Artemisia Gentileschi

Praise be your vantage point (1593 - 1653)

I. Artemisia,

before the maid with her babe
poses as your Virgin and Child,
she betrays you, lets in Agostino
Tassi, the friend your father hired
to teach you perspective.

And he does –
plugs your screams
deflects your dagger
A virtuous woman keeps a dagger by her bedside?

And again –
shoos his wife away
says he'll marry you
promises your father
a nozze di riparazione
instead steals his painting
that not your rape enrages your father

Afterimage (post-trial) –
you're called Puttana! Whore!
& married off, out of sight

your life and landscape displaced –
still, your hands paint you into
a new perspective:

Risorgimento, Rebirth –
1st woman in the Accademia and the Uffizi Gallery
Galileo and Cosimo Medici, your allies



Katerina Fretwell
Parry Sound, Ontario, 2003
Note: nozze di riparazione = marriage of reparation


First Woman in Accademia dell' Arte, Florence

II. Artemisia Gentileschi


Creatrix,

on the chaste white canvas
you whip force into form

your colourful embrace
is the stay of time

against the odds, this body of work
a gendered triumph

and the slow stroking:
seeing becomes being

Each lash of the sable brush
imprints a critical mass:

the birth or death of
Incandescence

No random fling this votive act

Nor do you diminish your rape by recanting it
At his trial your father's friend, your teacher
the prosecutor had your fingers racked to extract a denial?

Yet "Judith and Holophernes"
your masterpiece:
slays all savage force they sanctioned




Katerina Fretwell
Parry Sound, Ontario, 2003


Trial of Agostino Tassi, May 14, 1612

III. Artemisia,

The Sibile, Instrument of Torture, is used on you:

palm to palm like Duhrer's
Praying Hands, but bound,
& squeezed of supple strength
with each turn of the screw,

your hands are on trial –
bloodied from denying Tassi's lies:
you spread your legs
for him, his patrons, commissions.
You, greater artist, but lesser gender.

His hands, his strength, his privilege
preying on you
while he paints Muses with your father
for Cardinal Borghese.

The cord's bite, your father's nod,
rings of fire, this Inquisition;
your white sleeves reddened.
If a woman is raped, she invites it.
A virtuous woman keeps a dagger by her bedside?

O Artemisia, your courage
is on record – between the lines.
Your hands a prayer
stained by the centuries,
a palm crossed.





Katerina Fretwell
Parry Sound, Ontario, 2003


"Judith and Holophernes" in Uffizi Gallery, Florence

IV. Artemisia,

it's your piece hanging on the wall:

Hands aching from Sibile's vice, you stroke
muscle & sinew into Judith's arm
sawing through the tyrant's neck, and into
the maid, Abra's. They wrestle him down,
their fury and disgust in stark relief –
his head, his blade in shadow,
his knees bent, head down
pushed into the soiled sheets,
background black as intent.

Not passive like Caravaggio's Judith,
yours, true to deed,
is filled with riparazione
for half of humanity oppressed.
The act of painting
Judith and Abra's triumph
anoints your crushed
fingers, you, chosen Creator.





Katerina Fretwell
Parry Sound, Ontario, 2003


Basement playroom, 1955

V. Artemisia,

it's often those close to us:

lone male in a 50s household;
two widowed sisters, boy, girl.

his male privilege handed him
the run of the house, of me.

Too old to play Doctor, we were 11, still
he cupped my swells and curves

and clutched his budding
phallic universe –

my teacher of perspective.
His Intro to Anatomy

was underhanded – other specimens
later came up short.




Katerina Fretwell
Parry Sound, Ontario, 2003
2003


Rape Trial, Halifax, November 11, 1972

VI. Artemisia,

she too is under twenty
and she too, twice violated:

A girl hitches a ride
with 7 bikers, shares a bottle,
tours their clubhouse.

Threatened with a spiked ball
on a chain and growling Doberman,
she succumbs, passes out

before the 7th biker plus dog
get their licks. Sentenced
to seven years in the pen,

the seventh gets off with less
since the girl fortuitously
faints dead away –
the bikers swagger en camera.

Called Whore! the victim, her family
flee, their sentence, yours, Artemisia –
life and landscape displaced.


Katerina Fretwell
Parry Sound, Ontario, 2003


Cornell University, Spring 1963

VII. Artemisia,

it still happens:

Spring Fling at Cornell's jock frat –
petting to penetration in 5 dates flat.

My beau's surprise, instead of the women's dorm,
I'll share his bed. (No money for a taxi getaway!)

Cornell boys marry co-eds, practice on Wells girls,
but I'm saved by frozen muscles, no way in.

Instead we lie like curved spoons, forced
to swallow the medicine, I shower off at 4 am.

That Sunday I seethe while the band plays
The Big Bamboo, count the hours till the end.

My psychiatrist hands me a line, You wanted
to satisfy your curiosity.

Anger penetrates my paralysis
over mom's death orphaning me,

I escape this whoredom, transfer
to a Canadian University, hands off.


Katerina Fretwell
Parry Sound, Ontario, 2003