Analysis Of Artemisia Gentileschi's 'Guerrilla Girls'

In the article “Bring female artists out of storage”, it talks about a group called Guerrilla Girls. Guerrilla Girls is a feminist group that started in 1985. As vigilantes who wear Guerrilla masks, they would go around to different art museums and shame the art world with wheat paste and posters for the underrepresentation of women artist. Their objective was to try and prove a point that women artists were slim to none and wanted to bring that to light in the art world. In doing so they uncovered that less “than 5% of the modern works in the Metropolitan Museum in New York were by women, but 85% of the nudes were female” (Vickery).

Women have been overlooked in the art world and treated with disrespect but why? Based off the article, literature

She was born in Rome and her father is a celebrated painter Orazio Gentileschi. Her father tough her everything he knew until she reached the level of training that had passed his own ability. Therefore, her father hired a painter Agostino Tassi to further her skills in painting. Eventually, Tassi had raped her which went on to have “tremendously negative impact on Gentileschi’s reputation” which could have inspired her to do the biblical artwork that is a very graphical murder done by two women (Artemisia). Artemisia Gentileschi was the only female artist to follow Caravaggio and his work of art. She had also worked with Caravaggio in Italy in the early 17th century. Working with Caravaggio could have had an inspiration on her artwork as well. “Her innovative compositions and focus on Biblical heroines set her apart from her male contemporaries and have lead to the celebration of Gentileschi as a painter with a uniquely female perspective”

Which ties the biblical time frame into the artwork. Also, the clothing being worn in the artwork by the women and the man, show off the culture of what time frame the artwork is supposed to take place. Gentileschi’s style of the artwork is demonstrated by the sword as it would have been used in the biblical times. As well as the clothing of the women and man shows the biblical time frame as to which the artwork is supposed to take place. Therefore, both painting have the same style to the artwork. Caravaggio’s content shows a biblical time but has two women at the scene of the crime. Which one women is watching as the other women is committing the crime. As the artwork is looked at you can see that the women are not angry or sad but instead afraid or nervous. This could be because, Caravaggio is trying to show his life within the artwork. Knowing that he has killed before and people may be afraid or nervous about him. Gentileschi’s content of the artwork shows a biblical time where two women are working together to kill the man lying on the bed. One women is holding the man’s arm down trying to keep him from moving. While the other women drives a sword through the man’s neck killing him. Also, by looking at the artwork you can see that both women are not afraid but instead determined to kill the man. This can be explained by Gentileschi’s life experience as she was raped by her painting teacher.