Artemisia Gentileschi and Caravaggio's looking glass
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Authors
Grundy, Susan Audrey
Issue Date
2004-06
Type
Dissertation
Language
en
Keywords
Gentileschi , Artemesia , Orazio , Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi) , Camera obscura technology , Inguisition , Painting techniques and practice , Baroque , Seicento , Italian painting , Painting and optics , David Hockney , Women's painting and feminist art history
Alternative Title
Abstract
Artemisia Gentileschi and Caravaggio's Looking Glass is an ironic allusion to both the
concave mirror and the biconvex lens. It was these simple objects, in colloquial terms a
shaving mirror and a magnifying glass, which Artemisia Gentileschi and her father
Orazio, learned from Caravaggio how to use to enhance the natural phenomenon of the
camera obscura effect. Painting from a projection meant that Artemisia could achieve
an extreme form of realism and detail in her work. This knowledge, which was of
necessity kept hidden, spooked the Inquisition and also gave artists, who knew how to
manipulate the technology, an extreme competitive edge over their rivals. This
dissertation challenges the naive assumptions that have been made about Artemisia's
working practices, effectively ignoring the strong causal links between art and science
in Seicento Italian painting. Introducing the use of optical aids by Artemisia opens up
her story to a whole new generation of scholarship.
Description
Citation
Grundy, Susan Audrey (2004) Artemisia Gentileschi and Caravaggio's looking glass, University of South Africa, Pretoria, <http://hdl.handle.net/10500/2987>