Galleria Borghese, Rome

Il contributo è tratto dal volume degli atti del convegno su Lorenzo Lotto svoltosi a Loreto dal 1 al 3 febbraio 2019. Curato da due specialisti del pittore veneziano, Francesca Coltrinari e Enrico Maria Dal Pozzolo, il volume propone trentasei focalizzazioni su temi storici, filologici e critici relativi all'artista. Caratterizzati da differenti approcci metodologici, i diversi contributi compongono un testo con molti aggiornamenti, novità e ipotesi, che si auspica diventi – al pari di altri atti di convegni editi negli ultimi decenni del secolo scorso – un punto di riferimento per gli studi su Lorenzo Lotto, un artista che, anche in virtù dell’eccezionale mole documentaria giunta fino ad oggi, continua a stupire, fornendo spunti di indagine sempre nuovi.
https://zeledizioni.it/prodotto/lorenzo-lotto/

WONDER WOMEN: SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA, LAVINIA FONTANA AND ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI
A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF RENAISSANCE AND BAROQUE SELF-PORTRAIT PAINTING BY FEMALE ARTISTS

by Rosa Lena Reed Robinson

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Master of Arts in Art History at
Studio Art Centers International
Florence, Italy

2017


This  thesis is focused on the self-portrait painting practice by three female artists from the Renaissance and the Baroque periods: Sofonisba Anguissola, Lavinia Fontana, and Artemisia Gentileschi. Chapter I introduces the self-portrait as it developed specific to the Renaissance and in relation to a Greco-Roman classical ideal. The chapter focuses on Renaissance concepts of art and the very role of the artist. Chapter II studies the numerous self-portraits of Sofonisba Anguissola, the first great Renaissance female artist to have an international career. The artist’s self-portraits both became a foundation for those of later female artists and self-consciously expressed the new elite status achieved by this Lombard artist of noble lineage who worked as court portraitist for the Spanish monarchy. Chapter III examines the self-portraits and innovative identity self-portraiture of Lavinia Fontana of Bologna. It is demonstrated how her two early self-portraits built on the precedent established by Sofonisba, and yet, are of somewhat greater iconographic complexity. While in her maturity the artist developed self-portraiture into the identity self-portrait through the subject of Judith and Holofernes. Within her treatments of the theme in some examples she put herself into the figure of Judith and in others into Judith’s maid Abra. Lavinia Fontana’s final masterpiece, the improbable painting Minerva Dressing done at the end of her extensive career was likewise arguably an identity self-portrait. Minerva Dressing constitutes the first female fully nude figure painted by a female artist. Chapter IV focuses on Artemisia Gentileschi. This thesis designates the artist’s Pommersfelden Susanna and the Elders as both Artemisia’s first exact self-portrait and the first female full-length nude self-portrait painted by a female artist. The work is also an identity self-portrait. This chapter continues with a discussion of both versions of Artemisia’s infamous Judith and Holofernes (Capodimonte/Uffizi). Both works are arguably exact self-portrait paintings and identity self-portraits. Artemisia’s Allegory of Painting in London, often referred to as a self-portrait in scholarship, is suggested a perhaps better understood as an ideal identity self-portrait rather than a literal self-representation. The Allegory of Painting is considered together with other attributed self-portraits and portraits of the artist. A major theme in Chapter IV is the transition from literal self-representation to allegorical and ideal portrayal of the self. This thesis suggests that, as the artist’s career advanced, Artemisia Gentileschi did continue to paint both the exact and the ideal self-portrait. Finally, in the Conclusion, the legacy of the self-portraits of the Wonder Women, to adopt a phrase from Giorgio Vasari, is considered in reference to future female artists such as Elisabetta Sirani, Angelica Kauffmann, Elisabeth Vigée Le-Brun and Paula Modersohn-Becker.

Review exhibition
S. Guido, "Valadier. Splendore nella Roma del Settecento".
Mostra, Anna Coliva (ed.), Roma, Galleria Borghese, 30 ottobre 2019 - 2 febbraio 2020, in "ARCHIVUM HISTORIAE PONTIFICIAE", 53, 2019 (2020), pp.467-474.

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In 1632 several paintings by Scarsellino, including four panels with Biblical scenes, formed part of the collection of Roberto Canonici in Ferrara. Three of them are now in the Pallavicini Gallery in Rome and the Musée des Augustins of Toulouse, while the last one, The Offering of Noah, is lost.
The present article presents two unpublished paintings in a private collection: Joseph Sold by his Brothers, a copy of one of the Pallavicini panels, and the other one is the missing scene with The Offering of Noah. Thus, the series is complete, at least iconographically. The author of the two paintings is not Scarsellino, but his pupil Camillo Ricci.
Scarsellino’s four Biblical scenes were inspired by some engravings published by the Sadeler family between 1580 and 1583. Those engravings were part of a large and ambitious project of Old Testament stories, interrupted and resumed several times. On this occasion, a group of twenty-five prints has been brought together: without considering the whole Sadeler project, it is impossible to understand the meaning of the figurative sources.
The reason why Scarsellino decided to copy the Sadeler prints is not entirely clear, as it seems there were little (if any) relationship between the Ferrarese painter and the Flemish engravers. The only evidence of a connection is a print that Raphael Sadeler executed after a painting by Scarsellino, now in the Borghese Gallery. This print is a key to the understanding of the brief collaboration of the artists: it is not dated, but is dedicated to Bonifacio Bevilacqua who became a cardinal in 1599, and a chronology around 1599 for both of the Borghese painting and the Canonici panels can be inferred.
Finally, there is the story of a misunderstanding concerning the Madonna della Pappa by the Sienese Francesco Vanni. A copy of this famous painting in the Galleria Nazionale in Parma, has for a long time been attributed to Scarsellino. The Parma canvas has generated a wrong tradition of attribution which is now difficult to be corrected.

O presente texto busca interpretar as esculturas “Apolo e Dafne” e “O Rapto de Prosérpina”, executadas pelo artista barroco Gianlorenzo Bernini. Para tanto, no primeiro momento deste trabalho é realizado um esforço no sentido de situar o artista e as obras no espaço-tempo em que foram produzidas, a saber a Itália do século XVII. Em seguida, é empregado o método proposto por Erwin Panofsky (1991) para a investigação dos temas de obras artísticas, com ênfase na etapa de interpretação iconológica, que permite percebê-las como sintomas do pensamento e do comportamento em voga no contexto em que foram criadas. Por fim, é pontuada a necessidade de que a discussão sobre essas obras ocorra para além dos discursos elogiosos à beleza delas e à maestria do artista que as executou, considerando os modos pelos quais elas são perpassadas por ideias sexistas a fim de ressignificá-las.