Get ready to learn more about Artemisia Gentileschi. A television series about the influential Baroque painter’s life is in the works at ViacomCBS International Studios, Deadline reports. “Known for her violent, seductive autobiographical portraits,” Gentileschi started creating professional work when she was 15. Her subjects included biblical figures including Judith, Susanna, and Mary Magdalene.
Expected to kick off production next year, the project is based on Mary Garrard’s “Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art.” The academic text features 400-year-old transcripts from Gentileschi’s rape trial. At the age of 17, she was sexually assaulted by two men, artist Agostino Tassi and Cosimo Quorli. Her father pressed charges against Tassi for taking Gentileschi’s virginity. Gentileschi was physically tortured during the trial, the purpose of which was to verify her testimony. Tassi was sentenced to exile, but his punishment was never carried out.
In recent decades, Gentileschi’s work has been interpreted through a feminist lens. Her paintings often portray women — many of whom share Gentileschi’s likeness — fighting back against the systems or conditions that oppress them, such as Judith seducing and beheading the man who had planned to destroy her home and city. Many academics have linked these themes to Gentileschi’s rape, and the mistreatment she endured at the trial.
“Pan’s Labyrinth” producer Frida Torresblanco is developing the show for ViacomCBS International Studios. She will executive produce with 66 Media’s Jill Offman, formerly of ViacomCBS International Studios UK.
“There is a strong connection with this sort of young and brave woman who can overcome abuse and to turn it into a legacy of genius,” Torresblanco said. “This will be a contemporary feminist piece that is at once provocative and transgressive, invoking the spirit of our present moment in an eloquent and elegant way.”
“I have been obsessed with Artemisia since I saw a single painting of hers in Italy,” Offman recalled. “Passionate, fierce, masterful; Artemisia’s work spoke of her lived experience, the experience of a female artist in Renaissance Italy that remains just as relevant today.”
