Artemisia Gentileschi was never quiet. She was instead the heroic center of her own art, fashioning a new language of womanhood, in action and in form. Her heroic women are not man-eaters, but man-beaters. That’s one reason why her Judith Severing the Head of Holofernes appalled so many for so long. Not only is a woman depicted performing a heinous act on a man, but also it’s a woman daring to depict it. Artemisia refused the gag. And from four hundred years away she speaks to us still, saying: Dare to be great.
