Pod Insights Stories of Art Artemisia Gentileschi: Talent and Torment (Part 1) About this episode What lies behind the powerful artworks of Artemisia Gentileschi, one of history's greatest female artists? And how did the trauma of a horrifying rape impact her life and work? Join Alastair and James as they explore the truly extraordinary life and art of Artemisia Gentileschi, today recognised as one of the key figures of the Italian Baroque.
If you would like to see the artworks being discussed in this podcast, feel free to switch to video in your podcast app at anytime.
Artworks in this episode include:
Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Beheading Holofernes c. 1620, Uffizi Gallery, Florence
Orazio Gentileschi, Annunciation, 1623, Galleria Sabauda, Turin
Artemisia Gentileschi, Susanna and the Elders, 1610, Schloss Weißenstein, Pommersfelden
To see images of the artworks in this episode go to heni.com/storiesofart or visit the Heni Talks YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@HENITalks
Hosts: Alastair Sooke and Dr James Fox
Additional Research: Catherine Ingram
Producer and Editor: Ben Harding
Executive Producer: Emma Cahusac
Chapters
00:00:00 Introduction: Artemisia Gentileschi
00:03:55 Early Life in Rome: A Family of Artists
00:06:49 Childhood Tragedy and Growing Up Fast
00:08:07 Becoming an Artist: Determination and Talent
00:10:06 Susanna and the Elders: A Remarkable First Painting
00:20:52 The Rape
00:27:34 The Trial
00:31:22 Escape to Florence: Marriage and New Beginnings
00:34:08 Florence Years: Tragedy and Triumph
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:03 James Fox? Welcome to Stories of Art. I'm James Fox.
0:05 Alastair Sooke? And I'm Alastair Sook.
0:11 James Fox? Two women roll up their sleeves and set to work. One of them holds a man down. The other plunges a sword into his neck, sending blood spurting across the darkness of the room. He screams and writhes in agony. But the women show no mercy. They need to complete the job. Their lives depend on it. That was a description of the most famous painting by one of the great artists of the 17th century, a ferocious Italian painter whose life was marked by trauma, violence and criminality and controversy, whose often brutal pictures still, even today, have the power to shock. Her name, for she was indeed a she, is Artemisia Gentileschi.
0:56 James Fox? One of the great artists of the 17th century of the Italian Baroque, a woman whose life, I suppose, was marked by trauma and violence and brutality and controversy and whose paintings still, I suppose, 400 years later, still have the power to shock. She's quite the phenomenon, isn't she?
1:15 Alastair Sooke? She is one of the most compelling artists in the history of Western art. And I think the thing that's fascinating for me about her is the way that she still feels so, I don't know, it's a slightly kind of strange word to use, but relevant. It's sort of almost a cliche to say that. But she, her work resonates today and I think chimes with all sorts of issues. And I don't know, you know, she's someone who, she's in all of the art history textbooks and she has been for a long time. But certainly for me, the first time that I really engaged with her work in any depth, and was this the same for you? Was going to see the great Artemisia show at the National Gallery, which I think, I checked, was in 2020. It was like kind of mid-COVID.
1:59 James Fox? Yeah, it was mid-COVID, wasn't it? It was delayed. One of the interesting things about that show, we've got the catalogue here, actually, is that they only needed to use her first name, Artemisia, because she is a kind of celebrity, isn't she?
2:09 Alastair Sooke? It's partly because 2020 wasn't just the moment of the pandemic. It was still quite soon after a peak Me Too movement thing. And as well as being a very compelling, vivid artist, she is an icon. For feminist art historians.
2:26 James Fox? Yes, absolutely.
2:26 Alastair Sooke? And that's a big part of her legacy, isn't it?
2:29 James Fox? It's a really important part of her legacy. I mean, she was forgotten for centuries and it was really only in the 20th century that she was rediscovered. And of course, then, you know, as the, with the rise of feminism, she became ever more famous and novels were written about her. Quite a few novels, movies were made about her, stage plays, graphic novels. Michael Palin did a documentary, did you know this?
2:50 Alastair Sooke? I did not know that.
2:51 James Fox? If there is any, if there is any sort of imprimatur of success, it's getting Michael Palin to do a documentary about you.
2:55 Alastair Sooke? What era was this?
2:56 James Fox? This was about 10, 15 years ago.
2:58 Alastair Sooke? Have you watched it?
