Michael Palin's Quest for Artemisia (2015) - full transcript

I'm in a city which, in its heyday,
was the most active

cultural and commercial centre
in the Mediterranean.

And one of the most volatile.

During the 17th century,
before the unification of Italy,

Naples was part of the Spanish empire.

It was three times the size of Rome

with a population that had tripled
over the century

due to an influx of immigrants
looking for work.

One of these immigrants was an
extraordinary painter who came here,

like many others,
to chase lucrative commissions.

This is the Museo di Capodimonte
in Naples.



Originally built as a hunting lodge
for the Spanish nobility,

it now houses one of the finest
art collections in Italy.

'Nestling among these
official masterpieces

'is a breathtaking painting not even
mentioned in the museum's highlights,

'even though it was created by
someone quite exceptional

'in the history of art.'

This is one of the most arresting
paintings I've ever seen.

It's a moment of traumatic violence
captured with almost forensic

intensity in the detail here.

What is happening is that a woman
is cutting a man's head off,

and she's putting an enormous
amount of effort into it,

and yet she's doing it with
a certain amount of disdain,

as though she's just getting on
with a job she has to do.

What is really frightening about it,
and it's appallingly strong,



is that the man is still just alive.

Despite the fact the sword is
stuck into his neck, his arm has

shot up there, the fist is being
held by the accomplice of the woman.

You can see his mouth,

which is almost just
crying out his last breath.

But she is quietly and efficiently
doing the business.

What's so extraordinary about
this huge and violent painting

is that it was painted by a woman.

Her name was Artemisia Gentileschi.

A brilliant and mercurial painter.

A charismatic trickster.

A gifted businesswoman.

A caring mother
with a turbulent love life.

And a modern woman
in a patriarchal world.

She's been sidelined for centuries.

Now she's emerging from the shadows

as one of the most exciting
Baroque artists.

Despite much of her work
being lost or missing,

and many details of her
extraordinary story forgotten,

there remain new and surprising
discoveries to be made.

16th-century Rome, where Artemisia
was born over 400 years ago,

was dominated by the Vatican,

using art and architecture
to dazzle its citizens

with the power of the Catholic Church.

The daughter of Orazio Gentileschi,

one of Rome's many struggling
painters, Artemisia lived with

her family in the notorious
artists' quarter of the city.

Would this have been teeming
with people in Artemisia's day?

Absolutely, absolutely.

Even more so because this was
the northern door to Rome,

because that was the place to be
at the time.

There was such a demand, yes. Yes.

'French novelist Alexandra Lapierre
fell under Artemisia's spell

'when she came to Rome
on a research trip.

'What she unearthed so intrigued her,
she moved here to find out more.'

Another fine church, and there
are the Caravaggios in there.

Yes, it's right there. Yeah.

'Entries in the records of this
church, Santa Maria del Popolo,

'suggest it was the local place
of worship for Orazio Gentileschi

'and his wife, Prudentia.'

What was the significance of
this church in Artemisia's life?

Oh, it has a very big significance

because it is where her mother was buried

when she was 12.

How did her mother die? Childbirth.

Many women died in childbirth
in the 17th century.

And Orazio, who loved his wife dearly,

had ordered a true big service.

He had made sure that his wife,
Prudentia, could get the best of it.

So he ordered the burial
to be by the chapel

that was the most visible at the
time, which was the Cerasi Chapel.

There would be singing,
there would be candles.

Candles were very precious.

In the floor here you will see
rosace which have holes

and you would have poles
that would open the whole floor,

the marble floor of the church
and you would bring down the corpse.

'Prudentia's sudden death would
change Artemisia's life for ever.

'At the age of 12, she became
surrogate mother to her

'three younger brothers as well as
assisting her father in his studio.

'Orazio Gentileschi was a friend
and follower of Caravaggio whose

'formidable paintings loomed over
his beloved wife's resting place.'

The Caravaggios
which she would have seen,

probably even during the funeral,
but every time she came here. Yes.

I mean, they must have had
quite an effect on her,

do you think, as an artist? Oh, yes.
They are very strong.

Caravaggio's revolution has changed
the whole of Orazio's vision.

Caravaggio is painting
people from the street...

And that's a complete change, really.
Complete change.

The idea is that the people
looking at it, at the painting,

can recognise themselves in
the drama which is being played...

That's the powerful thing.
Humanity is holding the whole frame.

It must have been absolutely...
I can imagine for a young girl

or young child looking up at that
and thinking, wow! Absolutely.

But as a result it has changed
the whole vision

of the art world at the time.

That was really a lot for her to absorb.

And to find a way, because without
a woman to direct her, without

a mother to direct her, she's
the only woman among a man's world.

Let's go and have a closer look,
shall we?

'Caravaggio and his followers
drew on Rome's dark underbelly

'to inspire their
cutting-edge style.'

By night, the city transformed itself
into a den of vice and crime

which thrived in backstreet taverns
and behind closed palazzo doors.

