What would Artemisia wear?

Art x Fashion Edit #16

In “Self-Portrait, Allegory of Painting” (1638), Artemisia Gentileschi paints herself working. This mise-en-abyme is particularly potent for a woman painter in Renaissance Italy.

Not only were they few of them, but paintings of women also working were scarce. Mainly high society or mythical women were represented, and they were not presented doing activities reserved to men. Artemisia Gentileschi, daughter of an artist, was one of the few women who challenged the systemic hurdles presented to women wanting to be recognized for their work.

While her troubled story, tainted by her rape by her teacher and friend of her father, is often presented as a factor in the way she represents the violence men exhibit with women in her paintings (and vice versa), this painting is strictly personal.

By presenting herself in the canons of other classical painters painting themselves, she claims her spot in the Pantheon of talented painters. At the same time, the way she chooses to dress herself and her pose allow her to claim her femininity in a world where women have no place in the public sphere.

In short, Artemisia was a bold figure, claiming recognition. In between display and intellectuality, her works always have a hidden meaning and contemporary implications, they inspired strong shapes and comfortable pieces.