Inside Museums: Artemisia Gentileschi

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Inside Museums

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media: Arts

Access-all-areas visits to inspiring collections in museums and galleries across the UK.

Access-all-areas visits to inspiring collections in museums and galleries across the UK. A personal guided tour of the incredible, eclectic and moving treasures in their keeping.

Series 1

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Letizia Treves

Katy Hessel

Greg Taylor

Jacqui Edenbrow

William Fairman

Roxy Rezvany

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Inside Museums: Series 1: Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi

BBC Four - Inside Museums, Series 1, Artemisia Gentileschi

A special access tour of the Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition at London's National Gallery

A special access tour of the Artemisia Gentileschi blockbuster exhibition billed as Tarantino meets Caravaggio, a bloody tale of tragedy and triumph with a twist. 

A chance to explore the National Gallery's critically acclaimed show that very nearly never happened due to Covid-19 restrictions. Artemisia Gentileschi’s blockbuster exhibition is billed as Tarantino meets Caravaggio, a bloody tale of tragedy and triumph with a twist. 
 
Artemisia was a woman who painted her way to fame and glory in 17th-century Italy but was then forgotten for centuries. She was inspired as a child by the rebel artist, Caravaggio, and by the age of 17 could paint superbly, but her life was derailed by sexual assault. She survived and, some say, took her revenge in art by painting gory scenes of female heroism.

Artemisia Gentileschi is not simply a painter who deserves to be rediscovered for her defiance of an age that was unapologetically biased against women. She is a truly great artist whose achievement has been obscured by lazy sexism. In her lifetime, she was feted by grand dukes and kings, and a friend of Galileo. With her direct, shocking style, her paintings are raw muscular slices of life. She painted grand narratives from the Bible and the lives of the saints, and yet you always feel her own presence, her own feelings in her work. 
 
This behind-the-scenes tour of her sold-out, five-star exhibition in London takes us to the heart of Gentileschi’s genius. It not only includes most of her great paintings but even the written documents that preserve her clear, courageous voice. Artemisia lived centuries ago in a society that had not heard of feminism, where her gender marked her out as an anomaly. Yet she reaches out to our time, and her incendiary art hits us with its truth.


Inside Museums: Series 1

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Four special access visits to the collections of museums and galleries across the UK.

Four special access visits to the collections of museums and galleries across the United Kingdom during the Covid-19 pandemic. Part of the BBC's #MuseumPassion season.

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