While you ponder on which you prefer, you can get both at The National Gallery. T and A; Titian and Artemisia.
Yesterday I was taken to Artemisia. Did I know anything about her? Absolutely not. Probably a 20th century woman of colour who was raped, I guessed. Curators are getting so woke. Well I was right about the rape but she was Italian, painting in the first half of the 17th century. The only other woman I know who has achieved fame in those days is a Venetian portrait painter a hundred years later. I mention this because, so patronisingly, they are both known by their Christian names: Artemisia Gentileschi and Rosalba Carriera. Male artists are, I think, invariably called by their surnames, derived from their fathers. There are exceptions, like Bosch, but on the whole it’s the fact of the matter. So why don’t feminists latch on to this?
There are probably fewer than fifty of her pictures in the National Gallery show. They have been drawn from collections all over Europe and North America. She painted the earliest when she was a teenager and the latest when she was over sixty. I was astonished how little her style changed. She is a one-trick pony, good at depicting tits and ass for aristocratic patrons (Medici, Charles II, etc) wanting a bit of wall porn.
Particularly interesting is that she has only recently been re-discovered. One fine picture, from a private collection, was only found to be by her in 2014. (Must look in attic to see if I have any.) I don’t think this is a spoiler but you may not be able to see the exhibition. Every picture has a naked woman in foreground, then she introduces a bit of variety. Sometimes they are starkers being covertly watched by pervy men. There again the woman might be hacking off the head of a man – quite gory. Another theme is the woman carrying off the severed head in a basket.
I found it of immense interest to come to the work of an artist unknown to me – more rewarding than Titian. Quite a few years ago, my hostess and I went to a Bronzino exhibition in Florence, so good that it is still in my mind. Bronzino’s work – 16th century – conveys more than Ms Gentileschi’s monotonous, voluptuous nudes.