Abstract

Artemisia Gentileschi (c. 1593-1652) was well paid and highly thought of as a painter by some of the leading art patrons of the Europe of her time. In other words, in her own time she was a socially acceptable, successful artist. Yet, subsequently, the shadow of obscurity fell over her. Only about thirty paintings, from what must have been a much greater body of work, have been identified and attributed to her. Moreover, relatively little has been written about her, and only very recently has she been the subject of an extensive art-historical monograph. In Contrast, Agostino Tassi, the painter tried for raping Artemisia she was nineteen years old, has been the subject of at least two monographs in this [20th] century. Does Artemisia now lack esteem because the lines along which the story of European art has been permitted to unfold serve non aesthetic ends, objectives prescribed by dominating male interests? Was Artemisia's art eclipsed because the narrative structure of the story of art admits heroes but erects heroines? Such questions are typically raised in feminist or gym-criticism. What remains to be seen is whether feminists can supply answers which draw upon considerations sufficiently compelling to radically revise--indeed, to reform--the history of art.