The Gentileschi's

The Penitent Mary Magdalen, ca. 1622 David Contemplating the Head of Goliath, ca. 1610
Artemisia Gentileschi Orazio Gentileschi

Probably the only father-daughter artist team in history, the Gentileschi's were to capture the essence of Caravaggio and the Baroque. I had the pleasure of seeing a lot of both artist's work in Rome a couple of years back, and I always found their paintings moving and vibrant. Artemisia's fame eventually outshone her father's, and even to this day as a feminist icon with a film and a documentary made of her life she inspires women, but the study of Orazio as an influential painter and father needs to be recognized also. Comparing the two very different paintings above we see a stylistic similarity in graceful body language and expressiveness. Where the father and daughter similarities end is in use of light— Artemisia more deeply influenced by chiaroscuro and drama where Orazio favoured vivid colours and subtle dynamism. Artemisia of course would take tenebrism to an extreme with bloody violence but she also maintained her father's sensibility for grace and expressiveness in her other major works.

Madonna and Child, 1610
Artemisia Gentileschi

This painting has a very Rubenesque feel to it, and one of her best Madonna paintings. In a rare display of affection and maternal love, the Christ child gazes up to touch the face of Mary with a sense of maturity and respect beyond his years. Artemisia also shows her ability to utilize color when she wants to. Mary flows nicely in an s-shape with baby Christ counterbalancing, with nice use of red and blue. Despite Artemisia's reputation as bitter and misandrist, here we see a warm and tender side, as she did marry and have children later in life to confirm this.

Young Woman Playing a Violin, ca. 1622
Orazio Gentileschi

This stunning portrait shows a dynamic angle and highly expressive face that is unusually rare for a Baroque portrait. I like how the violin and box form an X. And the use of red and yellow underneath white against a black background heightens the drama. What a tribute to musicians and to women. Orazio deserves credit as a progressive father in an age where women were not taken very seriously at all in the arts.

Judith and Her Maidservant, ca.1615
Artemisia Gentileschi

Figures bathed in warm light against a dark background is not new, but that they are looking away from us off to the right is an interesting twist. Judith must have been a huge inspirational figure for Artemisia as a courageous woman who kills the enemy Assyrian leader without an army, but her own intelligence and a sword. It is difficult to imagine the effect her work must have had on women of her era but I'm sure they would have found her to be a heroine of the arts.

Finding of Moses, ca.1630
Orazio Gentileschi

Orazio has anatomy that is oddly proto-Ingres in this painting. Compositionally the women form a triangle yet with the woman on the far left kneeling in green, her arm pointing to the baby Moses makes the entire figure arrangement into a square along with the woman holding the baby. The Titian inspired skies are evident here, but Orazio's unique drapery and colors makes us stop and observe here. The hands that point around the child form a diamond-shape around him. Note the arrangement of the women here also: two vertical, two horizontal, and three foreshortened in a near straight line. How Orazio manages to create detail in the trees behind them without distracting the foreground drama by sheer use of value and color is a tribute to his underrated genius. Artemisia came from good stock. This was a family that should have continued a lineage of painters...

Isaac Levitan, Russian Poet of Nature

Before the Storm, 1890 Born August 30, 1860, Isaac Ilyich Levitan was a Russian landscape painter. Born in Congress Poland to a Jewish family, Levitan would study art in Moscow where he would become friends with Anton Chekov and his brother, Nikolay who was also an artist. Levitan's work has a unique mood that is very distinct from the Impressionism of France and the Classicism of Russia...sometimes compared to Monet but still different. Levitan has a rare presence with astute attention to detail and a fascination with light at different times of day. At times highly accurate, while in his more personal work deeply Impressionistic and imbued with rich tone and color. There is something about Levitan that lingers in your mind long after seeing his work...in a way that is individual and personal, not attached to a specific genre or movement, but to the world around him. In Before the Storm , Levitan captures a moment so stunning it seems to defy words...of sunlight piercing ...

More Old Master Drawings

There is nothing in all the world more beautiful or significant of the laws of the universe than the nude human body. Robert Henri Charles Louis Müller , A Standing Female Nude Leaning Against an Arch, ca.1864 Once again I decided to talk about some Old Master drawings and delve into the thinking behind how these drawings may have been created and the knowledge of the artist. In the above drawing by Müller, done in sanguine with white chalk highlights, the figure is drawn from a low view-point, with her body twisting toward her left side while resting on one knee. Note how Müller alternates the bent right leg with the bent left arm to create dynamic contrast. The right arm is also foreshortened and partially in shadow. Expressing power and femininity, this is a study that is Renaissance in spirit, even Mannerist, revealing the female nude as sculptural yet always graceful. Anton Raphael Mengs , Seated male nude viewed from the back, 1755 One of several Academic nu...

Chiaroscuro Landscapes with a Forgotten Dutch Master

Italian landscape, ca. 1645 Born around 1615 in Utrecht, Netherlands, Jan Dirksz Both was a painter and etcher whose dramatic landscapes influenced Dutch painting deeply. Both spent time in Rome and Venice where he discovered several Masters, including the vibrant landscapes of Claude Lorrain. Where Lorrain used Classicism heavily in his paintings, with Roman architecture and figures, Both concentrated more on the luminous effects of light and elevated trees to a noble kind of natural architecture. Both also created atmosphere and mood with perspective in a way that not only depicts a view, but invites us to share a beautiful moment of fleeting sunlight. In Italian landscape above, Both leaves much of the foreground in shadow, something most landscape painters would never do. Note how the light is coming from the far left, beyond the frame of the painting. Look at how it falls across the rustic path—Both creates a sliver of light where his figures stand, on horseback, pos...

beside the easel

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