Artemisia, Corisca, and the gender conflict
Although Artemisia Gentileschi was celebrated internationally in her lifetime, her reputation languished after her death partly owing to the fact that her naturalistic mode of painting went out of style.
Artemisia’s post-Caravaggesque paintings still often disappoint modern viewers but, as these artworks are included in more seminal exhibitions and publications, preferences are changing. What is more, as more of Artemisia Gentileschi’s personal history is discovered by art historians, a more complex picture emerges. For instance, it has been noted that in time Artemisia's female subjects became more clever than violent, more interested in teasing than beheading men.
During the three or four years spent in Venice (from 1627, or even late 1626, to 1630), Artemisia’s style turned from the Caravaggesque naturalism to the Bolognese idealism, in other words, it became more graceful. What is more, the artist met members of the Accademia degli Incogniti – a society of intellectuals, mainly noblemen, who used to have debates on the role and nature of women (the so-called “questione della donna”).
Recognizing that being a woman offered her a rare perspective and authority on many artistic subjects, Artemisia started dealing with such themes and putting biblical heroines, but also women of questionable character, at the centre of her production.
Back in Naples, the artist kept on depicting controversial and notorious women who deceived and outsmarted men, seeking not to redeem the former but rather to highlight the weakness of the latter.
Artemisia Gentileschi ( 1593–1654 or later), Corisca and the Satyr, 1636-37. Private collection, Naples
Corisca and the Satyr is an example of such artworks.
The episode is taken from Giovanni Battista Guarini’s Il Pastor Fido, a pastoral tragi-comedy that, after its first publication in 1590 in Venice, became so popular in all of Europe that, according to the Baroque painter Salvator Rosa, women used to bring the book to church and read it holding it in place of the prayer book.
The story recounts the tale of the shepherd Mirtillo and the nymph Amarilli. Corisca too was a nymph, though an unscrupulous one. Loved by the shepherd Coridon, as well as the lustful satyr of the painting, she is in love with Mirtillo, who is in love with Amarilli, who is betrothed to Silvio, who is loved by Dorinda, and so forth and so on.
Even though Il Pastor Fido is set in Arcadia, the scene that unfolds in the sixth scene of the second act is not exactly one of Arcadian tranquillity: the woodland creature is attempting to rape and kill the woman.
Artemisia chose instead to depict the moment when the nymph manages to escape the satyr who is chasing after her. He had tried to capture Corisca by the hair only to end up on the ground, clutching the wig the clever woman had been wearing.
Oime il capo, oime il fianco, oime la schiena
O che fiera caduta. à pena i’ posso
Movermi, e rilevarmene. è pur vero
Ch’ella sen fugga, e qui rimanga il teschio?
Oh maraviglia inusitata; ò Ninfe
O my head! my knee!
O my back-bone! my thigh! what a vile fall
Was here! to get upon my legs is all
I have the pow'r to do. But can it be
That she should fly, and leave her head with me?
Of course, the idea of the satyr falling back on the ground and Corisca making it may arouse sympathy for the woman. Yet it is doubtful that Artemisia’s contemporaries would have felt the same as Corisca was plotting to eliminate Amarilli and, therefore, was a dissolute, ruthless, and immoral character.
In “Le persone che parlano” - the list of characters at the beginning of Il Pastor Fido - Corisca is described as “Innamorata di Mirtillo” and the satyr “vecchio amante già di Corisca.” But in The Faithful Shepherd - the 1647 English edition, translated by Richard Fanshawe - Corisca is presented as “A wanton Nymph, in love with Mirtillo;” and the Satyr “an old gotish fellow in love with Corisca”.
Then again, Artemisia's intention was not to redeem this character, but rather to present a gender-based tale in a new playful way.
Filippo Lauri (1623-1694), Corisca and the Satyr. National Galleries of Scotland
How did Artemisia’s male counterparts deal with the subject? Well, it seems that they (or, at least, the majority of them) didn’t if, apart from the above drawing by the Roman painter Filippo Lauri, now in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland, I haven’t been able to find many other seventeenth-century examples.
Most artists preferred to focus on a better-known episode of the story, the one in which Mirtillo disguise himself as a maiden to compete in a kissing game with Amarilli and her nymphs. Needless to say, he won handsomely.
Anthony van Dyck, who took inspiration for his composition from Titian’s The Bacchanal of the Andrians, depicted the moment Mirtillo gives the prize back to the beloved Amarilli.
Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), Amarillis and Mirtillo, 1631. Schloss Weißenstein
Ferdinand Bol, one of Rembrandt’s most talented pupils, depicted Amarilli placing a flower crown on Mirtillo’s head to match her own.
Ferdinand Bol (1616-1680), The Crowning of Mirtillo, 1650. Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco
Less galant and somewhat salacious the scene depicted by Jacob van Loo might appear to those who don’t know of Mirtillo’s disguise. The Dutch Golden Age artist picked the moment the lovers share a passionate kiss while Amarilli crowns and declares Mirtillo the winner. For those in doubt, Mirtillo is the one wearing the butterscotch dress and the square-toe shoes.
Jacob van Loo (1614-1670), Amarillis crowning Mirtillo, ca. 1648. Rijksmuseum Muiderslot, Muiden
But I have digressed for long enough.
Corisca and the Satyr first strikes for the formidable size (155 cm × 210 cm) and harmonious composition. The artwork attracted my attention last year when I saw it in person for the first time in the last section of a spectacular exhibition - Artemisia Gentileschi a Napoli.
Eyes are immediately drawn to Corisca and her elegant pose. The nymph doesn’t appear to be running away or recoiling, but rather distancing herself from the satyr. Holding her skirt with one hand and touching her hair with the other, she turns to look back to her assailant with a catch-me-if-you-can impishness.
The creamy white of the chemise, gold ochre of the dress, crimson of the cloak, and blue of the sandal buskin are attractive in their powerful combination, mesmerising in their fierce intensity. The gold ochre dress and the creamy white chemise, of which we see only the sleeves, are delightfully set against a crimson cloak. Her bravura brushwork is mostly noticeable in the sways of the fabrics.
It is interesting to note that a contemporary source praised Artemisia’s use of azzurro (light blue) and cinabro (cinnabar red) – the two colours that, according to Giovan Pietro Bellori, Caravaggio would have never used.
Artists living and working in Naples during the 1630s started focusing on colour combinations, moving on from Caravaggio’s style and looking at what contemporary Venetian and Bolognese artists were producing. Also, it is important to remember that it was in this city that Domenichino, one of the most important painters of the Bolognese school, spent the last decade of his life, from 1631 to 1641.
During this decade, not only Artemisia's style changed but it also caused changes among other Neapolitan painters. The eighteenth-century biographer, Bernardo de Dominici wrote that Artemisia’s colouring inspired, or at least affected, Massimo Stanzione and Bernardo Cavallino. In time that led to works by Artemisia being attributed to these two important Neapolitan painters. Corisca and the Satyr, for instance, was sold to the present owner as a work of Stanzione.
