'Lucrecia' by Artemisia Gentileschi (version now on display at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles)
This work, acquired by the Getty Museum Los Angeles , is presented to the public as a star piece in the reopening of the museum on April 21 after closing due to the pandemic.
Timothy Potts, museum director , has stated that the piece will open a window to relevant factors in any work of art, such as injustice, prejudice and abuse . The omission of this element in the expository discourse has stirred controversy in recent exhibitions, such as the Mythological Passions of the Prado Museum.
In the image of Artemisia, Lucrecia brings a knife to her bare chest . She looks up, searching for courage. The lightness of her skin and the whiteness of the shirt that falls to her waist contrasts with the dark background and emphasizes the drama.
Self-portrait as an allegory of painting. Royal Collection, London
Lucrecia had been raped . In ancient Rome, before the Republic, when the city was governed by a monarchy of Etruscan origin, she was the wife of a Roman nobleman. According to the myth, Sextus Tarquinius, son of the king, entered her house one night in the absence of her husband and he threatened to kill her if she didn't give in . The next day Lucrecia told her husband and her father what had happened and, after begging them for revenge, a dagger was stabbed into her chest . The revolt that caused her death led to the expulsion of the king and the beginning of the republic.
The theme, popular in the 17th century, represented a display of feminine virtue: death before dishonor . However, in the case of Artemisia, the drama became vital. The painter had suffered the fate of Lucrecia.
Since she was a child, she has worked in Rome in the workshop of her father, Orazio Gentisleschi, a famous artist of the moment. Agostino Tassi, also a painter, took advantage of the absence of the owner of her workshop to rape her . Her refusal to marry her led to a trial in which the victim's testimony was questioned under torture . The scandal shook Rome.
Following a guilty verdict, whose penalty was ignored, Orazio reached a marriage agreement with Pierantonio Stiattessi, a Florentine painter. The process had made Artemisia famous, that she was welcomed into the Medici court. Her rise in the art scene made her the first woman to be part of the city's Accademia del Disegno..
After a stay in Rome, in 1627 she traveled to Venice, where she painted Lucrezia. At 34, she had left the Roman trial behind. She triumphant, she was part of intellectual circles, made up of writers, artists and musicians . The writer Giovanni Francesco Loredan dedicated three poems to a work that could well be the one on display at the Getty Museum.
'Lucretia' by Artemisia Gentileschi (Vienna version)
The current view of the painter's works tends to seek a biographical reading. Judith beheading Holofernes has become the image of the strong, bold, implacable woman . The truth is that Artemisia, as was customary at the time, painted all her works commissioned by her. That is, it was not she who set the issues that she represented.
Undoubtedly, her genius knew how to turn ridicule and turn it into her own stamp in which the morbidity of her biographical episode joined the talent in creation. Another issue is her sensitivity caused by her trauma, which made her able to represent, on the one hand, the pain and vulnerability of the woman subjected to abuse, and on the other, the anger and frustration caused by injustice.
'Lucrecia' by Artemisia Gentileschi (version housed in the Girolamo Etro private collection, in Milan)
It is probable that her artistic expression represented for her a therapeutic act. We meet four Lucrecias at her hand, one of which represents Tarquin's assault. The first, preserved in a private collection in Milan, it is firm, tragic . She grips the dagger tightly as she gathers her courage with one hand on her chest. When she is there she is attacked by the king's son in the potsdam version , the look of her reflects a deep terror.
Faced with the tension of the first work, the Getty Museum's Lucretia gains in sensuality . The drama moves away in the look that rises and the edge of the knife that approaches her skin acquires prominence, which, in her whiteness, indicates her innocence.
If we compare Gentileschi's works with those made by other painters on the same subject, the convention of these becomes evident in the face of the vividness and truth of a pain that, without a doubt, lasted in the memory of the artist.
'The Abduction of Lucrezia' by Artemisia Gentileschi (Posdam version)