This...

..was the residence
of Beatrice Cenci.

Inside this house, her wicked,
and horrible and terrible father,

Francesco, abused her.

So the legend goes,
nobody listened to her pleas

when she was asking for help.

But, please, follow me
and don't be afraid.

You're going to be safe with me!
I hope...

Please, come with me.

'Artemisia grew up in
a patriarchal culture where women

'were the property of men.

'Seen as either virtuous or sinful,

'loss of virginity outside marriage
could mean joining the swelling ranks

'of prostitutes who haunted
Rome's dark alleyways.

'Along with the restless ghosts
of its violent past.'

Who was the wicked girl
who had killed her father?

All the people of Rome
went in the streets in this area

ready to go to the river
where her head would be...

..chopped off!

Terrific! Thought that would happen.
I thought that would happen.

Please follow me to the river
to see the place. Ha-ha-ha!

One of these ghosts
is that of poor Beatrice Cenci,

whose execution the young Artemisia
almost certainly witnessed.

Public decapitations, brutal and bloody,

would have been part of daily life
in Seicento Rome.

Her head was cut off with a sword.

And all the blood went into the Tiber,

dyeing it the colour red.

Artemisia's father, Orazio,

all too well aware of the dangers
for his only daughter,

confined her to his studio, where
she began to produce work of her own.

Artemisia used the time
to develop her talent,

but always under
her father's guiding hand.

Some of their work is on display here
at the Spada Gallery in Rome.

Here they are, side by side,
the two Gentileschis -

Orazio the father,
Artemisia the daughter.

It's just interesting to compare
and contrast the two.

This a painting I love,
it's a beautiful delicate painting.

This is by Artemisia, Madonna and Child,

and she was a teenager
when she painted this.

Yet there's something about the
delicacy with which the baby's hand,

which is beautifully drawn,
just touches the throat,

extraordinary gentle gesture,

and the eyes looking at
the closed eyes of the Madonna.

On the other side,
a more classical picture by Orazio.

It's David and Goliath.

And it feels like a much bigger picture,

the figure's very strong in frame.

You can see similarities, the flesh
tones, the angle of the body,

you can see a strength in that
painting and perhaps a delicacy,

but also a substance in this one here.

What you can also see, actually,
is to be able to paint

and model drapery like that,
it's very, very impressive indeed.

Her father, a much more well-known
painter at the time, a male,

painting in the classical idiom.

You can see down in the corner
there the head of Goliath

being zonked by the stone
from the catapult.

It's almost a sort
of Gentileschi trademark,

the head somewhere in the painting.

But altogether a big, strong
picture, and this picture,

strong because of its delicacy.

Both Artemisia's Madonna and this
other striking painting of hers

in the collection have, until recently,

been wrongly attributed to
male artists, or to her father.

The paintings of Artemisia's I've
seen today have been a revelation.

Of course, the fact that such
accomplished work could be created

by someone so young has inevitably
raised a few questions.

Her father was a painter.
What was his work? What was her work?

Where's the real Artemisia?

It's like this wonderful piece
of visual trickery

by Baroque architect Francesco Borromini.

This arcade is actually
only eight metres long.

The statue is only 70cm high.

It was indeed a world
of riddles and illusions.

The Susanna is her first
really known work.

It's signed with her name,
Artemisia Gentileschi, 1610.

Lots of scholars have argued

Orazio really painted it, he just
put his daughter's name on it

to launch her career. And
I don't think that's really true.

I think he may have helped her
with the finishing of the picture,

the passages here and there,
because his style is very difficult

to distinguish from hers at that point.

But the concept of that Susanna
is radically new.

Most of the Susannas
of that period, all of them

that I know by male artists,
were almost betrayals of the story.

Susanna in the garden is bathing
and these elders thunder in

and they're going to rape her,
have their way with her.

In most of the pictures you see,
she's looking seductively at them.

"Oh, you're coming to rape me?
OK, fine."

But this is the first one
where she's saying, no. No.

Her face is rather horrified and shocked.

This is the first time
anybody ever painted

that subject from Susanna's
point of view.

We never saw what women felt like
in that situation in art before.

For me, that's a radical step
in art history.

It was also a case of art imitating life.

Like Susanna,
Artemisia was being watched.

One man with his eye on her was
Agostino Tassi, a widower in his 30s.

He was a highly sought-after
painter specialising in

trompe-l'oeil illusion, which was
all the rage at the time.

This dusty track in the built-up
centre of Rome was once

a shaded walkway through
the ancient gardens of Sallust,

fabled for their beauty and tranquillity.

For the last 400 years, it's been
the site of the Villa Aurora.

Caravaggio, Henry James,
Woody Allen and Madonna

all came to the villa, in part
to see the work of Agostino Tassi.

Ah! Greetings. Principessa.
How are you? How nice to meet you.

What a thrill to meet you.
Please call me Rita.

