Not to be Missed:
A Splendid Survey of Italian Luminaries

by Margaret Michniewicz

Monumental and dynamic. Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) is bringing together a very, very special gift - and we are the lucky recipients. Italian Women Artists from Renaissance to Baroque will feature more than sixty works of art in various media by fifteen artists spanning the approximate period of 1525 through 1665. To be perfectly blunt, the images distributed for advance publicity don't fully convey just what a treat this show is!

The exhibition will offer numerous pieces by the luminaries Anguissola, Gentileschi, and Fontana as well as some artists who have remained shrouded in obscurity, but whose inclusion illuminates and contextualizes the careers and lives of the more renowned artists. Works range from images of saccharinely-sentimental Madonnas-with-Child to grisly beheadings in progress; lovely still life paintings of fruit to intricate sculptural carvings of actual fruit pits; scenes of little childrens' faces imbued with truly delightful expressive personality to portraits of noblewomen whose expression reads cross me at your own peril.

Though we have come to know why feminist scholar Linda Nochlin was right-on to ask "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists", thereby conceding the ugly truth revealed by the question (there haven't been), we also have come to discover that there were many more women at work, earlier in time and sometimes more successfully, than the stodgy old art historians like author H.W. Janson led us to believe in his archaic art history textbooks. This exhibition, through its five categories, promises to reveal some of the ways in which women artists never had a chance to attain deification equal to The Old Masters - due to the social, religious, cultural and economic structures in place at the time, rather than inherent deficiency in talent.

This is the first time that women artists from this art historical time period will be presented together in one exhibit, notes NMWA senior curator Jordana Pomeroy, who is co-curating the show with Vera Fortunati, a professor of art history at the University of Bologna. The two have taken an interdisciplinary approach to explore the major challenges facing women artists of the time: the economics of art production (who commissioned and paid for art) and the cultural context of women working in Italy and Europe (how did women artists overcome long-held societal roles and cultural biases to succeed as artists). Visitors will find the show organized in five sections: Giorgio Vasari and the Renaissance Virtuosa; Education and Training; Marketing Strategies; Patrons and Power; and Public Identity.

Lovers of art know that "The Renaissance" - which for most people still necessarily equates with "Italian" - is the period by which all of Western visual culture seems to be judged. Later artists may have rejected the principles of the era, but can't escape being defined by it. Florence was the movement's birthplace and remains nirvana for art historians today, but to the women who lived there in the formative stages of the Renaissance, it was essentially comprised of the interior of a home that literally turned inward to courtyards, or the interior of the church with the view fixed on trompe l'oeil heavens. Views of the city - of life - were only glimpsed through small windows, high above street level. Even those women who escaped such monastic-like constraints would encounter barriers preventing them from studying human anatomy, particularly male, and rising through the professional ranks of guilds and workshops. And so, while Florence prompted the explosion of artistic creativity by men, it was a particularly confining place for women artists.

It is worth noting that Professor Fortunati hails from Bologna - and most of the artists in this exhibit lived and worked there, too, if only for a time. Bologna's university was one of the first to admit women to study, in the early 13th century. In stark contrast to Florence, Bologna progressively promoted the education and public participation of women, as evidenced in the art produced by the city's daughters.

This show is not only a once-in-a-lifetime look firsthand at the art created by a dynamic group of women artists, it's also an excellent crash-course in the many subcategories of styles and schools that we give the blanket title of "Renaissance" and "Baroque" art. This includes the classical idealism inspired by antiquity; the attention to detail and naturalism that characterized the Northern European Renaissance; the drama of Caravaggio's tenebrism to the lush color of Correggio; monumental pyramidal structure juxtaposed with the wild dynamism of Baroque's diagonals, shaking things up - it's all here, as rendered by the hands of women.

Of the sixty-plus works of art included in this exhibition, 45 are traveling not just from Italy but on-loan from collections in Poland, London, and Vienna, in addition to several privately-owned works. The opportunity to view these as a collection in context, or for that matter to see some of them at all, is extremely rare.

The works presented in this exhibition portray a wide range of subject matter. I've pointed to particular examples that reveal the talent of the women artists working at so early a time in history, and in particular, that portray images of women as complex individuals of substance, character, and personality. This is one of the most important art exhibitions you can probably ever bring your daughter, your mother, your son, your self to see.

Some Highlights

Properzia de' Rossi: Life Can be the Pits

If it was rare for women to pursue a career in art in the 16th century, to be a sculptor was even less likely - which makes it remarkable that the earliest known woman artist of the Renaissance was Properzia de' Rossi. Properzia sculpted in marble - not an inexpensive process. What would it be like to be imbued with the fervent desire to create art, without access to the resources to do so? It seems that the answer for Properzia was to make art, rather successfully, out of whatever she could get her hands on - such as the elaborate bejeweled assemblages she crafted out of fruit pits. In the NMWA show, you can see a family crest she fashioned out of peach nuts and silver filigree, or a cherry pit bedecked with gold and pearls. Properzia was commissioned to sculpt relief panels for the expansion of Bologna's San Petronio church façade, including one to depict the Biblical story of Joseph and Potiphar's Wife. In this scene, the heroic Joseph (of Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat fame) rebuffs the sexual advances of his boss's wife, which will get him unjustly imprisoned. Properzia skillfully and dramatically depicted the moment when the woman reaches after the hastily retreating Joseph in a marble panel all of 54 x 58 cm. Yet it's not the artist's talent that was recognized; rather, her contemporaries attributed the success of the sculpture to its creation by a woman scorned in love. Though you will not see this work on view in the NMWA show, it is illustrative of the "special" ways that the lives of women artists were often written into their art - desperate ways to account for their talent. Properzia died of the plague at age 40.

