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Hello! And welcome

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to the Artemisia Gentileschi Exhibition

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at the National Gallery.

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Artemisia was one of the greatest

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of all Baroque artists.

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But she was also a woman.

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And that of course made her special

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in interesting ways.

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I mean, she wasn't the first woman artist

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in Western Art.

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But she was the first who imbued

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all her work with a sense of her femininity.

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It makes her work powerful.

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It makes it pioneering.

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And it certainly makes it exciting.

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As you come through the door,

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the first picture you see,

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kind of slaps you around the face really,

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is this.

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And it shows this famous biblical story

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of Susanna and the Elders.

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Susanna was a Hebrew wife

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who was lusted over

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by a couple of old men in the village.

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And they watched her while she was bathing.

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And tried to force her to have sex with them.

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When she refused them, they took her to court.

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They lost the case. She won the case.

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So it's a kind of feminist story, if you like.

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But Artemisia has made something

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so creepy out of it.

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Lots of Baroque artists painted Susanna

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and the Elders.

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But never with this intimate sense

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of the blokes crushing into her space.

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Leaning right over into her confidence zone.

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But the really extraordinary thing here

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is that when she painted this

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she was probably 16.

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At most 17.

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Now, this show ahead of us

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tells us an awful lot of things about

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Artemisia Gentileschi.

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But one of the first things it says

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is that she was a prodigy.

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She could paint better earlier

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than just about anybody else

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in Western Art.

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When Artemisia was 17,

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she was raped by a friend of her father's.

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Another painter called Agostino Tassi.

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And this rape was to have a powerful impact

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on her life of course.

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And there was a very infamous court case

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that resulted from it.

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And one of the things they've got here

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is an actual transcript

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of the court proceedings.

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And what's wonderful about it

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is that you could hear Artemisia's voice.

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The things she said.

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The way she spoke.

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Sometimes they tortured her

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to make sure she was telling the truth.

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But she always came back

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with these snappy reposts.

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These witty answers.

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And she emerges in this show

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as someone who wasn't just a tragic victim

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but was a really rounded and interesting figure.

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This is probably Artemisia's most famous image.

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So famous she did it twice.

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And fortunately, the National Gallery

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has managed to get both versions

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up at once.

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It's Judith beheading Holofernes.

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Judith was a Jewish heroine

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who fought back against Holofernes

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and beheaded him.

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So a very feminine subject.

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And a subject which

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because of Artemisia's rape

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felt particularly personal.

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But what I like is

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the way the two pictures are

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subtly different.

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I mean, they're both gory.

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Because one of the great lessons of Caravaggio

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was that violence is something that

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makes people look at art.

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It's a bit like Sam Peckinpah movies

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in the 80s and 90s.

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You know, violence is just something

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that shakes you out of your everyday rhythm.

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And makes you notice things.

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What's wonderful is the actual detail here.

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Look at this gigantic sword that she's weilding

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as she cuts off the poor guy's head.

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And here, there's just a little bit

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of blood pouring out of him.

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It's savage. But it's not quite

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a gore fest.

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By the time she does this,

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the second version,

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wow, look at the blood there.

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It's pouring out like water

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from a Baroque fountain.

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What a piece of drama that is!

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Now, the National Gallery didn't own any

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Artemisia Gentileschis until

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a couple of years ago

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when very fortunately they managed

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to buy this masterpiece by her.

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And this St. Catherine,

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who was tortured with a horrible

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wooden wheel with spikes in it

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that was turned over her.

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But also it's a self-portrait of Artemisia.

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So it's Artemisia as St. Catherine.

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Identifying fiercely with her.

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And this is Artemisia's St. Cecelia.

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It was another early Christian martyr

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who was tortured for her beliefs.

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And who became the patron saint of music.

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That's why she's strumming away there.

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Look at that look on her face.

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It's very accusatory, isn't it?

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It sort of picks you out.

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It seems somehow to make you feel

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a bit guilty.

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It's self-portraiture

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but self-portraiture with these

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bigger ambitions.

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I think to somehow reach across the ages

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and identify with these sad, martyred figures

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of young women from the early Christian days.

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Now, this room here shows

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the work that she started to paint

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when she moved back to Rome in the 1620s.

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And it's particularly clear here

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that everywhere she went,

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every time she moved on,

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her art changed a bit.

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I mean, this too

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is Susanna and the Elders.

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So it's that first subject in the show.

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The creepy guys staring at the naked woman.

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But here it feels less antagonistic.

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It's calmed down.

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It seems to be more about the beauty

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of the flesh.

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And even the blokes don't look

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quite as horrible as they do

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in that wonderful picture that she painted

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when she was 16.

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So there's an attempt here, I think, to become

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a slightly more respectable Artemisia.

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So it's important to remember

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that she wasn't this feminist heroine

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beheading men all the way through her career.

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She had these phases.

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And the show judges beautifully, I think,

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the development from one phase to another.

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Although the show's basically chronological,

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and takes us through all the main periods

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of Artemisia's career,

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it loses that chronology at the end.

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And with a bit of sneaky exhibition-making,

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it fast-forwards through the Neapolitan years

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and brings us straight to the time

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that Artemisia spent in England.

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Because, yes, she came to England.

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In 1638, just before the Civil War,

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she arrived here and worked on various

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decorative schemes with her father, Horatio.

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And what I really like here

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is that this famous painting

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was also painted in England.

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And it's one of her most famous images.

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Artemisia Gentileschi embodying art.

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Art itself. Symbolically.

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A lot of people have always said

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it's a self-portrait.

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Indeed, it's called a Self-Portrait.

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But we've seen the other self-portraits

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in the show.

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And it's clear that isn't her.

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Now, this isn't a literal self-portrait.

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It's a symbolic self-portrait of her,

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her presence,

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of what art can be in the world.

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And because she's working with one figure,

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it's got that intensity about it again.

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So it's a fantastic ending

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to a fantastic show.