Rita, I'm interested in this man,
Agostino Tassi.

You've got some of his work here.
We do. Can you show them to me?

Because I'm really anxious to know
what this man was like.

Which is Tassi's work here then?
The ceiling?

On the ceiling, this is considered
Guercino's masterpiece.

They mythical goddess Aurora
bringing dawn into the night.

The prince of Troy is behind her.
The central part.

That is a secco, painted on dry paint.

Now the frame, which is really
a spectacular part

of the painting as well,
is by Agostino Tassi.

And he really was an illusionist.

As you can see, his part, the frame
has movement. It actually moves -

as you move across the room,
the columns move with you

and they straighten
and then they curve in.

Is it supposed to be a continuation
of the house, the walls of the house?

Of course it is. It is
a continuation of the house.

And also there's something
very interesting here.

You see how you see the breakthrough
in the ceiling? Oh, yes.

This caused a hue and an outcry in Rome

and they wanted this
painted over. Why?

The first time people were
walking into the room and they were

hanging onto the sides of the walls,
and they said, we feel threatened,

the sky feels like
it's coming down on us.

It lifts you up,
and also it is slightly scary.

It does, it is a little scary even today.

We have a fresco upstairs, La Fama.
OK. Can I see that? Yes, absolutely.

OK, thank you. Please follow me.
If you're not too busy!

'Tassi may have been a magician with oil,

'but in his private life
he was a skilful trickster.

'A known womaniser,
Tassi's drunken brag was

'he arranged the murder of his first
wife as revenge for her infidelity.'

We're in the process
of restoring the house,

so if it looks a bit weathered...

that's why.
But it's a labour of love.

We feel a tremendous responsibility
to future generations.

There's a lot of beautiful work here.

This is, gosh, that's Tassi again.
That's La Fama.

Again, Tassi framed one of Guercino's...

These curved barley-corn columns
are his work.

Yes, these are the Columns of Solomon.

You'll see those at St Peter's.

And then as you go around,
the gold is 24-carat gold,

with which they paint.

There is a different scene in
each one of these alcoves. Yeah.

This is quite subtle work.
Beautiful work.

And so modern for his time.

He was really thinking
outside of the box, in a sense.

And he was brilliant, and
his work was exquisite. Thank you.

It's been absolutely eye-opening
to see his work.

He was quite brilliant, I think.
He was bit of a...

He was a naughty boy...
A naughty man. He was naughty.

It just adds to the sort of levels
and the mystery of the story, really,

that he could do such beautiful work
and be pretty brutish.

Exactly.

A rising star, Agostino Tassi
started painting for the Pope

alongside his friend,
Artemisia's father, Orazio.

He became almost one of the family.

Careful to hide away his teenage
daughter from the corruption

of the city, Orazio organised for her
private art lessons

with his friend, Agostino Tassi.

What happened next
is recorded forever in history,

although the exact facts
are still hard to determine.

Artemisia claims that
one spring afternoon in 1611,

Tassi accosted her in her father's
studio, followed her upstairs,

and despite her pleas to be left alone,

pushed her into the bedroom
and raped her.

To calm the enraged Artemisia,
and in attempt to make good

his violent act,
Tassi promptly promised to marry her.

With her precious virginity
no longer intact,

and determined to keep the rape
secret from her father,

Artemisia had no choice
but to accept Tassi's offer.

It is a total disaster
for the whole family.

But nobody knows but Artemisia.

And so when Tassi comes back...

..and abuses her again, now there
is no other way than to obey.

It's her man, in that sense.

And so it's going to go on
like this for a few months

where he says, "It's OK, it's all right.

"I am straightening things up."

But then one day, Orazio will find out.

And what he will find out,
it's going to incense him

and drive him crazy.

So this is all really difficult for
everyone all round. I would think so.

So, Orazio reacts
without really thinking,

by taking his pledge to the Pope.

So he writes to the Pope, not
about his daughter's feelings or...

No, about the fact that his goods,
that is, Orazio's goods,

has been destroyed, has been ruined,

and so he asks reparation of
something that has been done to him.

She's never considered as a human being.

In 1612, Orazio,
to clear the family name,

instigated legal proceedings
against Tassi.

It would go down as one of Rome's
longest recorded rape trials.

Here in Rome's state archive,

a unique piece of evidence
has recently been restored.

It's around 300 pages long
and it could be the closest

I can get to finding out what really
happened between Artemisia and Tassi.

Faithfully recorded by a court
notary, the transcripts include,

in Artemisia's own words,

a remarkably detailed description
of the rape.

So, very, very, very detailed...

Yeah... of a very violent rape.

I couldn't understand it all,
but scratching the face

and pulling the hair.

Yes. And she described
the sexual relation here.

Very violent.

Very, very specifically written down.
Yeah.

With Roman justice at the time,
there was no jury to decide.

It was left to the judge,
who used Inquisitional techniques

before proclaiming the final verdict
in the name of God.

