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Hello and wellcome to he 
Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition

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at the National Gallery

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Artemisia was one of the greatest
of all baroque artists

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but she was also a woman
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 in western art

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but she was the first
who imbued all her work

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with a sense of her femininity.

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It makes her work powerful,
it makes it pioneering

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and it certainly makes it exciting.

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As you come through the door,
the first picture you see,

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kind of slaps you around
the face really is this,

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and it shows this famous biblical story
of Susanna and the elders.

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Susanna was a hebrew wife

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who was lusted over 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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She refused and 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 
so creepy out of it.

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Lots of baroque artists painted 
Susanna and the elders

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but never with this intimate sense
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
she was probably 16 at most 17.

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Now, this show ahead of us tells us
an awful lot of things

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about Artemisia Gentileschi.

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But one of the first things it says
is that she was a prodigy.

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She could paint better earlier

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than just about anybody else
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 on her life, of course

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and it was a very infamous court case
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 of the court
proceedings.

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And what's wonderful about it,
is that you can hear Artemisia's voice,

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the things she said, the way she spoke.

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Sometimes they tortured her
to make sure she was telling the truth

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but she always came back
with these snappy reposts,

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these witty answers

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and she emerges in this show
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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managed to get
both versions up at once.

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It's "Judith beheading Holofernes".

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That Judith was a jewish heroine
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,
because of Artemisia's rape

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felt particularly personal.

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But what i like is the way 
the two pictures are 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 makes people look at art.

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It's a bit like Sam Peckinpah movies
in the 80s and 90s.

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You know, violence is just something
that shakes you out of your everyday rythm

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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 wielding

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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 of blood

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pouring out of him, it's savage,

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but it's not quite a gore fest.

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By the time she does this,
the second version,

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wow, look at the blood there.

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It's pouring out like water
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 Artemisia Gentileschi

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still a couple of years ago
when, very fortunately,

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they managed to buy
this masterpiece by her.

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And this is Saint Catherine
who was tortured

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with a horrible 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, as Artemisia as Saint Catherine

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identifying fiercely with her.

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And this is Artemisia as Saint Cecilia.

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There's 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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Sort of picks you out and seems somehow
to make you feel a bit guilty.

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It's self-portraiture but self-portraiture
with these 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 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,
everytime she moved on,

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her art changed a bit.

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I mean, this too
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,
it's calmed down

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It seems to be more 
about the beauty of the flesh

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and even the blokes don't look 
quite as horrible as they do

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in that wonderful picture
that she painted when she was 16.

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

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to become a slightly
more respectable Artemisia.

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So, it's important to remember 
that she wasn't this feminist heroin

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beheading men all the way 
through her career.

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She had these phases
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
is basically chronological

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and takes us through all 
the main periods 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
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

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on various decorative schemes
with her father Orazio

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and what I really like here

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is that this famous painting
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,
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
in the show

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and it's clear that isn't her.

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So, 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, 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
to a fantastic show.