Susanna and the Elders, Restored with X-ray (Right)
Kathleen Gilje, 1998
wow
Oooh my gosh this is rad. This is so rad.
For those who don’t know about this painting, the artist was the Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi.
Gentileschi was a female painter in a time when it was very largely unheard of for a woman to be an artist. She managed to get the opportunity for training and eventual employment because her father, Orazio, was already a well established master painter who was very adamant that she get artistic training. He apparently saw a high degree of skill in some artwork she did as a hobby in childhood. He was very supportive of her and encouraged her to resist the “traditional attitude and psychological submission to brainwashing and the jealousy of her obvious talents.”
Gentileschi became extremely well known in her time for painting female figures from the Bible and their suffering. For example, the one seen above depicts the story from the Book of Daniel. Susanna is bathing in her garden when two elders began to spy on her in the nude. As she finishes they stop her and tell her that they will tell everyone that they saw her have an affair with a young man (she’s married so this is an offense punishable by death) unless she has sex with them. She refuses, they tell their tale, and she is going to be put to death when the protagonist of the book (Daniel) stops them.
So that painting above? That was her first major painting. She was SEVENTEEN-YEARS-OLD. For context, here is a painting of the same story by Alessandro Allori made just four years earlier in 1606:
Wowwwww. That does not look like a woman being threatened with a choice between death or rape. So imagine 17 year old Artemisia trying to approach painting the scene of a woman being assaulted. And she paints what is seen in the x-ray above. A woman in horrifying, grotesque anguish with what appears to be a knife poised in her clenched hand. Damn that shit is real. Who wants to guess that she was advised by, perhaps her father or others, to tone it down. Women can’t look that grotesque. Sexual assault can’t be depicted as that horrifying. And women definitely can’t be seen as having the potential to fight back. Certainly not in artwork. Women need to be soft. They need to wilt from their captors but still look pretty and be a damsel in distress. So she changed it.
What’s interesting to note is that she eventually painted and stuck with some of her own, less traditional depictions of women. However, that is more interesting with some context.
(Warning for reference to rape, torture, and images of paintings which show violence and blood.)
So, Gentileschi’s story continues in the very next year, 1611, when her father hires Agostino Tassi, an artist, to privately tutor her. It was in this time when Tassi raped her. He then proceeded to promise that he would marry her. He pointed out that if it got out that she had lost her virginity to a man she wasn’t going to marry then it would ruin her. Using this, he emotionally manipulated her into continuing a sexual relationship with him. However, he then proceeded to marry someone else. Horrified at this turn of events she went to her father. Orazio was having none of this shit and took Tassi to court. At that time, rape wasn’t technically an offense to warrant a trial, but the fact that he had taken her virginity (and therefore technically “damaged Orazio’s property”. ugh.) meant that the trial went along. It lasted for 7 months. During this time, to prove the truth of her words, Artemisia was given invasive gynecological examinations and was even questioned while being subjected to torture via thumb screws. It was also discovered during the trial that Tassi was planning to kill his current wife, have an affair with her sister, and steal a number of Orazio’s paintings. Tassi was found guilty and was given a prison sentence of…. ONE. YEAR……. Which he never even served because the verdict was annulled.
During this time and a bit after (1611-1612), Artemisia painted her most famous work of Judith Slaying Holofernes. This bible story involved Holofernes, an Assyrian general, leading troops to invade and destroy Bethulia, the home of Judith. Judith decides to deal with this issue by coming to him, flirting with him to get his guard down, and then plying him with food and lots of wine. When he passed out, Judith and her handmaiden took his sword and cut his head off. Issue averted. The subject was a very popular one for art at the time. Here is a version of the scene painted in 1598-99 by Carivaggio, whom was a great stylistic influence on Artemisia:
This depiction is a pretty good example of how this scene was typically depicted. Artists usually went out of their way to show Judith committing the act (or having committed it) while trying to detach her from the actual violence of it. In this way, they could avoid her losing the morality of her character and also avoid showing a woman committing such aggression. So here we see a young, rather delicate looking Judith in a pure white dress. She is daintily holding down this massive man and looks rather disgusted and upset at having to do this. Now, here is Artemisia’s:
Damn. Thats a whole different scene. Here Holofernes looks less like he’s simply surprised by the goings ons and more like a man choking on his own blood and struggling fruitlessly against his captors. The blood here is less of a bright red than in Carrivaggio’s but is somehow more sickening. It feels more real, and gushes in a much less stylized way than Carrivaggio’s. Not to mention, Judith here is far from removed from the violence. She is putting her physical weight into this act. Her hands (much stronger looking than most depictions of women’s hands in early artwork) are working hard. Her face, as well, is completely different. She doesn’t look upset, necessarily, but more determined.
