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• 1 media/Sirani,_Elisabetta_-_Timoclea_uccide_il_capitano_di_Alessandro_Magno_-_1659.jpg media/6092b674899520a1fb7e6d071ccabc09.jpg media/timoclea kills the general of alexander the great.jpg 2020-10-14T21:50:39+00:00 Elisabetta Sirani: Hardened Heroines and Timoclea of Thebes 14 Zara Kaye Eassy I plain 2021-01-01T03:14:20+00:00

  
  

  Elisabetta Sirani painted Timoclea Putting Alexander’s Captain Down a Well in 1659, often known as just Timoclea. Timoclea Putting Alexander’s Captain Down a Well is a proto feminist history painting, that reflects Sirani’s distinct interest in heroic women. 

  Bologna born Sirani is fascinating, as she essentially opened doors for other female artists for years to come, particularly when it came to history painting. Sirani was born in 1638 and is the eldest daughter of Giovanni Andrea Sirani, another famous Baroque painter. She grew up working in her father’s studio, with her three younger sisters. Interestingly enough, Giovanni wasn’t initially supportive of Elisabetta’s arts education, and was persuaded by contemporaneous art historian Carlo Cesare Malvasia to teach young Elisabetta art. By 19, Sirani was an independent painter, known for her history paintings, and a master who’s work surpassed her father’s. When her father fell ill with gout, she ran his workshop, and supported the entire family with her income from painting alone. At 24 she had 90 works attributed to her, over the next three years she’d paint another 80 pieces. She signed and dated most of her work, and kept a record of all of her paintings. When she took over her father’s studio, she turned it into a painting school for women. Elisabetta went on to teach dozens of other young female artists, creating a safe space where women could learn and paint together. Needless to say, she was ahead of her time. 

  Although her actions were revolutionary and can certainly be described as proto-feminist in nature, her choice of subject matter is even more progressive. Sirani was known for her depictions of heroic women, like Timoclea in Timoclea Putting Alexander’s Captain Down a Well, or Judith from Judith Showing the Head of Holofernes (1658), a companion piece to Timoclea. Sirani’s heroic women are characterized as being distinctly dispassionate, unruffled, and surprisingly lacking any sense of eroticism. She often opted for unpopular scenes from famous narratives, providing a new perspective and a new visual to ancient stories. 

  The story of Timoclea is from Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, written in 75  A.C.E., a copy of which the Siranis had in their private library, among many other historic books. Essentially, Timoclea was a Thebian woman who was raped by one of Alexander the Great’s captains, who broke into her home during a rebellion. The captain then asked her to give him her money, and she led him to her well. She convinced him that her money and jewels were at the bottom of the well, and when he looked in, she pushed him into the well and then threw large rocks at him until he died. She was later brought before Alexander, who was so impressed by her courage that he freed her and her children. 

  Timoclea’s story wasn’t as popular as biblical narratives, but it was reasonably well known among intellectual circles. Apparently, Sirani is the only Italian painter to depict Timoclea and her rapist at the well. Usually if, and when, Timoclea’s story was the subject of a painting, the scene of Timoclea appearing before Alexander was chosen, and Timoclea is painted as a beautiful, pure, and virtuous figure. 

  In Timoclea Putting Alexander’s Captain Down a Well, Timoclea is mid push, sending her rapist down into the well. Timoclea is depicted with a certain sense of resolve, there’s no fear or doubt that her action is correct, just, and righteous. She shoves him with an obvious strength, her body is broad and fleshy, but not overtly feminine or soft. She is remarkably rooted and grounded, there’s a sturdiness to her. 

  Despite the scene at the well taking place immediately after Timoclea’s rape, Sirani doesn’t paint Timoclea bedraggled, bloodied, or disheveled. Timoclea isn’t in any state of undress. Sirani made a conscious effort to “eliminate the sexuality that typified such heroines in Italian art”. She paints her women with strong bodies, large in the frame, and often totally covered. Instead of sexual, beautiful, and graceful, Sirani shows the audience a stoic and substantial Timoclea, who honestly looks like she’s taking out the trash.  In contrast, the Captain is a jumble of limbs, entirely off balance, and certainly fearful. He is much more expressive and emotional than Timoclea. He has the look of a man who knows he’s screwed, totally caught off guard. 

  For a work painted in 1659, Sirani’s depiction of Timoclea is striking, in part because the virtues Sirani imbues Timoclea with are commonly associated with men -not women- during this period. This choice is typical of Sirani’s work overall, this flip of gendered virtues. In her version of Judith Showing the Head of Holofernes and Portia Wounding Her Thigh (1664), Sirani depicts both women similarly to Timoclea. Heroic women were rarely praised during the Renaissance and Baroque periods, often women were praised for their chastity and grace, which is what makes Sirani’s work so unusual and unabashedly proto-feminist. It’s theorized that this work’s patron, banker Andrea Cattalani, favored images of powerful and heroic historical women. ​Cattalani had 4 works by Sirani in his collection, all of different historical and powerful women.

  Sirani’s work has been criticized recently for her unemotional heroines, for depicting women as dispassionate and impenetrable, particularly in comparison to Artemisia Gentileschi’s paintings, which are often extremely emotional. Ultimately, the lack of emotionality in Sirani’s paintings versus Gentileschi’s could stem from a lack of trauma. There’s no record of Sirani experiencing the same kind of harassment or assault that Gentileschi did. Instead of an outcast, Sirani was somewhat of a local celebrity, who would paint often in front of a gallery of onlookers, many who were “in love with the attractive and focused young artist”. People believed Sirani to be the reincarnation of Guido Reni, a painter her father famously assisted. Unlike Gentileschi, an outcast and victim, Sirani was more of a local heroine herself. 

  Considering that Sirani single handedly supported her family for 11 years, ran an art school, and kept her own books, it's likely that she embodied many of the traits her heroines did. Although she was widely considered beautiful, it’s not a reach to theorize that she may have desired to be valued for her artistic prowess, intellect, and courage more than her looks. Sirani never married, and actually died quite young, in 1665, at age 27 under mysterious circumstances. Although she never had children of her own, her legacy lived on in her students and her paintings. Needless to say, Elisabetta Sirani provided her students with heroines with agency to look up to, in her work and epitomized in the way she led her own life.