In the justice of the 17th century,
this is a rape.

This is a rape because
there was not a marriage there.

And there was a relationship,
sexual relationships,

between a man and a virgin woman.

And this is a rape for the law.

What was Tassi's response?

Do you have that down there
in the trial? Yes.

Tassi says, he knows Artemisia

but he had never had
sexual relations with her.

And many witnesses could confirm that.

This is a drawing by Tassi.

"Io del mio mal ministro fui."

I was guilty of my bad situation.

Oh, well. Why did he do that?
To put in front of the judge.

Sounds like an admission of guilt.

Yes, but I think -
"I'm guilty, I'm a good man,

"I think about my, erm..."

"..About my violence.

"Yes, I can, I can,
I can think about it."

But I didn't do the rape.

'To add to the complication,
we find elsewhere in the record

'Artemisia's statement
that she slept with Tassi

'for almost a year before the trial,

'believing that they would
soon be married.'

What's her attitude to him?

She says that,
"I was with him willingly."

In Italian she says
"amore volmente," with love.

In Italian, the world "love"
is very important.

Love is "I trust".

"I want to be with you." Mm.
So it's very profound.

And she used it
so we have to recognise it.

It's hard for anyone today

to understand Artemisia's
true feelings for Tassi.

On the one hand, he was her abuser,
but on the other,

marriage to him would clear her name.

Then sensational news reaches the court.

Despite Tassi's claims to the
contrary, his wife is still alive.

With marriage no longer an option,

Artemisia's "amore"
quickly turns to hate,

perhaps reflected in the powerful work

that she was painting at the time.

In one sense it is a kind of response.

That way of depicting the subject
so dramatically and graphically

is kind of getting back
at Agostino Tassi in a public way.

But this was a period
when that was just understood.

Why shouldn't she get revenge?
She'd been wronged.

That wasn't all there was
about that painting.

She's the first woman,

the first artist perhaps to have
expressed in art

what it feels like
to be a woman victimised,

and a woman who fantasises revenge
for that victimisation. Mm-hm.

This is expression on a grand scale.
Yeah.

So to try to make it
just about her one life...

It's made up of her life in so many
ways, but it goes further than that.

The trial had reached its tenth month.

With both sides still
proclaiming their innocence,

the judge had one final method left
to obtain the truth.

In this case, he decides that
Artemisia will be tortured.

Yeah, he decides for the victim.
We don't know why.

I have my own opinion about it,

because Agostino Tassi was painting
for the Pope in that period

and it was very dangerous for the judge

to destroy the hands
of a painter of the Pope.

And the judge decided for her
the torture of the sibille.

How does that work?
For her hands. Yes.

And it was very dangerous
because she was a painter

so it was dramatic.

This is a piece of a rope.

Oh, you have one there.
It's only light...

So the hand goes out.
A light kind of sibille, this. OK.

So it goes round each joint. Oops.

This is very, very light. Thank you!
I appreciate that!

Oh, right.

All four together, over the joints.
And them...

And then so. OK.

I can see. It stops the blood,
but that's quite gentle.

Was there...?
What was the severe...?

What was the severe form?
Only for women.

Only for women. OK.

And there is a stronger way for
women, too, and the drawing is that.

This is a drawing from the end
of the 16th century. Yeah.

This is iron and this is wood.

So that's using, instead of rope,
that's iron and wood,

which could really break your fingers.

Only for women, because for men
the torture was stronger.

By 17th-century standards,

it was certainly preferable
to other common options

such as piercing, crushing,

amputation, starvation or hanging.

So, finally, after all this evidence,
the torture,

was there a conclusion?

Yes, there was a conclusion.

Because Artemisia under torture
said that she was raped,

so that was the truth for the judge

and the judge will decide in this
way, so Agostino Tassi is guilty.

Against all odds,
the Gentileschi had won.

But as the shocking news of
the trial outcome reverberated

through the streets of Rome,
victory would be short-lived.

Agostino Tassi's punishment was mild -

a five-year exile from Rome.

A sentence he never served.

Whilst for Artemisia, the supposed
victor, it was another story.

She's dishonoured for ever.

Everybody's laughing
when she walks in the street.

She is the woman
that Agostino Tassi has had.

She's completely finished
as far as reputation is concerned

and the whole family Gentileschi
is stained forever.

So, in a way, it's obviously
fantastic because it's proved

she's saying the truth, but the
result is that she is a lost woman.

So what was Artemisia to do then?

No other choice - the convent,
or marriage.

It was here.

Let's have a look in.

'Armed with a hefty dowry, and the
promise of her lucrative potential

'as a painter, Orazio finally found
a buyer for his daughter.'

'On November 29th, 1612,

'Artemisia was married here
in Santo Spirito

'to a Florentine -
Pierantonio Stiattesi.'

Tell me about her husband.
Did she know him? No.

She had met him in the afternoon
for the first time.

The man was coming from Florence
for the wedding.

