Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi - Softcover

Christiansen, Keith; Mann, Judith W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300200099 ISBN 13: 9780300200096

Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013

Synopsis

This beautifully produced volume brings together for the first time works by two remarkable painters of seventeenth-century Italy who happen also to have been father and daughter: Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi. Famous in their own day, these two artists have enjoyed renewed fame in the twentieth century: Orazio as one of the first and certainly the most individual of Caravaggio's followers; Artemisia as the outstanding female painter prior to the twentieth century. The tumultuous lives of these two artists moved along parallel trajectories and take the reader from the popular quarters of papal Rome and the rough-and-tumble world of Naples to the courts of the grand duke of Tuscany, Marie de' Medici in Paris, and Charles I in London. These changing circumstances nourished two different aesthetic visions, both of which were deeply rooted in the Caravaggesque practice of painting directly from the posed model. While Orazio's art became every more refined and elegant, Artemisia espoused a rhetorical form of dramatic presentation that is the basis of Baroque painting.

Written to accompany the landmark exhibition held in Rome, New York, and Saint Louis, the book includes essays that describe the art and people the two painters encountered in the course of their peripatetic careers and address such issues as feminism and the critical interpretation of Artemisia's work. The essays, arranged chronologically to follow the artists as they moved from city to city, not only provide critical commentary but illuminate the historical context in which they worked.

The appendices include previously unpublished documents relating to the trial of Orazio's colleague Agostino Tassi for his rape of Artemisia, which shed new light on her father's workshop practice, and a recently discovered inventory of Artemisia's household goods drawn up on the eve of her departure from Florence to Rome. The book is the work of Keith Christiansen and Judith W. Mann, with contributions by a team of outstanding scholars. [This book was originally published in 2001 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]

About this title

From the Publisher:

This beautiful book is the catalogue for the first full-scale exhibition of the works of Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi, which will be held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from February 11 to May 12, 2002 and at the St. Louis Art Museum from June 15 to September 15, 2002.

From Library Journal:

This book, which accompanies an exhibition currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and traveling both to the St. Louis Art Museum and to the Museo di Palazzo di Venezia in Rome, is the first to examine in one volume both Orazio and Artemesia Gentileschi, father-and-daughter artists of 17th-century Italy. The catalog demonstrates that Orazio Gentileschi follows the Caravaggesque practice of painting from the model, which Artemesia in turn absorbed into her own painting methods. At the same time, curator Christiansen concludes that Orazio painted much more in the elegant style of classical painting in France and never accepted the Baroque idioms of drama and expressiveness that his daughter Artemesia wholeheartedly embraced in her painting. Also discussed in this catalog is the feminist aspect of Artemesia's position as a talented woman artist, the possibility that she was the model for her own "Susanna and the Elders" early in her career, and how her social environment and opportunities as a woman artist changed dramatically after her marriage and her move from Rome to Florence. This catalog also includes excellent color reproductions and previously unpublished documents relating to the trial of Orazio's colleague, Agostino Tassi, for raping Artemesia. The scholarly literature on these artists should be advanced considerably by this extremely comprehensive volume. Enthusiastically recommended for all libraries that support programs in art and art history. [Interested readers will also want to look at Susan Vreeland's The Passion of Artemisia, a fictional account of the artists reviewed in LJ 12/01. Ed.] Sandra Rothenberg, Framingham State Coll., MA
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 0300200099
• ISBN 13: 9780300200096
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496