Art for the Blog of It: May 2014

American Gothic with models used by Grant Wood in 1930

Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi (July 8, 1593 – c. 1656) was an Italian Baroque painter, today considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation following that of Caravaggio. In an era when women painters were not easily accepted by the artistic community or patrons, she was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence.

She painted many pictures of strong and suffering women from myth and the Bible—victims, suicides, warriors—and made it her speciality to paint the Judith story. Her best-known work is Judith Slaying Holofermes (a well-known medieval and baroque subject in art), which "shows the decapitation of Holofernes, a scene of horrific struggle and blood-letting".

That she was a woman painting in the seventeenth century and that she was raped and participated in prosecuting the rapist, long overshadowed her achievements as an artist. For many years she was regarded as a curiosity. Today she is regarded as one of the most progressive and expressionist painters of her generation.

Self-portraitas the Allegory of Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi

Eye of the beholder

The Art of War (Clever huh?): World War 1

Photography for the Blog of it: Ruth Orkin

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