It’s also worth note that the handmaiden is now involved in the action. It’s worth note because, during her rape trial, Artemisia stated that she had cried for help during the initial rape. Specifically she had called for Tassi’s female tenant in the building, Tuzia. Tuzia not only ignored her cries for help, but she also denied the whole happening. Tuzia had been a friend of Artemisia’s and in fact was one of her only female friends. Artemisia felt extremely betrayed, but rather than turning her against her own gender, this event instilled in her the deep importance of female relationships and solidarity among women. This can be seen in some of her artwork, and I believe in the one above, as well, with the inclusion of the handmaiden in the act.
So, I just added a million words worth of information dump on a post when no one asked me, but there we go. I could talk for ages about Artemisia as a person and her depictions of women (even beyond what I wrote above. Don’t get me started on her depictions of female nudes in comparison to how male artists painted nude women at the time.)
To sum up: Artemisia Gentileschi is rad as hell. This x-ray is also rad as hell and makes her even radder.
I love art history.
I’m reblogging this again to add something that I also think is important to know about Artemisia Gentileschi. Back in her time and through even to TODAY, there are people who argue that her artworks were greatly aided by her father…. As in he either helped her paint them or just straight up painted them himself. Hell, there are a number of works only recently (past several years or so) that have been officially attributed to Artemisia because people originally saw the signature with “Gentileschi” in it and automatically attributed it to Orazio. So, not only was Artemisia Gentileschi an amazing artist and amazing historical figure, but I don’t want it to be ignored that there are people over 400 years later who still won’t give her the credit she deserves, just because she’s a woman and obviously women can’t paint like she did.
The protagonist of a 50s SciFi serial ends up coming into the real world via the television of an out-of-work comic artist, who is stuck teaching him about modern society while trying to figure out what happened and how to get him back in his show.
Also though, space monsters escape from his show and are attacking NYC and they now have to team up and stop them too.
Basically, The sci-fi version of “Enchanted”.
Addendum: John Mulaney should play the 1950s space cadet because that’s just his vibe.
I mean, look at him:
He just looks like he’s lost in time and/or space
A fish out of temporal water.
(My heart is saying Stephanie Beatriz as the comic artist but I am open to suggestions).
Like she’s just got such a “comic artist doing her best and now has to deal with space monsters” vibe.
Or is that just me?
(Another character in my head is her friend who owns the local comic shop and he and the captain from the space show fall in love (because gays in space always) and in the end he opts to take the Cadet’s place in the show to be with him and let the Cadet and Artist stay together, and gives them his shop and they run it and also still have adventures with escaped space stuff from the show b/c why would I close the portal to television world that’s just boring, THE ADVENTURE CONTINUES).
SUDDEN REALIZATION
Hari Kondabolu as the comic shop owner
Sorry I’m going off on this random idea all of a sudden, all the “John Mulaney is inmortal/a time traveller/ect” posts just kickstarted me thinking about this again and NOW WE’RE HERE.
I’m now debating on swapping Stephanie Beatriz to be the spaceship captain from the show (b/c I feel like that fits her better) and have Pom Klementieff as the artist b/c she’s got such a “struggling indie artist who has more than likely eaten her paints accidentally on multiple occasions” vibe??
And she’s just… So cute??
And Stephanie Beatriz would be a cool Picard/Kirk hybrid captain, I think. Like, she’s kind of philosophical (since the show didn’t have a budget and they had to make up for bad special effects with IMPORTANT SPEECHES… Like the real Star Trek) but she’s also got that coy sense of humour, that “I will do anything to protect my crew/the citizens of whatever planet we’re on this week/ect” morale, the complete belief in their mission of discovery and research and ofc, like Kirk, let’s just say she’s had her fair share of boldly going where no one has gone before.
(AKA she 100% has banged half the galaxy).
If she’s the Captain tho, then I’m gonna have to set Comic Shop Guy with a different character b/c HE GAY.
(Maybe the Cadet’s best friend… Who is played by Nick Kroll because, come on, if John Mulaney is somewhere, he’s not far behind, and vice versa).
Also, of course, the spaceship crew of the show-within-the-show 100% all have cool unisex sci-fi names (courtesy of @glumshoe‘s fine generator for just that purpose).
(The Cadet may legitimately be named Switch Parabola and I am 100% for it).
