Art History Guide

My current love interest has the deadly combination of beauty and intelligence. Of strength and grace. In these multi-faceted ways she is lovely, but along with the loveliness she also has a fascination with blood. There’s something about the deep reds and viscosity of it that she’s attracted to.

When she told me this over the phone, I immediately thought of Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1653), who is often known as one of the first feminist painters. She was an Italian follower of Caravaggio, lighting her feminist subjects in plain, dark backgrounds.

Gentileschi has a dark background where, as a student she was raped and subjected to much pain and humiliation because of it. As a result, much of her work depicts women violently lashing out against men. When my love told me she liked the look of blood, the Gentileschi piece I first thought of was, “Judith Beheading Holofernes”.

Now, my girlfriend doesn’t have that dark a past, but I worry that if I were in the kitchen and lost a hand in the garbage disposal, instead of calling for help, she might run and get the camera.