He was the younger brother of the lawyer

that had helped her father in the case.

But she has never seen him,

and the luck, that he's young,
and rather handsome,

and rather kind and not an old man

who they pulled out from God knows where.

So she's rather surprised because
the man she's marrying seems OK.

She's married here at night
with all the doors closed.

The Gentileschi fear that at any moment

the friends of Agostino Tassi,
and Tassi himself, who knows,

could come here and just
break the neck of Artemisia

and also of her husband-to-be.

So the wedding is completely secret.

Do we know who married them?
A priest? A friend?

No, it was the priest of the parish.

He himself was very nervous because
it's completely against the law

to close the door of a church
during a wedding.

You have to have all the doors open
so anybody who would say

the person is already married
could come in.

So where in the church did
they get married? The altar or...?

They did not get married in front
of the main altar but they got

married in a very small chapel,
which is on the side, with no-one.

Artemisia did not have a woman with her.

Usually, when you are the bride
you have people...

A maidservant or somebody? Yes.

No-one, just the future wife,
the future husband, the father

and two witnesses.

Strangely enough, at the beginning,
it would be a true couple.

It would be an association,
a business association,

because he takes care of dealing
with the contracts and everything,

and she paints and begins painting.

So here, her career really begins.

# In questo prato adorno

# Ogni selvaggio nume

# Sovente ha per costume

# Di far lieto soggiorno. #

If Rome was Artemisia's undoing,

then Florence was to be
the making of her.

Assisted by letters
of introduction from her father,

Artemisia arrived here in Florence
not long after her marriage.

# Sovente ha per costume

# Di far lieto soggiorno. #

This was a second chance for her.

An opportunity for her to shake off
the stigma of the rape trial and

rise again as a professional painter,
but this time on her own terms.

That is, so long as she stayed
out of trouble.

# Qui Pan dio de' pastori

# S'udi talor dolente

# Rimembrar dolcemente

# Suoi sventurati amori. #

17th-century Florence
was a wealthy city of merchants

and warlords dominated by the Medici,

a dynasty of bankers
in the last throes of their reign.

For the newly arrived Artemisia,
illiterate and with a chequered past,

finding the crucial patron
she would need would not be easy.

By Artemisia struck lucky. Her first
break came from none other than

Michelangelo Buonarroti The Younger,

the great-nephew of Michelangelo.

Artemisia, both as a woman artist
and an expert on the female nude,

was to be the perfect choice
for his new project.

Atermisia's panel was called
The Allegory of Inclination.

That is to say,
the female personification

of a particular quality
of the artist Michelangelo.

And so, the inclination means
he was destined to be a great artist

by virtue of his birth.

Did she come to Florence with a
different attitude, having left Rome?

Was this something new for her?

You might say she thought
she had that inclination, you know.

She too was someone destined to be...

She was fiercely ambitious,
fiercely ambitious.

This is the most important thing
about her, I think.

And not just to succeed,

not to be somebody
who got great commissions

and was known around Europe -

that was true, but she really
wanted to be a great artist.

She got the concept from looking
around her at this very place.

I think the idea, almost, was planted.

If it hadn't planted already
it was planted for her in the way

that Michelangelo was celebrated.

I mean, she really had that goal in mind.

She wanted to be a great artist,
not just a great woman artist,

a great artist... Yes.

..compared to Michelangelo,
Caravaggio, Orazio certainly.

A canny strategist,
Artemisia began to educate herself

in music and literature,

using her beauty and charm

to move through the elite circles
of Florentine society.

But before she could achieve her
ultimate goal

of accessing the Medici court itself,

she needed to produce work
on a grander scale.

Nicola? Hello, Michael.

Hello, very nice to meet you.

Nicola McGregor runs a painting
workshop in the centre of Florence

along similar lines to the one
Artemisia was assembling

for her fledging business.

Would she have had assistants
and a workshop to run?

On the large paintings and on frescoes,

she'd have definitely had assistants.

Probably some that were very good
at doing flesh tones,

some that were very good
at doing landscapes.

The design, obviously, was hers,
the drawing was hers,

the ideas were hers.

She probably mapped it out.

You know, the last say is obviously
by the artist.

Although the vision
was ultimately Artemisia's,

much of her work does not bear her
signature, which has led to

heated debates among scholars about
what is and what is not by her hand.

Most of her work was
commissioned specifically.

They weren't painters that were
just sitting in their studio,

painting, trying to find a buyer.

They would've painted on commission.

So it was obvious, if you commission
a painting from Artemisia,

so there was no need to sign.

Artemisia didn't just have a business
to run, she had a family too.

Information recently discovered
by Dr Sheila Barker shows that she

lived with her husband in this area,
close to Sant'Ambrogio church.

It was during this time
their first two children died.

The third child,

who was baptised here, is Cristofano,

named after a painter
that she was friends with,

and who was godfather of the child.

So that's three children we know for
certain perished? Yeah. Wow.

