I watched Artemisia (1997) and was very disappointed.

Spring semester of 2014 I took an online class called Introduction to Art Education for Non-Majors at the University of North Texas. An extra credit opportunity was offered at the end of the semester. The professor gave us a list of several films; we were supposed to watch one and write a review of it while answering questions about what we learned about art history, the political climate in time period depicted, and if we would recommend the film to someone hoping to learn more about art. I picked the 1997 film Artemisia.

The topics covered in class were interesting, but we spent very little time (zero, if I remember correctly) covering women artists, so I took this as an opportunity to learn something about a well-known woman painter in an era where very few woman painters were allowed to rise to prominence.

I knew very little about Artemisia the artist, only that she was a famous classical painter in a time period where there were few woman classical painters. In hindsight, it was foolish of me to expect a film made for entertainment to be educational and remain loyal to the historical accuracies of Artemisia's legacy, but I was absolutely not prepared for the incredible disappointment I had to endure for an hour and a half that morning.

The movie was absolutely demeaning and degrading to Artemisia's legacy. There are a wealth of criticisms to be found online (even some by Gloria Steinem), but in all my reaching for comprehensive reviews, I found very few focused on the film itself.

I spent an angry afternoon at my coffee table formulating my essay. I decided to toss it here in order to aid anyone searching for a comprehensive and critical review of the film through a feminist lens. I am not an art history major, just someone passionate about the representation of women in the media and the dignity of well-known women in our history.

If anyone was curious, my TA gave me 60/60 points.

Artemisia

            I chose to analyze the 1997 film Artemisia for this assignment. It is a French film that was distributed widely in France, Germany, Italy, and later in the United States. The film was promoted as "The Untold True Story of an Extraordinary Woman" in the United States, which earned it a fair amount of controversy. I chose this film with the expectation that I would learn about the trials and tribulations of a female artist in 17th century Rome. It did not add to my understand about the theory and technique of art as much as it did the climate surrounding female artists in the time period and the political and religious influence on artists and the works they create. Connections to the church were very important at that time in Rome, and the church could commission a piece or even switch out an artist for a piece at any time. Women painters faced many barriers, including being denied from painting academies due to their sex rather than their talent and being forbidden by papal authority to paint nude males, which was a very important figure in art during the time period. 

            The film follows Artemisia, one of the few famous woman painters of the time period, through her struggle to be taken seriously as an artist, join an art academy, secure mentorship, and later through her rape trial that unfortunately became just as well-known as her paintings. In the film Artemisia is depicted as a small, naïve young girl who learns to draw by looking at herself nude in a mirror while in bed at school. She later is taken out of her religious school, which is seen as an impediment to her artistic growth, and learns to paint under the wing of her father. She serves as a model for some famous works of art and lends a helping hand to some of her father’s commissions. When famous Florentine painter Agostino Tassi comes into town, she asks to be taken in as his pupil, and after be convinced by her father, he agrees. This is where a significant shift in the film takes place. Tassi rapes Artemisia, the two have consensual sex afterwards, and then Artemisia’s father discovers them and puts Tassi on trial for rape. 

The films depictions of these events are deeply disturbing. It frames the rape as an act of love on Tassi’s part, and the love affair that blossoms after leads Artemisia to try and protect Tassi at her imminent rape trial, which historically is not what is known to have happened (Cohen). It was an immensely unnecessary change that is malignant to the legacy of Artemisia and wholly deceptive of the true injustices committed by Tassi. 

Focusing on how the film depicts Artemisia alone, although Artemisia’s self-portraits are of a larger woman, the actress chosen to play her is a skinny, conventionally beautiful girl. She is written as a naïve, petulant child prone to temper tantrums and off-color outbursts. In the film, Artemisia and her father take a moment to examine Tassi’s rendition of Judith Beheading Holofernes. Artemisia remarks that it was as if Judith were “slicing a piece of bread.” Even though Tassi painted Judith in the midst of performing a great, gory, and grisly act, he still felt the need to depict her as feminine and fragile. This is what the film Artemisia has done to the famous woman painter Artemisia. It takes a story about a young woman overcoming the odds in 17^th century Rome and rising to fame, despite everyone’s obsession with her rape trial and despite the patriarchal culture of the time period, and turns it into a story about a sexually curious girl who falls in love with her painting mentor and rapist. Her art is not central to the film’s theme, which is an unfortunate reflection of her legacy throughout history. 

The film makes it clear that the Pope and Catholic Church were very influential during that time period, and connections to high-ranking officials in the church were very important, even for artists. Most major works of art from that time period depicted Biblical scenes or were commissions from wealthy patrons. The film attempts to depict the shift in the artistic technique of the time period from idealized and person-centered to realistic and with more of an emphasis on the surroundings of the figure rather than just the figure alone. 

Artemisia paints her own version of Judith Beheading Holofernes. This is shown in the film. In it, Judith and the other woman are shown as strong, and are putting all their weight and energy into what they are doing, which is severing a man’s head from his body. All delicate feminine sensibilities are gone from the form and posture of the women. The film reduces it to a painting that Artemisia does out of jealously and spite, claiming it is a self-portrait of her beheading Tassi, rather than depicting it as a work of art that shows she has her surpassed her ex-mentor with a much more realistic and appropriate depiction of the act. 

The film is accurate in its depiction of the sexist and patriarchal values of the culture Artemisia was born into, especially in the framing of the rape and rape trial as Artemisia’s father “protecting Artemisia”, “losing is honor”, and trying to “win it back”, rather than a violent and personal crime that Artemisia experienced on her own personhood. The depiction of Artemisia herself was very disappointing, if not flat-out insulting. I would not recommend this film to a person learning about art per se, because although it gave a little context to the political, religious, and cultural climate surrounding art during that time period, art was not the central theme.

Sources

Cohen, Elizabeth S. "The Trials Of Artemisia Gentileschi: A Rape As History."  

Sixteenth Century Journal 31.1 (2000): 47. MasterFILE Premier. Web.

 Gentileschi, Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting