and-holofernes-by-artemisia-gentileschi/
