Description
Book SynopsisExamined through the lens of cutting-edge scholarship,
Artemisia Gentileschi clears a pathway for non-specialist audiences to appreciate the artist's pictorial intelligence, as well as her achievement of a remarkably lucrative and high-profile career. Bringing to light recent archival discoveries and newly attributed paintings, this book highlights Gentileschi's enterprising and original engagement with emerging feminist notions of the value and dignity of womanhood.
Beautifully illustrated throughout,
Artemisia Gentileschi brings to life the extraordinary story of this Italian artist, placing her within a socio-historical context. Sheila Barker weaves the story with in-depth discussions of key artworks, examining them in terms of their iconographies and technical characteristics in order to portray the developments in Gentileschi’s approach to her craft and the gradual evolution of her expressive goals and techniques.
Trade Review'Barker’s text weaves documentary evidence together with some excellent close visual analysis of her attributed paintings, unpacking the rich symbolism and its significance in her work, which offers a lively and vivid understanding of the wider contexts and motives behind her movements...Artemisia’s compelling character clearly shines through, matching the vivacity of her work.' –
Hyperallergic'A marvelously readable volume' –
Los Angeles Times'Barker’s inquisitive focus on Artemisia’s agency, her motivations and intentions, animates this important book on the artist’s life and art. {...} both intellectually sophisticated and pleasurably accessible.' – Mary D. Garrard, The Burlington Magazine
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements; Foreword; Introduction: Female Role Models in Counter-Reformation Rome; Chapter 1: 'Mizia': The Artist's Youth in Rome; Chapter 2: The Excellence of Women at the Medici Court; Chapter 3: The Pursuit of a Loquacious and Beautiful Art; Chapter 4: Operating on a World Stage: Naples to London; Epilogue; List of Illustrations; Bibliography