Was this in any way common at that time?

Or was it very unusual to have...?

Lose three children? I would
say it's very bad statistics.

To lose your first three children is
quite unusual, even in those times.

While in Florence, Artemisia gave
birth to one surviving daughter,

who she called Prudentia,
after her late mother.

Although touched by loss,
Artemisia remained productive,

making her way each day
across the city to her workshop.

So I suppose it's not changed a lot,
Florence, has it?

No, not in the essential ways, no!
Well, that's good.

We're doing Artemisia's walk...
To work.

..through Florence.
Her daily commute. Yeah.

Would she be with anybody,
or walking on her own?

She would have been very careful
to walk with a servant

so that she would be seen as
a great lady. Ah, I see.

So status was important?
Very important.

And clothing would have been
very important

as a way of announcing her status
as well.

I can tell you from the purchases
she was making

that it was perhaps her most
important business decision.

So what kind of outfits
are we talking about here?

Were these expensive dresses?
Extremely expensive.

She was dressing at the level
of the ladies at court.

And yet she didn't pay for any of it.

You walked into the stores and
took it all on credit. Fantastic!

I call it creative financing. OK!

That's much more poetic.

With her eye always on the main chance,

Artemisia made sure to pass through
this square in her finest outfits,

hoping to attract the attention of
the wealthy residents of Santa Croce,

with their contacts to the Medici court.

The piazza's filled with the palaces
of the wealthy silk merchants

that she was contracting debts with.

Artemisia sought out these cavaliere,

these knights of Florence.

Because not only were they wealthy,
but, as knights, they would've been

invited to all the court festivals,
and they would've had

the opportunity to mention
this fantastically talented woman.

They were happy to be able to broker
a relationship between her

and the Grand Duke -
that made them important.

So as she's dressing the part
of the heroine she paints,

she becomes a kind of walking heroine.

And she allows for these
potential patrons

to enter into this imaginary story.

It was theatre.

She has prearranged -
in this one particular case -

to be in the home of a gold merchant
that she was friends with.

And the two of them have plans
to be in a conversation

just as a wealthy silk merchant
walks in the door.

Artemisia says to her friend,
"Please, loan me this money,

"I'm desperate for this money!"

And he responds,
"I wish I could, but I can't.

"I don't have the money."

And who saves the day?

The wealthy silk merchant
walking in the door

sees a woman in distress,
and he offers to loan her the money.

So she was an actress?

She was a consummate actress,
it sounds like, too?

She was a scriptwriter as well!

So he loaned her the money, and of
course, she didn't pay it back,

she gave him a painting in exchange.

Music and art were
the vocabulary that was

shared by all of these refined gentleman.

And Artemisia made a point
of learning that vocabulary.

It would seem that Artemisia's
strategy paid off.

Many of her works can be found

amongst the priceless treasures
of the Pitti Palace.

By painting popular historical themes,

Artemisia fully developed
a style of her own,

whilst maintaining one of her most
loyal and influential patrons -

Cosimo II de' Medici.

What strikes me so powerfully
about this painting

is the moment of drama it captures.

And this is a very dramatic moment
in the story

of the beheading of Holofernes.

The deed has been done,
they're about to leave the tent,

and something has made them stop.

And the way Artemisia's captured
Judith's face there,

you can see what she's done,
the slight flushing of the cheeks,

the damp curls on the head,
you know what she's been through.

Her mouth just slightly open,
waiting, listening,

that someone might discover them.

And you can see the servant there,
looking off to one side.

But really Artemisia has made Judith

the centre of attention in this painting.

Even the way the light source comes in,

it comes on her neck and her breast

and reminds us, this is a woman
who has done this deed.

Not apologising for femininity,
celebrating it,

but she's had to do this deed.

And the great thing is that the head
of Holofernes

is almost like an afterthought.

There it is,
down the bottom of the painting,

rather like they've just
got it from the supermarket.

There's a certain sense

in which every artist
is always in every work.

It's something that's been
attributed to Cosimo de' Medici

in the 15th century -
"Every artist paints himself."

In a sense,
Artemisia's always painting herself.

So she's in it.

But "she's in the character"

doesn't mean the character can be
reduced to that particular person.

To me, that's an important distinction.

She helps to give that character reality.

Artemisia flourished in Florence.

Most significantly,

she created a series of complex
female protagonists.

It seems to me Artemisia might have
used her own tragic experiences -

the loss of her mother, her rape and
the premature death of her children -

to breathe life
into the wronged women of history.

The likes of Cleopatra.

Lucrecia.

Bathsheba.

And Mary Magdalene.

Magdalene, for example, the tainted
woman who became redeemed

by virtue of her conversion
to follow Christ.

So these characters have,
even when they're good,

they have a dimension of complexity.

That's not always captured in art,
it tends to be either-or.

Artemisia gives them that dimensionality,

so there's a kind of deeper
psychology in her characters.

