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Prologue ---- Chapter I ---- Chapter II
The "Lost Letters of Artemisia Gentileschi"
The "Lost Letters Of Artemisia Gentileschi" are comprised of "imagined" letters and drawings that were discovered in the archives of the Accademia del Disegno in Florence. I presumed that they were deposited in the archives after her death by her daughter, Prudenzia. Until recently, these papers were not considered significant enough to publish. Two of the letters are included here. The first is to her Father, Orazio, dated shortly after she moved to Florence. The letter stings like the wounds so recently inflicted on her. The second is to her friend, Galileo, who is under house arrest due to the Church's objection to his scientific discoveries
The fictitious
letters amplify her life through the most personal of narratives. The idea
came to me after years of research and travel on the path of Artemisia. As
I did not have the skills to compose the "Lost Letters...,"
I entered into a collaboration with Katherine Smith, the writer and Rose Folsom,
the calligrapher, who helped me realize the project.
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The
show ends with a poignant note. Because little is known of Artemisia's
final years, Jashinsky has invented a letter that conjures the period.
In the letter, Artemisia asks her painter-daughter to come to her aid
in Naples, where she continues to paint despite an unnamed illness because
she needs money to pay for treatment. A video gives pictorial form to
this exhibit, it is, oddly, these "lost letters"--pure inventions--that
offer the most palpable sense of Artemisia herself.
Jo Ann Lewis, Washington Post, January 22, 2002, Washington, DC. |
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| Artemisia
Gentileschi P R O L O G U E click here to view it |
Artemisia
Gentileschi
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Artemisia
Gentileschi C H A P T E R o I I PATRONS
AND CELEBRANTS |
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