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Inspiration for Linda M. Smith’s third album “Artemisia”
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At the age of 17, Artemisia completed her apprenticeship with her father but was unable to continue her education at any art academy because females were barred. Undeterred, Orazio arranged for a friend, Agostino Tassi, to teach her privately. But Tassi’s interest in Artemisia was not her art. Artemisia tried to thwart sexual advances from Tassi to no avail. Tassi raped her, then promised to marry her to restore her reputation. With no other socially acceptable recourse, Artemisia became his reluctant lover. Artemisia’s father found out the truth and charged Tassi with rape. The publicly humiliating trial lasted seven months. Tassi denied raping Artemisia and instead made ludicrous claims that she and her deceased mother were promiscuous with many men and that Artemisia’s father took her virginity. In the end, the trial revealed that Tassi was a multiple sex offender who had not only raped Artemisia, but had raped and impregnated his sister-in-law and had arranged for the murder of his own wife, whom he also “acquired” by rape.Although Tassi was convicted and sentenced to exile from Rome, Artemisia’s reputation suffered the most damage and the traumatic impact of the ordeal was reflected in her work. Cathartic and symbolic, several of her pieces were attempts to deal with her physical and emotional pain. Some of her paintings showed historical and biblical female characters exacting revenge on male evildoers.Family friends attempted to restore Artemisia’s name by finding her a husband, Pierantonio Stiattesi, an artist from Florence. They married two days after Tassi’s sentence and moved to Florence shortly thereafter.
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