She depicted their suffering,
captured their longing,

and understood their tangled
moral dilemmas.

Transforming them
from victims into survivors.

Her time in the city had in fact been
a triumph, professionally.

Culminating in the highest honour
an artist could receive -

membership of the Academy
of Drawing and Arts.

Artemisia was one of the first women
to receive such public recognition

and proof of her inclination
as a great painter.

Never one to stay
out of trouble for long,

Artemisia's own reality was
becoming slightly complicated.

By 1620, estranged from her husband
and behind with her commissions,

Artemisia decided to leave Florence
in search of new adventures.

The dramatic backdrop of Naples

would become home to Artemisia
for the last act of her life.

After a decade of travel
through the great cities of Europe

as a feted lady artist,

she finally made her base
in this Spanish-ruled city,

with 450,000 inhabitants

and 500 churches crammed inside
its old walls.

Which of course meant wealthy patrons
and abundant church commissions.

Artemisia's stay in Naples

was in marked contrast to her time
in Rome and Florence.

The narrow streets of the Spanish
quarter were full to bursting

with a recent surge of immigrants.

Within a year of her arrival here,
Mount Vesuvius erupted spectacularly,

killing thousands along the coast.

There were even rumours
that incoming artists were being

poisoned by indigenous painters
for stealing their commissions.

By now,
Artemisia was a seasoned survivor.

Her clever stratagems
and business prowess

meant she quickly
established new patrons here

whilst being careful to keep up
her old contacts from a distance.

And she's got some quite
impressive friends.

Galileo was someone she wrote to
in 1635. Galileo Galilei.

And she writes to him as a friend -

"My most illustrious sir
and most respected master."

And then proceeds onto a bit of a whinge

about someone who's not paid up:

"From his most serene highness,
my natural prince..."

Ferdinando II.
"..I've received no favour.

"I assure your lordship
that I would value the smallest

"of favours from him
more than the many I've received

"from the King of France, the King
of Spain, the King of England -

"and all the other princes
of Europe."

So she's quite good
at dropping a few names.

A letter here in 1636
to Andrea Cioli in Florence.

He was attached to Cosimo Medici,
a secretary to the court there.

In this, you really hear her
spirits dropping a bit.

"I have no further desire to
stay in Naples.

"Both because of the fighting" -
"tumulti di guerra" -

"and because of the hard life
and the high cost of living.

"Please be so kind as to reply to me,

"since I have no other desire
in this life."

Again, touch of the drama there,
touch of the drama queen.

Always part of Artemisia's approach.

Apart from these letters,

there's very little information
about Artemisia's life in Naples.

What we do know is that the only time
she did leave this turbulent city was

for two years in London, where she
added Charles I to her contact book.

And it was there
she buried her father Orazio,

who had been working in England
as a court painter.

The few pieces that've survived
from her Neapolitan period

show a variable output,

producing an acknowledged masterpiece -

an innovative self-portrait, now in
the British Royal Collection...

..but also more commercial work,
with a softer edge.

Did she see herself as a brand in Naples?

After 1630, the whole artistic
milieu in Italy changes.

Caravaggio's revolution had been
the radical turning point

of the Italian art, and probably of
the European art, in many respects.

But it was a very sort of short spark.

And after that, the baroque came up
with new issues and new instances.

And she changes her style, like
many other painters of her time.

So she becomes also very Neapolitan
in some respects.

She uses the palette and the colours
of the Neapolitan artists.

She probably abandons the dark
lighting of the early works.

On one hand, she was to collaborate
with prominent masters

of the local artistic milieu
like Stanzione or Cavallino.

On the other hand,

she was to produce quite
a number of versions, executed

at different degrees of quality,

in order to satisfy cheaper orders,
cheaper commissions.

We know Artemisia continued to paint
into her 60s,

but how and when she died
is still a mystery.

One theory is that she was claimed
by the great plague of 1656,

which swept through Naples.

But like much of her history,

the details have been lost over the
centuries which separate her from us.

But as another chapter opens
in the city of her greatest triumphs,

Artemisia Gentileschi
could be coming a little closer.

One of Artemisia's
large-scale commissions

has been discovered in the attics
of the Pitti Palace in Florence.

Part of a mission by modern-day
patron Jane Fortune

to rescue neglected artworks by women.

There are 2,000 works of art
by women that we found

that have been languishing there
for centuries.

And the Artemisia Gentileschi
had been there for 363 years.

It was in deplorable condition.
The humidity - there had once

been a hole in the roof
and the rain had come down on it.

So when we saw it,
most of the paint had come off.

There were just chunks of pieces
where you didn't see anything.

And there was a question as to

whether they should restore it or not,

because it was
in such deplorable condition.

But I said,
it's an Artemisia Gentileschi -

she's one of the finest painters
in the world, man or woman.

She's one of the best.
You cannot let this painting die.

And that's what it was going to do,
just die.

The onerous task of restoration

fell to Nicola McGregor's
conservation workshop.

