Artemisia Gentileschi is one of the most underrated Baroque painters. She's become more well known the last ten or so years, but I appreciate her work more than some of her more famous contemporaries like Caravaggio because she breathes life into her female subjects.
https://twitter.com/OldDreyfusard/status/1387171725452857344
When I look at a lot of paintings of the time, the women in paintings feel like beautiful objects d'art, not people. The real expression and complexity is reserved for the men at the center of paintings. Not so with Artemeisa.
For instance her depiction of Judith Beheading Holofernes, one of the most painted scenes in art, is easily my favorite. There's this grim, dispassionate resolve in the face of Judith and her maid as they dispatch their would be invader. Fukkin slaps. 
She has some of the best use of chiaroscuro of the era. This painting depicting the aftermath of the assassination feels like it's about to flicker to life.
She also painted one of my favorite self-portraits ever. This is actually the painting that made me fall in love with her work and her as an artist. It just makes me wish I could have known her. There's something enthralling about the way she depicts herself.
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