'Artemisia' at the National Gallery

The first major exhibition of paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi in the UK has just opened at the National Gallery in London and it's well worth visiting. She's not a terribly well known artist so hopefully this exhibition will change that and give her the credit she deserves. Born in 1593, her father was an artist and follower of Caravaggio and that influenced her own paintings. She was raped by an artist friend of her dad's who was successfully prosecuted and she is noted for her depictions of powerful women, occasionally cutting off mens' heads. 

She left Rome for Florence where she became the first woman admitted to the Accademia, lived in Venice and Naples, was commissioned by Charles I and spent time in London with her dad who died here and then she returned to Italy. She had children, had love affairs and enjoyed an international reputation as an artist at the time but that reputation diminished over the years and is only now being rediscovered.

'Artemisia' is in the exhibition suite in the Sainsbury Wing and is quite large and spread out. Most of her paintings are large and it doesn't take many to fill up the walls of each room. There are also a few original letters from her and her husband with the curly script you'd expect from the first half of the 1600s. You need to be masked to get into the National Gallery at the allotted time on your ticket, then head downstairs to the exhibition space and join a short queue to get into the exhibition. There's a free audioguide to the exhibition you can stream and listen to on your own device of choice if you want to. And then in you go to the exhibition.

Artemisia seems to have had a stock of subjects she painted and painted again, such as Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes, sometimes with spouts of blood and other times with dribbles. Also Susanna and the Elders where the old men spy on the youthful Susanna and threaten to report her as whore unless she has sex with them. Susanna is definitely the victim of men in these paintings, trying to cover her nakedness from the lecherous old men.

It's difficult not to associate these paintings with her experience of being raped as a girl/young woman. There are also paintings of the death of Cleopatra and the asp, a powerful queen choosing death over slavery. There's a strong sense of morality, of nobility, in these paintings. Better to die in control of one's destiny than die as a slave. 

She used her own image as the basis for some of her paintings, such as her painting of Saint Catherine with her wheel symbol and holding the palm leaf of a martyr which is in the National Gallery collection and herself as a painter in the 'Allegory of Painting' in the Royal Collection. There's also a self-portrait of her as a lute player. I prefer the Saint Catherine painting since we see the face almost full on with a direct gaze, a confident woman knowing her fate and willing to face it without fear or shame.

It's well worth seeing this exhibition if you can, the first exhibition of her work in the UK. She led a colourful life and it's been interesting finding out more about her.

'Portrait of the Artist' at the Queen's Gallery

A few weeks ago I popped into the Queen's Gallery on the side of Buckingham Palace (yes, *that* Queen and *that* palace) to see the exhibition' 'Portrait of the Artist'. This exhibition is all about portraits and self-portraits in the Royal Collection and the poster girl is Artemisia Gentileschi who is currently prominently featured in the Caravaggio exhibition at the National Gallery.

It's quite a small exhibition and is nicely laid out, a nice mix of drawings, prints and paintings from the last 600 years or so. One of the earliest is a portrait of a man either by Raphael, his pupils or by one of his pupils of Raphael. It's confusing. I certainly don't think this is by Raphael but it's a lovely painting, three-quarter face with a hazy landscape beyond. He looks a bit young to me but he was a prodigy. The quality of the painting and its preservation were wonderful, the frame looks like it was added later (a plain frame always works better on portraits so the emphasis is on the face) and I love the texture and folds of the under-shirt. Is this really the face of Raphael?  Part of me hopes it is but another part of me can't help but think he'd wear something more colourful.

There are some lovely portraits of the 'greats' in this collection. There's a great painting of a self-portrait of Elizabeth Vigee Le Brun by Leopold Dumini that he completed on his travels as an exercise and a marvellous self-portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds with 'wig glasses', i.e. glasses that stretched around his wig. Who knew such things existed or that people would paint portraits with them on. I walked past this painting and then had to take a few steps back to look at it again. Glasses? On Sir Joshua Reynolds? 'Wig' glasses? O yes, they had everything back then! They were (apparently) designed to go round the expanse of wig that men wore.

There were also a few enormous paintings that supposedly included portraits of artists. One of the biggest - and most unbelievable - was 'Cimabue's Madonna Carried in Procession' by Lord Frederic Leighton which is supposed to include portraits of both Cimabue and Giotto.

Given that no-one knows what either Cimabue or Giotto looks like then it's a bit of a con but it's delightful in showing the reverence to art that an altarpiece deserves a procession. Cimabue is the man in white on the middle of the painting with Giotto the boy, his pupil, at his side. I can't help but wonder if Leighton had ever seen any real Cimabue paintings in his life?

That brings me back to Artemisia who clearly paints herself as an artist, a powerful statement of 'this who I am'. She's outlining a sketch of a painting while wearing a satin frock and a lock of hair falls free as it would when you're concentrating on your work. It really is quite marvellous.

There e also some great paintings by Zoffany (such as his painting of the Royal Academy in the nude drawing room and more 'moderns' painting and drawing the royal family. There's a lot here to see, even if it is quite small, and it's well worth seeing.