Artemisia

[NNadir]

Gerrit van Honthorst, Dutch, 1592–1656

Oil on Canvas

Circa 1635.

At the Princeton University Museum of Art.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear NNadir!

Ah, this is lovely...

Alas but I don't know what the name means. Do you?

I love how the light highlights her beautiful dress...She becomes the center of the picture, even though she's off-center.

What are they doing?

Thank you for this, and for all the art you post. I really enjoy seeing all of it.

:hi:

[NNadir]

2. My sons and I spent some time with this painting today, Peg.

We visit the Princeton Museum of Art once or twice a month during their homework sessions which they do in the libraries at Princeton. At the end of the day, we visit the museum.

We're very lucky and we never get tired of that wonderful museum.

The painting is even more beautiful to see live, and the brush work is amazing.

As for what the painting depicts: The tale is kind of shocking to modern sensibilities.

Artemesia was, in the 4th century BCE, the wife of King Mausolus, from whose name the word "Mausoleum" comes. This was an incestuous relationship, her husband was also her brother.

When he died, she inherited his throne, and famously defeated the invasion by the forces of Rhodes by lightening strategy.

However it is said that her grief at the death of her husband/brother was so extraordinary that she had his bones ground into a powder and each day had them added to her drink, so that she herself would be his tomb.

This is what the painting depicts, so strictly speaking the tale has elements of both incest and cannibalism.

The tomb of King Mausolus, in which Artemesia was also entombed when she died two years after her husband/brother, was said to have been one of the "Seven Wonders" of the ancient world. The pyramids of Egypt are the only example of the "seven wonders" that survived to modern times. (Another was the Colossus at Rhodes, a giant statue with spread legs that straddled the entrance of the harbor at Rhodes, and was, ironically built by Artemesia's enemies.)

[A HERETIC I AM]

3. My brother and his late wife bought 20 acres in Eastern Lee County, FL.

They built their home and planted numerous fruit and nut trees.

They named it "Artemesia".