Best of Baroque: Artemisia Gentileschi

Since October the National Gallery has been hosting the most extensive exhibition of leading Baroque artist, Artemisia Gentileschi. In 17th Century Europe, female artists were not easily accepted. Artemisia trained with her artist father, who no doubt helped her, but it was through her own astonishing talent that she gained her own excellent reputation.

I have read numerous accounts of Artemisia, however, last week’s BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week episode on the Great women of the classics was superb in introducing Artemisia’s background story and talking about her talents and the feminist gaze in her paintings and retelling of Biblical stories. You can listen back to that episode here.

The exhibition at the National Gallery is temporarily closed do to the second Coronavirus lockdown in England, however, it isn’t due to end until Janyary so there’s still time to plan a visit!