2:59 James Fox? I have watched it. Well, I watched it when it first came out. I liked it very much because I like Michael Palin. So she has become this kind of progenitor of the Me Too movement and this proto-feminist icon, hasn't she?
3:10 Alastair Sooke? Yes, I'm still slightly puzzled, but given that she was a feminist icon, was he the most natural fit as a presenter?
3:17 James Fox? Are we the most, are we? Exactly, I think.
3:19 Alastair Sooke? This is an issue.
3:20 James Fox? We'll deal with that issue as we go through. It's a, it's a fascinating thing. Her story is truly extraordinary. She speaks to the Me Too age, to all those who care about gender equality, to those who want to smash the glass ceiling, who want justice for victims of sexual abuse and violence. And to understand why, Alastair, we need to dig deep into Artemisia's life. This then is the story of the life and work of Artemisia Gentileschi.
3:56 James Fox? So Artemisia is born in Rome in the summer of 1593. She's from a family of artists and artisans. So I think her grandfather is a goldsmith, her uncles are painters. Her father, Orazio Gentileschi, is an artist. And I, I feel very sorry for him in some ways because he, he is in the shadow of his, his daughter. And he is a great artist in his own right. He's terrible at the start. So the first few decades of his career, he's absolutely useless. So these paintings are hopeless. And then. In around 1600, I suppose Artemisia is only young at this point, he discovers the work of Caravaggio. And it's a complete, you know, it changes everything for him. And he immediately transforms his practice. He starts to make more naturalistic pictures, more dramatic pictures.
4:41 James Fox? And he's actually friends with Caravaggio for a period. They fall out, as you do. Half the course with him. Half the course. Caravaggio then murdered someone, had to flee Rome. That was the end of that. But Orazio changes his practice and ends up being a pretty successful artist. He's never top tier. You know, he's like I was at school, was captain of the second eleven. Oh. He's okay. Yes. But he's never thoroughly successful. He's never completely successful. And so that's the lineage, if you like, that Artemisia comes from. We don't know much about her childhood, but my prediction, my thinking is that it was a very difficult childhood. So she has siblings? She has siblings.
5:23 James Fox? So she is the oldest of four. She has three younger brothers. I think life would have been very difficult. I think, first of all, Rome at that point in 1600 was a very difficult place to live. It was a spiky, dangerous, crime-ridden, plain... Violent place. Very violent place. I mean, there was a police force, but very small and ineffective police force. So it was effectively lawless society. And then even worse, if you're a woman, because if you're a woman at this point in Rome, as in many other places, you are not much more than property. You know, your father's property, until you get married, you become your husband's property. So the opportunities for women to lead independent lives, to have careers, nonexistent.
6:06 James Fox? And then, I think, to go back into the Gentileschi household, it was not an easy household to grow up in. And why is that? I think for a couple of reasons. I think Orazio didn't have much money. He was very bad at managing his finances. They were constantly trying to keep the wolf from the door. They were constantly moving house. He was constantly getting in trouble with the law. And everything we know about Orazio is he was, as you say, a difficult person. Yeah. He's very volatile. He's very vengeful. He's very unpredictable. He's very unreliable. Reliable, so it must have been a difficult environment to grow up in.
6:39 Alastair Sooke? What what about her mum? I mean, was she the nice, calm antithesis to everything you've described Aratio as being?
6:46 James Fox? Well, we don't know anything about her mother, except for the fact she was Roman. But one of the great tragedies, I think, of Artemisia's life is in sixteen oh five, when she's twelve years old, her mother dies. She dies in childbirth.
7:00 Alastair Sooke? Which was very common, I guess, at that point.
7:02 James Fox? Very common, but I just think this would have been a terrible blow for Artemisia. You know, she's twelve years old, it's quite a vulnerable age for a girl, she's probably going through puberty, she's emerging as a young woman. This is the point at which she loses her female role model. And the worst thing really is that because Artemisia was the oldest of the children and because she was the only girl. She inevitably became the homemaker, so she was providing childcare to her three brothers, one of whom was a toddler. She was doing all the cooking and the cleaning while dealing with her grief, so she would have had to grow up very, very quickly.
7:36 Alastair Sooke? So my assumption is that quite often at this moment in history, if you are a successful artist. You might end up having a workshop, and if you have children, particularly sons. You might well wish that they could inherit the business or be involved with the business. So my guess here is that Artemisia, given everything you've described, she's got these three younger brothers. Presumably Aratio's thinking, great, I've got all these sons. And she's almost irrelevant when it comes to his vision for the business and the workshop going forward, such as it is. But yet somehow, something is happening where, what is it, a simpler case of talent will out? That she just is really very good and she catches his eye in that sense?