Sofonisba Anguissola: Rising to Michelangelo's Challenge

Anguissola had the opportunity as a very young woman to send a drawing to Michelangelo for his critique. It's said that the great legend was complimentary about the smiling young woman that Anguissola drew for him, but that he challenged her to draw what he described as the "more difficult" subject of a crying boy. Anguissola saw Michelangelo and raised him one: she sent him a new drawing of a little boy wailing from being bitten by a crayfish while his older sister (the figure originally sent to Michelangelo) smiles with gentle amusement at the little one's misfortune. Michelangelo was impressed enough by the young artist's drawing that he subsequently presented it as a gift to one of his patrons - and the most powerful figure in Florence - the Medici duke Cosimo. This drawing is one of the extra special treats to be found in the NMWA show. The other, also by Anguissola, is The Chess Game. With this painting, art historians herald Anguissola as having inaugurated a more engaging form of portraiture in which the sitters are engaged in activity, rather than static posing. She depicted two of her sisters immersed in the game, with a young sister and the girls' governess looking on. The eldest has made her move, turning to us with a satisfied look and unaware of the sly move her opponent is about to counter with, which is causing the youngest sister to break into an impish grin. To see this delightful, marvelously expressive face in person promises to be well worth the price of admission, and a greater travel bargain than the next flight across the Atlantic. Anguissola was recommended by a diplomat to serve in the King of Spain's court, where she spent a decade as lady-in-waiting to the Queen. This gave her intimate personal access to the royal family, and it shows in the portraits she rendered. On the downside, her social status dictated that she could not sell her paintings - she could only share them as gifts. Anguissola lived for more than 90 years, well-known throughout her life as an accomplished, professional artist, particularly of portraits. We will never know the full extent of her accomplishments, as dozens of her paintings were lost in a fire in Spain years later. The NMWA show will include a self-portrait by Sofonisba's younger sister Lucia, also a painter.

Artemisia Gentileschi: The Drama Queen

The most famous artist included here is Artemisia Gentileschi. Both she and her father pursued the style of that Baroque badboy Caravaggio, with his gritty realism emboldened by dramatic diagonals and stark contrasts of light against inky darkness. Gentileschi, underway in her painting career, was raped by the artist her father hired to train her further. She underwent the humiliation of her own honor being questioned in the public trial, and voluntarily underwent the torturous "truth test" of having screws driven into her thumbs, to prove she was telling the truth about her ordeal. As a result, some modern day art historians have suggested that her subsequent paintings reveal trauma, and perhaps vengeful feelings - particularly the ones that portray a woman severing a man's head. While it's hard to imagine that the violation of her person by her teacher doesn't inform her work, it does not account for her choice of subject matter. In the Baroque era, a highly popular Biblical story to depict was the episode of Judith and Holofernes. The widow Judith, whose people were subjugated by the Assyrian ruler Holofernes, stole behind enemy lines and coyly talked her way into Holofernes' tent. Getting him drunk, she then took advantage of his weakened state and decapitated him, escaping with the head as proof of the occupiers' huge loss. Although Gentileschi made numerous paintings portraying Judith, depicting various points in the narrative, essentially all the artists working at the time did, too. But to compare the Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio with Gentileschi's rendition is amusing. For all the nastiness of Caravaggio (he killed a man in reality), his depiction presents a wisp of a Judith slicing off Holofernes' head with an improbable delicacy. Gentileschi's Judith, however, is a woman anchoring herself with a knee on the bed, holding Holofernes' head in place by the scruff of his beard, disregarding the blood spraying on her gown as she saws through flesh - and bone. This painting is gruesome, compositionally dynamic, and brilliant in execution. So to speak.

In this particular painting, traveling from Naples, Judith's gown is blue and her maidservant's is red. Seven or so years after this painting was done, Gentileschi painted another version nearly identical in composition, though somewhat more removed spatially than the earlier, tighter composition. Judith's gown in the 1620 painting is gold, her maidservant's also a light color. The only regret I have about the works gathered here is that we won't see these two renditions side by side for comparison. There will be five other great works by Gentileschi; no one loses their head in the others, though.

Lavinia Fontana: La Virtuosa

Prohibited from studying human anatomy, while male artists learned from live models as well as studies on cadavers, the skills of women artists were often impeded. As talented artists, however, they creatively negotiated such problems in inventive ways. Thus, if Gentileschi was not familiar enough with male anatomy, we can't tell because she portrays Holofernes under bed covers. Some of the phenomenal portraits of noblewomen by Lavinia Fontana feature spectacularly detailed bejeweled gowns. Fontana's popularity as a portraitist grew in part because of her skill to depict, in oil paint, the most intricate details. The acoutrements Fontana bestowed upon her subjects in perpetuity lent a heightened level of grandeur. Fontana's Portrait of Costanza Alidosi depicts her subject as a serious woman, appearing on the verge of making a move, resplendent in finery with a tiny lapdog nestled in the crook of her arm. We will be able to compare this portrait of a noblewoman by Fontana with another noblewoman's portrait on loan from the Baltimore Museum of Art. The portrait of this woman is another example of why not to miss this show. Ginevra Aldrovardi Hercolani is also resplendent in exquisitely detailed finery. She is shown standing, with the paw of a little dog in what appears a vise-like grip. Dogs have traditionally been included in works of art as symbols of fidelity; here, if we are to heed the expression on Ginevra's face, Fido's compromised position conveys the message to he who would view Ginevra's portrait: you cross me and I'll rip your little paw off.

Italian Women Artists from Renaissance to Baroque
March 16 - July 15
National Museum of Women in the Arts
1250 New York Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C
For information, call 202-783-5000 or visit www.nmwa.org.

Margaret Michniewicz is editor of Vermont Woman newspaper, and teaches art history.