Her Masters

The female old masters of the Baroque period held talent equal to their male counterparts but their struggle to attain acknowledgment was of an extraordinary effort in comparison. Female artists of the period such as Artemisia Gentileschi, Elisabetta Sirani and Lavinia Fontana painted biblical and mythological narratives and were inspired by Greek myths and the tales of Ovid’s metamorphosis; which in turn feature narratives of women overcoming odds and difficulties within the complexities of relationships, sexuality and the body. Painters of the baroque period, both male and female, would often paint similar classical or biblical stories of the same few female characters such as Iphigenia, Penelope, Judith, Esther. What is apparent on reviewing the female old-masters creativity is their female characters have nuance and weight as opposed to appearing as merely muses and models, not merely ‘bodies of sin or innocence’ as dictated in the artwork of their male counterparts.