It was a huge project

because of the size of the painting
to begin with,

and because of the amount of damage.

And not only the amount of missing areas,

but also the parts of the colour
that were still there

had obviously been cleaned and recleaned.

A lot of the final glazes
were no longer there,

so it didn't have the rounded finish

that most post-Caravaggesque
paintings have,

and her other paintings.

Can you describe what would be
the process of dealing with

an Artemisia painting in a bad state?

You have to decide whether

the colour needs consolidating
immediately,

so that you can touch it or move it.

Or, very often it needs cleaning
first, a very gentle cleaning,

because sometimes
there's a lot of old retouching

that covers the original paint.

And of course, one forgets that
a painting has a life of its own.

Over the years
it's been repainted and touched up

and changed in many different shapes
and forms. Yes.

I mean, usually, most of
the paintings I've worked on,

like the Artemisia, have had four
or five different filling layers,

which meant that over the years
it had been restored repeatedly.

They did restore it, but it's
very controversial how they did it

because they didn't paint over, like
they normally do with paintings.

What they did is they did
muted colours, blues and tans,

and filled in the spots
that were missing the paint,

and so what happens is, when you
stand away from the painting

your eye makes it look like
the painting is full.

When you come up to the painting,

you can see where it's been filled in.

We couldn't repaint the eye.
We wanted to keep it consistent,

so that what was left of Artemisia
would emerge.

It's an amazing piece,
it's an amazing piece.

And when they did it they could not
find David in the painting.

And it was about a week or so

before we were going to show
the painting to the public,

and they were cleaning up
in this little corner,

and here's David, this little teeny,
teeny picture of David,

and everybody was
so excited we found David!

This rediscovery is now
part of an ongoing quest to define

Artemisia's output,
culminating tonight in

an international conference of
academics, writers and fans

from all over the world who
have come here to talk Artemisia.

To me, Artemisia is so interesting
because she's like a chameleon.

She's so often hidden under all the names

and other artists' names.

And she comes, after scrutiny,

she comes to be a very
unpredictable artist at times.

That's why I like her.

You have a feeling, this ridiculous
feeling, you know her in some way,

or she's telling you something
and you have to respond in some way.

It becomes a very personal art
for a lot of people. Exactly.

Yes, I think so.

I think people responded
very personally to her.

They feel they know her.

I think she speaks,
particularly for women,

to some aspect of their lives.

They want to champion her, and
as they do they champion themselves.

I think there's a lot to that.

Is this still a lot of information
to be gathered on Artemisia?

Archives to be unlocked?

It's still a mine to be explored.

You know, we only have

these individual slices of moments
in her life.

Someday maybe we'll have a more wide
picture of the whole life.

In her keynote speech,
world expert Mary Garrard

highlights a disturbing new trend
in attribution.

The Artemisia discourse has also
generated sharp disagreements

over attributions among
scholars and curators -

even between co-curators -

with the result that Artemisia's
artistic identity

is far from fixed or agreed upon.

More and more works are turning
up in recent exhibitions

and on the market
which are pretty questionable

as attributions to Artemisia,

and with the result that we used to have

a much clearer sense of the oeuvre.

Now we're being asked to
accept things that

either widen our understanding
of what she was capable of,

or really we should just
raise our eyebrows and say,

"That's not possible."

Artemisia's name cannot be
a wastebasket into which

we dump images of women
that do not remotely resemble

those she painted, or even each other.

Realistically...

With Artemisia Gentileschi paintings

now selling for over a million dollars,

and with around half of what
she produced still missing,

it's no wonder that
so many works of dubious quality

and providence
are emerging from the woodwork.

We can account for this tremendous
range of works

that don't look much alike

by the fact that
she was a kind of chameleon.

She was out to please her patrons.

But to say that she did that all the time

and that's why none of these things
look like each other

is to take away all her artistic
identity completely,

and say she didn't have any core.
She didn't have any sort of...

And I don't think that's plausible

on the basis of the works that we know.

She was too strong and too determined

and too coherent a personality,
an artist, for that to be the case.

Not only was she a woman
in a man's world,

handicapped by gender,
rather she was an artist

with an edge, whose legacy
is ours to recover and preserve.

Thank you.

My quest for Artemisia is almost over.

Let's hope that having finally found
a fuller picture of this

unique artist, we're not
in danger of losing her again.

Artemisia Gentileschi
was a force of nature.

You can see it in her paintings,

the best of which combine physical
energy and emotional engagement.

You can also see it in the subjects
she chose, very often

the wronged woman of history -
Susanna, Cleopatra, Lucrecia, Judith.

And she didn't treat them as victims,

but as people in control
of their own destiny.

And you can see it in her own life.

Artemisia was a survivor.

She was a cool operator

who never compromised her sexuality
or her femininity.

In fact, she used them both

to create a whole new way
of looking at woman in art.

Very nice to see you. Excellent.

Excellent.