8:21 James Fox? I think it's sheer dogged determination. After she, after Aratio's wife dies, he is.
8:28 James Fox? Constantly trying to get his daughter to go to a nunnery.
8:31 Alastair Sooke? Is he?
8:32 James Fox? Yes. And there are repeated arguments. You could imagine these arguments play out even now, not so much with nunnery, but like the father saying, you're not going to do that. She's determined to become an artist. She wants to follow in his footsteps, just as sons typically would. He wants to get away from the sleazy men of Rome and into a nunnery, so he doesn't have to look after her. And so he can use his sons to follow him in his workshop. The other important thing to say, Alastair, is that Orazio, for reasons we've described already, did not have the money to have a separate studio or workshop in a different building.
9:05 Alastair Sooke? Right.
9:05 James Fox? So he painted in the house. And so at the age of 13, 14, 15, Artemisia spends more and more time in his studio.
9:14 Alastair Sooke? So it's just natural. It's like sort of osmosis. She lives there, so she's inevitably going to be coming into that zone. And what, we imagine that she is watching what her dad's doing, but also starts to just imitate it. And perhaps he, almost despite himself, is that what we're saying, that he has to kind of acknowledge, she's quite good. Okay, well, maybe I'll try drawing this, or teaches her a few little tricks and methods.
9:39 James Fox? We can only guess. We don't actually know the details. She spends more and more time in the studio. She would have probably been doing things like preparing pigments, preparing canvases, maybe doing a bit of drawing. But I think very quickly it emerges that she has an extraordinary talent and is more talented than her brothers, and perhaps even more talented than her father. And we know this from the first painting we're going to discuss, because her first signed painting is made in 1610. She's only 17 years old, and it's called Susanna and the Elders. It's a remarkable painting, isn't it?
10:14 Alastair Sooke? I still look at it and think to myself, can any 17-year-old really have created that unassisted?
10:22 James Fox? Well, I was going to say this, and I thought I'd get in trouble for saying it. I think there's something suspicious about this painting.
10:27 Alastair Sooke? Hmm.
10:28 James Fox? Because, you know, she's, yeah, you're right, she's 16, 17 years old. She's never painted anything before, as far as we know, there are no signed pictures before this, she's not even had a proper full-time apprenticeship, so she's just been doing, you know, ad hoc, part-time work within her father's studio. And then she comes out, out of the blue, out of the blocks, with something as sophisticated as this, and it's a bit fishy, isn't it?
10:53 Alastair Sooke? I, well, look, that's a complex question, you know, it's one of art historical attribution, and it's fraught with the idea of who we might be as well, because traditionally, some older, more patriarchal art historians, if you like, have seen in this painting the evidence of her father's hand. When it was presented at the National Gallery, and the curator, brilliant curator Letizia Treves, who organised the show, it very much is being billed as this astonishing painting that she creates aged 17, that perhaps is stylistically indebted to her dad. There is a correction, but is it worth just describing what, I mean?
11:33 James Fox? Oh yeah, let me tell the story, we should tell the story of the painter, because the story is great. So, this is the story of Susanna and the elders, and this story comes from the Book of Daniel, so an apocryphal scriptural text, and it describes a story in which a young, very attractive Jewish bride called Susanna is in this private garden, and she's bathing, so she's naked or semi-naked. She does not know that these two peeping toms have snuck into the garden.
12:01 Alastair Sooke? Who are they?
12:02 James Fox? They are just, the elders. The elders, I don't know who the elders are, but they're there, they're older than her.
12:07 Alastair Sooke? I mean, one of them doesn't look very old in this, but we can come on to that.
12:10 James Fox? We can come on to that, it's quite interesting. So, so the elders are there, whoever they are, they're watching her, and they become so overcome with lust, that they approach her and they say, "You have to have sex with us, and if you don't, we're going to spread rumours around the community that you are an adulteress." So it's a kind of me, very me-too moment, it's a bit Harvey Weinstein, and...
12:29 Alastair Sooke? And, and, and worth saying that it's a popular motif within art history, not outside of Artemisia's oeuvre, if you like, outside of her work, because, as you've suggested, it offers an opportunity for seeing... A naked or semi naked woman.
12:44 James Fox? Yes.
