Author(s): Jonathan Jones

Art

Artemisia Gentileschi was the greatest female artist of the Baroque age and one of the most brilliant followers of the great Caravaggio. As a young woman she was raped by her tutor, and then had to endure a seven-month-long trial during which she was brutally examined by the authorities. Gentileschi was shamed in a culture where honor was everything. Yet she went on to become one of the most sought-after artists of the seventeenth century. Gentileschi's art communicated a powerful personal vision. Like Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois, or Tracey Emin, she put her life into her art.