The Artist Signs Her Masterpiece, Immodestly (2020) - Danielle DeTiberus

One poem a day #19

If you had the chance to catch up with the news this past week, you probably have heard about Gisèle Pelicot, a french woman who was repeatedly drugged by her husband of five decades and raped by more the 70 men (only 50 have been identified so far) over course of several years at his invitation.

I will spare you the details — they will turn your stomach.

Whenever you think life can't surprise you anymore, it collides with your head on like a truck.

Although the French court offered to protect her privacy, Mrs. Pelicot chose a public trial in order to bring awareness to the matter and alert other women.

Her whole life has been turned upside down, yet, according to her, she is like a boxer who got up and is still standing, ready to fight.

I can't imagine what she has been through, but I understand why she might feel like she has nothing to lose or, in her own words to the judge, "Nothing bothers me". If you can pull yourself together after such a betrayal, you can probably overcome anything life throws at you.

Sadly she is not alone. Many women throughout the ages have had to endure unjustifiable abuse.

One of them was the Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – c. 1656).

Born in Rome, Artemisia was the daughter of Orazio Gentileschi and learned to paint in her father's studio, influenced by Caravaggio's naturalism.

At the age of 18, she was raped by her father's friend and colleague, Agostino Tassi. It took her a year to have the courage to report him. This delay turned public opinion against her, with many concluding the relationship had been consensual.

Artemisia's father charged Tassi with the crime of 'deflowering' his daughter. Despite being convicted, the court allowed Tassi to avoid prison by exiling him from Rome.

Artemisia turned to her art, creating some truly beautiful pieces, like the one below.

Judith Slaying Holofernes - Artemisia Gentileschi (1612-13)

Judith Slaying Holofernes was inspired by the Book of Judith, the second of biblical novellas included in the Catholic Bible, in which a widow, Judith, kills an Assyrian general, Holofernes, who has besieged her city, saving nearby Jerusalem from destruction.

It’s said that Artemisia based Judith’s appearance on herself and Holofernes, on her rapist, but there is no proof of that. Nowadays, critics and historians tend to focus on the painter’s determination to portray strong women, regardless of connection to her assault.

There is a second version of this painting:

Judith Slaying Holofernes - Artemisia Gentileschi (1620-21)

Artemisia’s courage and perseverance inspired many women, incluing the author of today’s poem, Danielle DeTiberus:

The Artist Signs Her Masterpiece, Immodestly

After Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith Beheading Holofernes (Uffizi, 1620)

Because I know what rough work it is to fight off
a man. And though, yes, I learned tenebroso from
Caravaggio, I found the dark on my own. Know too

well if Judith was alone, she’d never be able to claw
her way free. How she and Abra would have to muster
all their strength to keep him still long enough

to labor through muscle and bone. Look at the old
masters try their best to imagine a woman wielding
a sword. Plaited hair just so. She’s disinterested

or dainty, no heft or sweat. As if she were serving
tea—all model and pose. No, my Judith knows
to roll her sleeves up outside the tent. Clenches

a fistful of hair as anchor for what must be done.
Watch the blood arc its way to wrist and breast.
I have thought it all through, you see. The folds

of flesh gathered at each woman’s wrist, the shadows
on his left arm betraying the sword’s cold hilt.
To defeat a man, he must be removed from his body

by the candlelight he meant as seduction. She’s been
to his bed before and takes no pleasure in this.
Some say they know her thoughts by the meat of her

brow. Let them think what they want. I have but one job:
to keep you looking, though I’ve snatched the breath
from your throat. Even the lead white sheets want

to recoil. Forget the blood, forget poor dead Caravaggio.
He only signed one canvas. Lost himself in his own
carbon black backdrop. To call my work imperfect

would simply be a lie. So I drench my brush in
a palette of bone black—femur and horn transformed
by their own long burning—and make one last

insistence. Between this violence and the sleeping
enemies outside, my name rises. Some darknesses
refuse to fade. Ego Artemitia. I made this—I.

Danielle DeTiberus is an american writer and creative writing teacher whose work has been featured in several magazines and news outlets, like The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review, American Poets, Copper Nickel, The Missouri Review, Verse Daily and many more. You can find her here.