Artemisia or "the spirit of Caesar in the soul of a woman"

A spectator poses between two works by Artemisia Gentileschi in the exhibition dedicated to the artist in London.FACUNDO ARRIZABALAGA / EFE

Artemisia as an icon of a powerful feminism that responds strongly to her aggressor.

Artemisia as the triumph against the current of talent and will.

Artemisia and the ability to add expressiveness and emotion to a perfect technique.

Artemisia, the voluptuousness and mischief of a woman who investigated herself from all angles until she had an exact notion of her position in society and in the art world.

The National Gallery in London finally opens on October 3, after a considerable delay caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the

exhibition

.

Just your name.

They have not needed a more elaborate title to present their proposal.

Although the phrase included in the poster, the painter's response to one of her clients, the noble collector of Sicilian art Antonio Ruffo, says it all: "I will show his illustrious lordship what a woman is capable of doing."

• Photogallery: The most complete vision of Artemisia

“It was rediscovered in the seventies of the 20th century, and transformed into a feminist icon.

She wanted to highlight her capacity for resistance, her tendency to face all the episodes of her life, before her own art.

The exhibition aims to offer a complete vision of a prodigious artist, who finally had to be discovered.

Although it would have taken her time, because she was a woman ”, explains Letizia Treves, an expert in Italian, Spanish and French painting from the late 17th century and curator of the exhibition.

The life of Artemisia Gentileschi (Rome, 1593-Naples, 1653) was as intense and full of contrasts as the chiaroscuro technique that she learned to perfection from the master Caravaggio, a regular visitor for a few years to the studio of the painter's father, Orazio Gentileschi .

And a specific episode has meant that, for decades, many have wanted to see in her works a rage that, probably, she knew how to turn into artistic material before leaving it behind.

At age 17, the painter Agostino Tassi took advantage of the trust placed in him by the family to seek a meeting alone with the young woman.

“She threw me on the bed, squeezed my chest with her hand and put her knee between my thighs to prevent me from closing them.

She lifted my clothes and put a handkerchief over my mouth so that I couldn't scream.

Artemisia's father wanted to repair his honor and brought Tassi - a mediocre painter, but who enjoyed the favors of Pope Innocent X - before the court of the curia.

It was she who had to prove that her accusation was true, and she agreed to be subjected to a brutal torture known as

, a gear of laces and irons on the victim's fingers to extract the judicial truth from the unbearable pain.

"

" (it's true, it's true, it's true), the painter shouted as they twisted the tools of her art.

"This is the ring you promised me, these are your promises," she challenged her attacker while enduring the pain.

“We have finally got a 360 degree view of Artemis.

Of her art, of her life.

Of her person ", says Gabriele Finaldi, director of the National Gallery of London

The original transcription of the trial sessions, deposited in the State Archive of Rome in 1612, is part of the exhibition, but it would be an anecdote overwhelmed by the greatness of the painter's anthology.

The anecdote, however, becomes a key piece when observing the painting

The monumental biblical scene, already rehearsed by Artemisia's father and many other artists, measures almost two meters in height and 1.60 in width.

Judit grabs the Assyrian general by the hair and with her other hand uses her own sword to slice his neck as he lies on the bed.

The maid helps from behind to hold the man, who writhes in a gesture of extreme anguish.

The muscular tension in the arms of both women, their gesture of determination and the spurts of blood that sprinkle them turn the scene, in the eyes of many spectators, into a symbol of universal revenge.

Artemisia painted the work a year after the infamous rape trial.

If the biblical beheading was the painter's cry for revenge, her definitive triumph in a world ruled by men was the complete series of

.

Up to three times the artist imagines the biblical episode, in which Susana is caught in the bathroom and blackmailed into giving her favors.

Vulnerable in the first, modest in the second.

Pure theatrical scene in the third, typical of those who master their technique and paint to suit their clients ”, describes Letizia Treves.

Susana frightened by the invasion of her privacy, in an impossible position that demonstrates the painter's exact knowledge of the female anatomy.

Susana chilled in front of two lewd old men, her gaze and movement frozen while only the water flows.

And finally, Susana victorious in the face of two unwanted intruders.

“We have finally got a 360 degree view of Artemis.

Of her art, of her life.

Of her person.

We have learned to know her better and understand her position in the 17th century art scene ”, congratulates the Italian Gabriele Finaldi, director of the National Gallery since 2015.

Because the exhibition travels from tragedy to success, to the years of Florence, Naples and London in which Artemisia is considered a master of the time, and her work claimed by kings, nobles and wealthy clients.

She was her own model in many of the paintings on display, with an exact knowledge of gestures and looks that transformed her peculiar features into a canon of feminine beauty.

She was her own model in many of the paintings on display, with an exact knowledge of gestures and looks that transformed her peculiar features into a canon of feminine beauty.

And she understood, unlike men, that ecstasy and sensuality usually go hand in hand.

, with her head leaning back, her shoulder uncovered and her hands clasped on her knee, says more about the female universe than any treatise.

And

holds in her hand the serpent that will sting her mortally while her body stretches relaxed, owner of her own ending.

The originals of Artemisia's letters to her lover Francesco Maria Maringhi serve better than any academic interpretation to meet a passionate, methodical and provocative woman, who takes her art seriously and jokingly the changes her body underwent over the years.

And that she mixed irony and desire with delicious irreverence.

"Tell me you don't know another woman other than your right hand, whom I envy so much for holding what I cannot possess."

Artemisia.

The tour of the exhibition culminates with his masterpiece:

Allegory

because it shows in the physical passion of a woman artist, palette and brush in both hands, the very essence of art.

Self-portrait, because it could not be other than Artemisia who symbolized that it was possible, as she herself wrote to her client Ruffo, "to contain the spirit of Caesar in the soul of a woman."