12:45 Alastair Sooke? And there's this moralising tone, so it's that classic have your cake and eat it where we're meant to think, oh, this is terrible. Poor Susanna, we shouldn't be picking those awful, lecherous elders. At the same time, if you're a male viewer perhaps, staring at her womanly form.
13:00 James Fox? Much of the history of art is male artists trying to find excuses to depict naked women for male patrons.
13:07 Alastair Sooke? Indeed.
13:07 James Fox? And this is part of it. But the story concludes, it's fascinating. She ends up, they accuse her of adultery. She gets arrested, she gets convicted, she gets sentenced to death. And that is when the eponymous Daniel steps in and says, something's not quite right here. And he does what we see in police procedurals on TV all the time. He separates the two accusers and he interrogates them separately. And of course, their stories don't add up. And so ultimately, she is exonerated and they are sentenced to death. So that's the story. And as you say, many artists have depicted it, usually just for the pleasure of a patron, really.
13:45 James Fox? And so in most cases, what you get when you see Susanna and the elders is you have Susanna, she's looking very attractive, she's looking very sexy in this lovely garden. She's either completely unaware of people looking at her, or more common, she's kind of flirting with them. Or flirting with the viewer.
14:03 Alastair Sooke? This is very male centric in terms of that classic traditional representation. This has got a different, quite profoundly, radically, you could say, different feel.
14:13 James Fox? Yeah. How do you think she's done this differently?
14:15 Alastair Sooke? Well, it's worth saying, you mentioned that garden setting. So the first thing, I mean, just to describe the picture. It's quite closely cropped on three figures. So you see Susanna. And she is pretty much naked with a piece of white drapery over her left thigh. And she's sitting on a stone parapet and there's a kind of stone, small wall behind her. And above the wall, and very, very close to her, are these two so-called elders, one of whom looks like he's probably in his twenties or thirties. Both, I think, are they both bearded? Certainly one is kind of grey beard. And one of them is. Holding up his finger to his lips as if to say to his co-conspirator, be quiet, be quiet. Um, let's really go and perv on, on poor Susanna.
15:00 Alastair Sooke? And she has her left foot partially submerged in some water. So that's at the base of the picture. There's a blue sky with clouds behind above. But in terms of how she's given it a spin, I think she's got rid of the garden setting. So there's something really quite austere about this stone environment that she finds herself in, which in itself doesn't feel particularly nice as a contrast with naked flesh. I mean, it's not the kind of environment you'd want to be naked in and sort of sitting or lounging around necessarily. But you also have these two male figures who are so close to her and oppressively so. They're like this kind of umbrella above her head.
15:41 Alastair Sooke? And they feel almost ominous, like this shadowy presence. There is this conspiratorial feel to it as they're, they're muttering and whispering. And of course she is now aware of it. So you were saying before that quite often in this classic representation, Susanna might be unaware that she's being spied upon. But in this case, it is the absolute opposite because she looks to me like she's performing this piece of karate. So there's a kind of martial arts aspect to it as she twists her torso and then one arm is outstretched. Both her hands are upraised as though she's ready. It's, it's an image of self-defense. It's an image of revulsion. She's repelled by the fact that she's realized that they're perving over her.
16:24 Alastair Sooke? And what's fascinating about this as a picture is, okay, we've spoken about whether or not this is entirely Artemisia and it's a moot point. What clearly does feel very Artemisia-like about this is that it feels it's from a woman's point of view. She is turning around and making it very plain that she doesn't want to have those male advances. And, and that itself feels really original.
16:50 James Fox? Yeah, it is, it is an extraordinary pivot, isn't it? Because what we're actually seeing is in the previous Susanna and the elders, she is complicit in this act of voyeurism. But in this one. It's completely the opposite. In fact, we are, I mean, I feel slightly strange looking at this picture. We are two men looking at a nude woman, which is a painting of two men looking at a nude woman. So it does feel, it does feel complicated in that way. The genius of the painting is this, that it makes the viewers feel complicit. It makes the viewers feel uncomfortable in this act of staring at this naked woman. And I just, it's one of those paintings, the more you look at it, the more details you find, the
17:31 James Fox? way that she has amplified the tension. You know, for instance, if you look at the stone step, she's got some chips taken out of the stone.
17:39 Alastair Sooke? Yes.
17:39 James Fox? There's a wonderful bit, that man's sleeve at the top, you see the white sleeve just hanging over the parapet and then sort of creating this almost dagger-like shadow.
