Arty Farty Friday ~ Quartet of Cancerian Painters

There are other painters whose birth dates fall during the next 4 or 5 days, but I've chosen the following for their diverse styles. (Hat-tip to Wikipedia.)

Félicien Rops (7 July 1833 – 23 August 1898) Belgian artist whose best known pieces are erotic or pornographic in tone and depict an imaginary underworld or subjects of social decadence.

Pornocrates, Pornokratès, La dame au cochon, or The Lady with the Pig

Artemisia Gentileschi (8 July 1593 – c. 1656) was an Italian Baroque painter, today considered one of the most accomplished painters in the generation following that of Caravaggio. In an era when women painters were not easily accepted by the artistic community or patrons, she was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence.

My archived post on her is HERE.


Judith & Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes

David Hockney, OM, CH, RA (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer. An important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century.

My archived post on him is HERE.

A Bigger Splash

Giorgio de Chirico(10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978), an Italian artist and writer. In the years before World War I, he founded the scuola metafisica art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. After 1919, he became interested in traditional painting techniques, and worked in a neoclassical or neo-Baroque style, while frequently revisiting the metaphysical themes of his earlier work.

The Song of Love

Arty Farty Friday ~ Artemisia Gentileschi

 Self portrait as lute player

Artemisia Gentileschi
(1593 - 1652/1653), a website HERE is dedicated to her, the following is extracted from it:

Artemisia Gentileschi daughter of well-known Roman artist, Orazio Gentileschi (1563 - 1639), was one of the first women artists to achieve recognition in the male-dominated world of post-Renaissance art. In an era when female artists were limited to portrait painting and imitative poses, she was the first woman to paint major historical and religious scenarios.

Born in Rome in 1593, she received her early training from her father, but after art academies rejected her, she continued study under a friend of her father, Agostino Tassi. In 1612, her father brought suit against Tassi for raping Artemisia. There followed a highly publicised seven-month trial. This event makes up the central theme of a controversial French film, Artemisia (1998), directed by Agnes Merlet.

The trauma of the rape and trial impacted on Artemisia's painting. Her graphic depictions were cathartic and symbolic attempts to deal with the physical and psychic pain. The heroines of her art, especially Judith, are powerful women exacting revenge on such male evildoers as the Assyrian general Holofernes. Her style was heavily influenced by dramatic realism and marked chiaroscuro (contrasting light and dark) of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573 - 1610).

After her death, she drifted into obscurity, her works often attributed to her father or other artists. Art historian and expert on Artemisia, Mary D. Garrard notes that Artemisia "has suffered a scholarly neglect that is unthinkable for an artist of her calibre." Renewed and overdue interest in Artemisia in recent years has recognized her as a talented seventeenth-century painter and one of the world's greatest female artists. The first book devoted to her, Artemisia Gentileschi - The Image of The Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art. by Mary D. Garrard, was issued in 1989; her first exhibition was held in Florence in 1991. A TV documentary, a play and, more recently, a film have advanced her visibilty as an important artist.

  Giuditta e la sua ancella.  (Giuditta and her handmaid)

Further information at Wikipedia HERE.

A brief (under 5 minutes) video showing some of her paintings - there are some longer, narrated videos at YouTube also -




ASTROLOGY (briefly)

Born in Rome, Italy on July 8, 1593. Chart set for 12 noon as birth time unknown.

A powerful, emotionally energetic network: cardinal axis Cancer/Capricorn opposition links Sun to Jupiter, with a helpful sextile from Jupiter to Mars, Mars being in trine to natal Sun. Without a time of birth Moon's exact position can't be established, but if it were somewhere mid-sign Scorpio, in trine to Cancer Sun, Moon would have been involved in the network too. That this lady was able to overcome such traumatic events, with strength of character, using her creative skills as an aid and outlet, is no doubt reflected in that astro-network.

Venus, planet of the arts, conjunct Neptune (imagination) from Leo trines Uranus in Aries: a reflection of the unexpectedness (Uranus) in those days, of a talented female painter, and an initiator (Aries). Chiron (known as the wounded healer) sextiles Venus/Neptune from Gemini - an indication of her method of dealing with inner pain via her art?