{"id":579,"date":"2025-10-02T09:12:53","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T09:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/memoiresactives.org\/?p=579"},"modified":"2025-10-02T14:40:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T14:40:00","slug":"artemisia-gentileschis-self-portrait-royal-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/memoiresactives.org\/?p=579","title":{"rendered":"Artemisia Gentileschi’s self-portrait, Royal Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Artemisia<\/a>

Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1663) \u2013\u202fSelf\u2011Portrait as the Allegory of Painting (1638\u201339), oil on canvas, 101\u202f\u00d7\u202f73\u202fcm, Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace, London. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Among the works that currently capture my attention for the book I am writing, The Creative Process: from Representation to Action<\/em>, are certain paintings within paintings \u2014 including this self-portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi (1638\u201339, Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace, London).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In truth, it is far more than a mere self-portrait of Artemisia in her\nforties: it is also the allegorical figure of Painting itself. For this\nsymbolic representation, Artemisia follows, to some extent, Cesare Ripa\u2019s\nfamous treatise, Iconologia<\/em>, where Painting is described as \u201ca\nbeautiful woman, with abundant black hair, loose and entwined in various ways\n(the divine frenzy of the artistic temperament).\u201d Yet Artemisia refuses the gag\nover the mouth (Painting is mute) \u2014 it will not be imposed on her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I particularly admire is the way Artemisia Gentileschi articulates her\nmessage through stylistic choices that make the work strikingly modern. The\nspareness \u2014 the canvas barely begun, the emptiness behind the artist \u2014\ncontributes to this sense of modernity while also distancing her from the\nworkshop environment that might suggest the too-manual world of an artisan.\nThis effect also contrasts with the richness of the sophisticated dress, in its\niridescent fabric \u2014 the drappo cangiante<\/em>, as Ripa calls it \u2014 which\nboth demonstrates the painter\u2019s skill and sets her further apart from a dirty\nstudio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tightly controlled energy runs through the painting, in a dynamic that is one\nof suspended movement \u2014 the very acme of creative intensity. In this sense, the\npainting is baroque, as in its composition, where the whole weight of the body\nis carried on one side, in precarious balance: the instant of the artist\u2019s\ngesture in action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a manifesto-work. Artemisia Gentileschi takes a stand for the elevation of the artist\u2019s status, above that of a mere artisan \u2014 even when the artist is a woman. The artist\u2019s bold impertinence, in lending her own features to the allegory of Painting, is another way of declaring that her life is painting, and painting is her life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

more info here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the works that currently capture my attention for the book I am writing, The Creative Process: from Representation to Action, are certain paintings within paintings \u2014 including this self-portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi (1638\u201339, Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace, London). In truth, it is far more than a mere self-portrait of Artemisia in her forties: it is also the allegorical figure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":588,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[78,28,33,77,79],"class_list":["post-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-autoportrait","tag-femme-artistes","tag-histoire-de-lart","tag-history-of-art","tag-tableau-dans-le-tableau"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/memoiresactives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/memoiresactives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/memoiresactives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memoiresactives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memoiresactives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/memoiresactives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":589,"href":"https:\/\/memoiresactives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions\/589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memoiresactives.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/memoiresactives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memoiresactives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/memoiresactives.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}