Artemisia Gentlileschi - Self Portrait as the Allegory of Painting

     Artemisia Gentilileschi was an Italian Baroque painter, who, in 1603 made a painting using herself as a reference - The Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting. Within said painting, the artist uses herself to symbolise La Pittura, the personification of painting. What is so important about this image, is that it would not have been as popular if it were more feminine - something that it shows little of in a typical 17th century manner (the absence of elegance, maternal themes and perfect appearance). It does follow the Baroque style painting by using elements such as a sense of movement, yet is against the conventions of women at the time.

I am talking about this influential piece of work because it really stands out as a female self-portrait from this time for reasons which will be outlined below. My project can benefit from having knowledge of this painting because, as previously discussed, the paintings that I am basing my images on are made by men and I need to figure out how to break from their ideologies yet be acceptable as obvious as influenced by their imagery. Gentileschi has made a painting based off what men thought was acceptable and then made it her own.

This is because a self-portrait of La Pittura could not have been painted by a man due to the belief of Cesare Ripa, that La Pittura is a woman. This became popular belief, and thus, if a man were to paint the allegory of painting, it could never be a self-portrait.
Within Ripa's 'Iconologia', in which he claimed the gender of La Pittura, he also described her, her manners and her appearance, of which showed her dedication to painting rather than attractiveness.

     By using these features of Ripa's in her painting, Gentlileschi was able to portray herself as something other than a feeble, delicate woman. Instead, following the writings, she painted herself with messy black hair, slightly muscular and in an active pose. She ignores the viewers gaze and looks completely engaged in her work, her talent, the thing that is most important to her.

And while Gentlileschi uses the rules by man, still, she did not follow them all. In 'Iconologia', it says that La Pittura wears a gown that flows to her feet in order to show an outer beauty, as well as a talent in bodily proportions (for the body was drawn before the dress), which is perhaps Ripa claiming that despite being unseen the woman's body must still meet man's expectations. Instead, Gentlileschi refuses this and crops the image to show only above her waist. The active pose mentioned earlier could also be seen as an act of defiance in regards to the perfect body. She focuses of the act of painting rather than ensuring that she is stereotypically beautiful, using her own interpretation of Pittura and perhaps only using Ripa's as a guideline and to protect herself in the Western art world.

We could suggest that if Gentlileschi had only painted herself as Pittura or any other figure for that matter, in completely her own way, there would be a lack of reasoning as to why she is portraying herself in such a manner. Personally, I believe that the artist took an opportunity that came very little to women, and used a man's writing in order to favour her career. It is, therefore, a very powerful and smart image.