17:49 Alastair Sooke? Oh gorgeous, I hadn't noticed that detail. That's brilliant, yeah.
17:51 James Fox? The gesture of the hands, there's this kind of thicket of hands between the figures. The man who's holding his finger to his mouth, I don't know if he's whispering or if it's some kind of obscene sexual gesture. Isn't that something they do in Italy where they just put their finger in the mouth? I don't know. Everything there, it's just a very, very powerful image. And I also noticed the fact that she's almost covering her face and turning her face away. There's a sense of shame. There's a sense of not wanting to be seen.
18:17 Alastair Sooke? I mean, they're so furtive. So you have, obviously, we can only really see their shoulders, their upper parts of their body, and their heads are quite low down. It's almost as if they're, they've been crawling through some thicket that we can't see on the other side of the wall. And they're just sort of like slime oozing over this parapet towards her. And I don't know, I find it actually, it is quite an unsettling thing. The other thing to say about this, James, which has just come back to me. If we, well, there's the authorship question, which I think we've discussed. I think it's slightly sensitive territory, again, as two, two elders considering this painting to kind of write off and say, it's impossible.
18:56 James Fox? Speak for yourself.
18:57 Alastair Sooke? Well, yeah, all right, okay, in my case, clearly. But, you know, no seventeen year old could possibly have painted this. One little detail on that. You can see, there is this correction that's become visible over time in the canvas where There are these two male figures at the top of the picture and there seems to have been a change of heart about how bulky the younger man's right sleeve is. So you can see that he once was even more oppressive and bulky. And I think art historians often look at that change and say, could it be that Artemisia has painted this incredible picture, but that Eratzeo has come along and said, this is wonderful, darling, but what you need to do is maybe reduce that. I think it would really help compositionally. So there's that debate.
19:40 Alastair Sooke? But then there's the other question, which we come back to again and again with Artemisia, which this is a signal picture for, which is the question of her biography and how much we can read what's going on in her life into her art. Because a pivotal moment in her life comes about shortly after she paints this, but you will just wonder whether, on some level, the events leading up to this pivotal moment that I'm sure you will describe, in fact, I'd rather you would describe than I could in a moment. You just wonder whether something about this sexual aggression that she might have been experiencing in her own life is being expressed in this work of art.
20:22 James Fox? So I think we should take a break now and when we come back, we will describe those pivotal events. And a word of warning, it's pretty shocking stuff.
20:31 Alastair Sooke? If you want to see the artworks we're discussing, you can switch to video in your podcast app at any time. And if you're enjoying this episode, please consider following Stories of Art wherever you get your podcasts and maybe even leave a review.
20:54 James Fox? Welcome back to Stories of Art and we are telling the story of the remarkable artist Artemisia Gentileschi. It's 1611 and a few months after painting her first great masterpiece, Susanna and the Elders, she experiences the episode that I suppose is the most notorious moment in her life and one of the reasons why she's so famous. It's a very difficult story to tell, Alastair, but I think it's important we do tell it. Because for many scholars, for many critics, for many historians, it's the kind of MacGuffin at the heart of her life and it's been used for good or for bad, for right or for wrong, to explain her work.
21:35 James Fox? So we're now in 1611, so it's a few months after she's painted Susanna and the Elders. She's still 17 years old. She's living in Rome with her father. She's in the house. She's not really allowed out of the house because of the risk of men, you know, deflowering her. She's actually told off even for standing at the window at one point. But because, as I've said before, Araccio's studio is in the house, men are coming and going in the workshop. And in 1610, 1611, a particular man enters the Gentileschi circle.
22:10 Alastair Sooke? A lovely individual, this one.
22:11 James Fox? Absolute charmer.
22:12 Alastair Sooke? What's he called again?
22:13 James Fox? He's called Agostino Tassi.
22:15 Alastair Sooke? Okay.
22:16 James Fox? He's a painter. He's a colleague of Araccio's.
22:18 Alastair Sooke? So they're working together, Araccio and Agostino?
22:20 James Fox? They're working together on some fresco in Rome. Agostino Tassi, one of the worst people you could possibly imagine. I mean, he's only in his mid 30s at this point, so younger than us. He's already got this terrible, so criminal record. I mean, the things he's done. So, I mean, he was arrested, for instance, in Florence for assaulting a prostitute. Then he married a prostitute and then slept with her sister, so slept with his sister-in-law, got in trouble for that. When, when his wife finds out that he's sleeping with his sister-in-law, she then leaves him. He then pays some bandits to murder her. They don't murder her, but then he is also planning theft. So he's got all kinds of criminal record stuff going on.
