by Bett Butler
“The works will speak for themselves.”
~ Artemisia Gentileschi
Born on the cusp between eras,
bereft of mother, left
in an edifice of men, betrayed
by women time and again:
Tuzia ignoring your cries of rape,
Banti later recycling your life
with all the salaciousness required
of a bestseller.
Yours was the old story of women defined
by what men do to them: assault,
deceit, trial, torture, scandal.
Exiled for your father’s convenience,
sold to a spendthrift husband, your dowry
the expedient forgiveness of a debt.
Some say your resistance lay
in owning your own story,
channeling ire and anguish into art,
painting yourself as Judith,
the severed head of Holofernes
wearing the face of your rapist.
Some say your resistance lay
in teaching yourself to read and write,
in shrewd and tactful negotiations with patrons,
in your correspondence with the intelligentsia.
Some say your resistance lay
in your celebrity, your movement in the haut monde,
your work sought in the highest circles.
But perhaps instead, your resistance lay
in the act of painting itself:
in gazing into the mirror, absorbing
the curve of arms, fingers, shapes
and shades of flesh and bone, sheen
of blood-colored velvet, shadows
on tiny knots of tatted lace at cuff and bodice;
Perhaps your resistance lay
in stretching and preparing canvas,
in mixing colors, in every line
and brushstroke, the elusive alchemy
of translating imagination into image.
Perhaps your resistance lay
in simply living your life
as a working artist.
Celebrated in your time, then promptly
ghosted by male gatekeepers of history,
your work is once again brought
to the fore for us to discuss and analyze
and argue your motivations with
interpretations that tell us little about you
but reveal multitudes about ourselves.
This is your genius: Eons later,
your works continue
to speak for themselves.
(This poem originally appeared in the exhibition catalog Florence in the Making: Artisans & Artists in the Oltrarno and Beyond, published by The British Institute of Florence and Il Palmerino Cultural Association, made possible by a grant from the Advancing Women Artists Legacy Fund.)