I’m also very excited to take potshots at retro sci-fi because it is both THE FUTURE and THE PAST and it doesn’t always match up (the spaceship computers ran on REEL-TO-REEL TAPES) and like the contrast of “inaccurate 50s space age predictions” (fishbowl helmets and maybe a silver jumpsuit are all you need to survive in the vacuum of space) and “this stuff is actually FUNCTIONAL OUTSIDE OF THE SHOW” (Switch’s “plasma blaster”, jetpack, and anti-gravity boots all work in the “real world,” same with anything that’s come out of the show).
Like, it’s a love letter to classic sci-fi, but one written by a 7-year-old who doesn’t know how to properly express love and just insults you because that’s as close as they can manage at the moment.
Okay more random ideas because I can’t stop:
Of course there’s the “meet the original actors/show runners” plot in there too.
The writer that Artist and Switch set out to talk to is based on D.C. Fontana and was a prolific writer on the show back in the 50s, but had to do so under a penname/was not always credited b/c being a woman writer in the 50s SUCKS.
She based Switch on her older brother who died in WWII, and it’s a very emotional moment when she meets him (b/c in a way, he’s like her nephew, idk I’m still working it out).
I think she also had an experience with “show escaping the television” back during the original production, but either kept it quiet (b/c they were always looking for a reason to fire her and “she’s flown the coop” would have been a viable one) or wrote it off as a weird dream/acid trip/whatever. Basically though, she is on board to help pretty quick.
(Also it later comes up that if the show hadn’t been cancelled, she was going to write in a reveal that Switch was half fish alien in the next season, which uh…she’s now not sure if he *is*, b/c that episode was never made, but also, he’s here and the story seems to exist without them…that’s going to be a fun conversation to have later, when he sprouts gills).
Okay 100% I also want one where they have to meet Switch’s original actor for some reason (I think to get some show related thing to help them figure out what happened or whatever) and 1) he’s a total William Shatner, “small name, big ego” type (like if Zap Brannigan was an old, out of shape cult classic actor instead of a starship captain) and 2) He’s just played by John Mulaney as George St. Geegland b/c why would I pass up that opportunity??
The Artist and Switch end up scamming him out of what they need b/c when he sees Switch, his immediate thought is “oh god, this guy looks exactly like me…he’s one of my love children from when I slept around the convention circuit in the 80s” and he tells them he’ll give them whatever they want as long as they don’t tell his wife (because she’s his third and Switch is definitely older than her and that would totally be the thing that makes things weird for them, and not anything else).
I have two main villains in mind, but I’m not sure how to implement them yet. One is, ofc, the main villain from the show, a Khan type who wants to take over the galaxy, and also ends up in the “real world” and now wants to take over it too and is causing most of the havoc and junk with his sci fi shit or whatever (I’m literally working most of this out as I write it, if you can’t tell).
The other is like, a young tech mogul (a Zuckerberg type) who is a huge fan of the show and 100% is the kind of person who says “girls don’t like me b/c I’m too nerdy” when he’s really just an asshole. The Artist went to school with him and they bonded over their love of the show, but don’t talk as much anymore b/c she realized he was interested in her and she…was not…at all…and also he was kind of a dick (ofc he 100% insists he was “friendzoned”). He like, has this idealized version of the show in his mind (i.e. the way people remember Star Wars as like, “a classic Save the Princess, save the world” story when it was so much more) and a stupid giant collection of stuff from it. When he figures out what’s going on with it leaking into the “real world” he tries to get involved but is basically rejected by Switch and the rest of the characters b/c he’s self serving and a jerk and self absorbed and “that’s not what Star Command (?) stands for.” Ofc, he does not take it well, and wants some kind of vengeance for their rejection, maybe even teaming up with the show villain?
Also totally and completely, I want there to at least be one episode where the Artist goes into the television world and is just having A NERD DREAM she’s meeting her favourite characters and THEY ALL LIKE HER AND THEY’RE GONNA SAVE THE DAY TOGETHER, IT’S JUST LIKE HER 4th GRADE SELF INSERT FANFICITON!
For my birthday this year, the incomparable @simandthedimbulbv2-0 made me a mock up poster for the future series premier!
She’s amazing, it’s amazing, and I’m still crying over it.
i have yet to read a post on relief of sex dysphoria that was ACTUALLY helpful, and if you have moderate to severe sex dysphoria reading a book or dancing isnt really gonna do jack shit so here’s some cheap/free ways to actually help you
Tired But Wired 