22:59 Alastair Sooke? Why was he not executed for some of these terrible sins already?
23:03 James Fox? Well, he was banished from Florence.
23:04 Alastair Sooke? I see. So he pitches up in Rome?
23:06 James Fox? He pitches up in Rome and Araccio thinks, oh, this is a good kind of guy to bring into the house.
23:10 Alastair Sooke? Well, he's hanging out with Caravaggio, isn't he? So it's part of that whole milieu where perhaps there was great kudos for some of these disgusting behavioural traits.
23:19 James Fox? Araccio himself had, had a criminal record. He was constantly getting into lots of trouble. He was mixing with bad people. So perhaps Agostino Tassi was the kind of person he would spend time with in the evening. So Agostino comes into the, into the, into the Gentileschi household in 1610, 1611. And Lo and behold, what a surprise, Alastair. He takes a shine to the teenage Artemisia. And one day, it's a rainy afternoon, I'll get the date right, it's a rainy afternoon in May 1611, and Orazio is away, he's busy painting, and Agostino turns up at the house and finds that she's alone in the house, in the studio, painting, so she's obviously painting independently at this point.
24:04 James Fox? And he arrives at the workshop, they have a brief conversation, he makes advances towards her, he pulls the palette, pulls the brushes from her hands, he throws them to the ground, he bundles her into the next room and locks the door behind him. And then what follows after that, quite amazingly, we have it described in Artemisia's own words.
24:26 Alastair Sooke? So is this, because what you've just described is immensely detailed already, and I'm assuming your source is not one of these 20th century novels that was sort of imagining what happened to her, there must be some real historical evidence.
24:39 James Fox? These are the transcripts from a trial that will take place the next year. So these are, you know, this is legitimate documentation in Artemisia's own words, quite amazingly. So let me read what happens after he gets her into the, to the bedroom. This is, these are her own words. "He then threw me onto the edge of the bed, pushing me with a hand on my breast, and he put a knee between my thighs to prevent me from closing them. Lifting my clothes, he placed a hand with a handkerchief on my mouth to keep me from screaming. I scratched his face and pulled his hair, and before he penetrated again, I grasped his penis so tight that I even removed a piece of flesh."
25:15 Alastair Sooke? I mean, that is incredible. I do not recall reading that passage in the National Gallery catalogue, and that may be partly because this whole question of this moment, this rape.
25:29 Alastair Sooke? Has come, in a sense, to define Artemisia, and a lot of people, rightly, in my opinion, have sort of been saying, well, hang on, we can't allow this to define her. This is a terrible moment that she experiences, and it seems to then go on for months, this trial that you've already alluded to. So, but what's fascinating is, that is so detailed, and there's such a sense of, how old is she at this point?
25:54 James Fox? Seventeen years old, eighteen years old, yes, still a teenager.
25:57 Alastair Sooke? But the presence of mind, the strength of character that is required after an event like this has happened, to then talk about it in that sort of detail, which must be trashing her reputation, if you like, in terms of the marriage market and her prospects in the future afterwards, that's kind of stunning, isn't it?
26:16 James Fox? I think it reveals a lot about her, her character, because what happens, actually, it's a story as old as time, after that initial incident, he then says, don't worry, I love you, I'm gonna, I'm gonna marry you, and so the, the relationship does actually continue for another nine months. And it's only after nine months of this that Aratio, who's been curiously absent this whole time, steps in and says, this is unacceptable, and presses charges on Agostino Tassi.
26:43 Alastair Sooke? So, I mean, that, that in itself is quite odd, because you've already described, the studio and the home are the same place, and the idea that, I mean, Aratio, he must be aware that essentially there is a relationship of sorts, presumably completely abusive and coercive, but between Agostino and Artemisia, going on under his nose, and he's not objecting to it. So is there some other, I don't know what, maybe professional consideration? He's working with Agostino, right? So he, he perhaps doesn't want to imperil that relationship?
27:13 James Fox? I don't think it's that. I think it's that he probably feels, like his daughter, that a marriage will result from this relationship, and he's waiting, and Tassi keeps saying, don't worry, don't worry, he obviously doesn't tell them that he's already married to a woman he's tried to murder.
27:28 Alastair Sooke? Yes.
27:28 James Fox? But I think they assume that a marriage will result in this, and after nine months of it, they realise this isn't going to happen. So it goes to trial in 1612, and the trial lasts seven months, it's like kind of LA Law or Murder One or something. But it's, it's a very traumatic process for Artemisia in, in general, because, I mean, she has to submit to various awful experiences in order to go through that process, so. I mean, the first thing she has to have, she has to have a gynecological examination to check whether she's a virgin or not. And then she has to undergo this torture process, really, to test whether her testimony is accurate. And this is a process called the sibylle. You must have read about this in the catalogue.
28:12 Alastair Sooke? Something to do with ropes. It's entirely unpleasant, but involving your hands, right?
28:17 James Fox? Yeah, what they do is they tie these cords around your fingers and then they pull them tighter and tighter and tighter until, you know, your fingers snap to test whether you're telling the truth or not. And Artemisia willingly submits to this. She doesn't have to do it.
28:31 Alastair Sooke? But it's a way of what? You sort of, because interestingly, the testimony you just quoted, it's entirely believable. So if that was something that you heard in a modern court of law today, if you were a member of the jury, you'd be like, yep, whoever she's talking about, I mean, he's clearly guilty, that happened. But in this world, it's necessary that she has to almost prove that's right by saying, I am prepared to undergo such pain because it's true. Is that, is that sort of the deal that's being struck?
28:58 James Fox? Exactly right, exactly right. And we have, again, the transcripts, we have all the details of this. So imagine you're in a courtroom, she's there in front of the witnesses, Tassie is there as well, watching, her father's there, they tie these cords around her fingers and they are pulling, and remember, she's an artist, she breaks her fingers, that is pretty disastrous for her. And they're pulling these cords tighter and tighter. And then this is what she says from the transcript, she says, as those ropes are being tied around her fingers, she says, I have told the truth and I always will because it is true and I am here to confirm it wherever necessary. And as those cords are tied tighter and tighter and tighter, she actually turns to Tassie
29:39 James Fox? from the dock, of course, who had promised her marriage, and she says, this is the ring. She points to the cords, she said, this is the ring you promised me, this is the ring you promised me, these are your promises.
29:50 Alastair Sooke? I mean, that is one badass line.
29:53 James Fox? That is incredible. You know, when you consider you're a young teenage woman, you don't really have a voice in society, you're in front of a group of men, you're being tortured, you're probably in intense pain, and you You still have the wherewithal, you still have the kind of anger and the and the and the strength of will to accuse your rapist. It's quite amazing.
30:14 Alastair Sooke? And and just for total clarity, James, because what you're describing sounds like an incredible script. But this is this is a transcript which is written down at the moment by presumably some clerk of the court at the time. So it's not a later embellishment. It's not fiction.
30:31 James Fox? This is not fiction. These are contemporary documents, word for word. And the trial lasts seven months. Justice of sorts is done in that ultimately he is found guilty, Agostino Tassi is found guilty. He is banished from Rome, although he never leaves Rome because crimes, these punishments often weren't enforced at this point. But all the way through this process, Orazio, Artemisia's father, obviously realizes this is terrible for her reputation and for his reputation, because back then rape was seen not so much as a psychological trauma, but as a social disaster.
31:09 Alastair Sooke? As in it's total stigma, your damaged goods, no reputable man would want to come near you now.
31:14 James Fox? Exactly. It damages as a woman, it damages your economic and social prospects as well as the reputation of your family. And so Orazio realizes he got to get her out of the city. So throughout that trial, he is negotiating an arranged marriage. And she, only two days after the trial is concluded, she marries a family friend, another painter called Pier Antonio Stiartesi.
31:37 Alastair Sooke? Well remembered.
31:37 James Fox? Thank you very much.
31:38 Alastair Sooke? I find that he, I mean, he's an interesting character, right, in the story? Because I think he is related to someone who helps Orazio with the legal case in the trial. It's interesting you mention he's a painter, because my understanding is, I mean, he's a total nonentity as a painter. And essentially, I'm sure.
31:58 Alastair Sooke? You were coming on to this, as soon as they get married, they leave Rome, and that's a kind of big moment. But he becomes, he's almost like, he sort of assists and manages her career. He writes a lot of correspondence. Later on, it seems that he hasn't quite satisfied her, and she starts to have a romantic relationship with someone else, but he's still writing to that person. So what do we make of him? He's almost like, there's something slightly pathetic about him.
32:21 James Fox? I think pathetic is the right answer. I think he is notionally a painter. They're hardly any images, if any, that survive of his. So he obviously wasn't very productive. He's living with his parents in Florence, so she moves to Florence and lives with her in-laws. Her husband's father is a tailor, so they live in this tailor's house. He does no work, he's not providing any money, he's doing a little bit of help for her. And so they move to Florence, end of 1612, beginning of 1613, so shortly after the trial is concluded.
32:56 Alastair Sooke? And to be honest, for Artemisia, she must have been, I mean, this is speculation, I haven't read any letters that suggest this, but she must have been so relieved to get the hell out of Arrazio's house, this scene of terrible sexual trauma that she'd experienced in the preceding, whatever it was, year or two. So that sense of going to Florence must have been a really exhilarating moment for her in terms of new beginnings, new possibilities, and escaping this oppressive, very patriarchal male world.
33:25 James Fox? Well, you would think so, Alistair.
33:27 Alastair Sooke? Oh, no!
33:28 James Fox? But the tragedy of Artemisia is things nearly always just get worse and worse and worse. And so she moves to Florence, winter of 1612, 1613. She's living with her in-laws. You might think, yes, fresh start, she's away from Agostino Tassi, she's away from the quite difficult presence of her father, she's in a probably more genteel city. Florence is slightly easier than Rome.
33:51 Alastair Sooke? Who's in charge in Florence at this moment?
33:54 James Fox? Well, the Medici are still a very powerful family, and they do actually end up becoming patrons of her. But I think the real problem she faces is personal, and the great awful situation that she has to endure.
34:08 James Fox? In that period in Florence is that between sixteen thirteen and sixteen eighteen, so that's the five years of her early twenties in Florence, she is virtually constantly pregnant. She has five children between sixteen thirteen and sixteen eighteen. And four of them die in the space of just a few years. So I'm going to say their names because I think it brings home how truly tragic this situation is. Her first son, Giovanni Battista, dies a week old. Then she has a girl called Agnola who is buried before she's even baptized. Then she has a son called Christophano, her second son, he lives until he's five and dies. Then she has a daughter called Lisabella who dies aged one.
34:53 James Fox? So just one daughter survives. So you can just imagine that it's almost unimaginable, actually, that for that first five year period in Florence, she's constantly pregnant, she's constantly grieving, she's constantly burying her own children, while being the sole breadwinner for a husband that she probably doesn't even love.
35:15 Alastair Sooke? Obviously infant mortality rates are much higher at that time than they would be today. But I think the extraordinary thing for me, thinking about all of this, is that it's in these years in Florence where she establishes herself as an artist. She becomes this painter, independent of her father's influence, who is courted by important, rich people. She finds these collectors who want to buy her work and she's making her name for herself. So how she's managing to do that whilst she's having that personal situation going on is quite mind boggling.
35:49 James Fox? It is astonishing and it is astonishing. So in that whole period in the early sixteen tens, she is struggling, as I say, constantly with being pregnant and with dealing with these children that she's losing. And yet she is achieving things professionally. She is an absolute machine. She is a machine and she is pushing and hustling and negotiating and strong arming and working harder than any of the male artists in Florence, because she has to work harder than any of the male artists in Florence, in order to get these commissions, in order to support her useless husband and the one daughter that survives. And you know, yeah, within three and a half years of arriving in Florence, she becomes the first woman.
36:32 James Fox? In history, to become a member of the Academy of Art, the very prestigious Academy of Arts and Design, it's astonishing how she achieved that while going through all those personal circumstances.
36:42 Alastair Sooke? So, I mean, that is a big deal because it's what, it sort of suggests that amongst her peers, she is seen as being a really blazing talent who's arrived in the city and they're honouring and respecting her gift at painting.
36:57 James Fox? Yeah, exactly, and she's very well connected, she's obviously working her connections to get these kind of outcomes. So she's, she's, she's good friends with Galileo of all people, she's, she's, she's courting the Medici, she's courting other wealthy people. And we have to be completely fair to her, she is producing some astonishing paintings in this period. So this is a real high point in her life, Alastair, after all the struggles she's been through. But I'm afraid to say, there is more high drama to come, all of which we will explore in the next episode. So for now, goodbye.
37:33 Alastair Sooke? Goodbye.
37:40 James Fox? If you've enjoyed this episode, please do follow Stories of Art wherever you get your podcasts and maybe even leave a review.
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