(1) Would a critic of 1950 have made the claim that Artemesia Gentileschi
was more famous than her father, Orazio? Is her rise in fame correlated with
the rise of the women's rights movement?

(2) Has a byproduct of the "Women's Movement's" focus on Artemisia served
to create renewed interest in the Neapolitan Baroque artists?

(3) What effect did the Northern Italian attitude of "superiority" have on the way in 
which the fame of the highly productive and original Neapolitan Baroque 
painters rose and fell? Was their work relatively ignored as a result of the 
acceptance of the view that the Southern Italians were primitive,ungovernable 
people? 
========================================  
>From Professor Emeritus James Mancuso:

How can it be said that Artemesia Gentileschi is or was more famous 
than her father, Orazio.

I would like to see some kind of "citation index" (something like the
administration of universities gather on professors in order to find out if
a professor's work is being used by his/her colleagues) on Orazio and
Artemesia.  I would want to see an annual assessment over the last 50 years.
I think that one might be able to offer some interesting hypotheses about
the correlation between the rise of the women's rights movement and the
recognition of Artemesia's work.

One can get a good look at some representative work of Artemesia Gentileschi
by going to the www site at:
    http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/g/gentiles/artemisi/index.html
Orazio's work can be seen by going to the site found at:
    http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/html/g/gentiles/orazio/index.html

What might be quite interesting for those who study the status of Southern
Italy and the emigrants from Southern Italy would be the way in which the
fame of the highly productive and original Neapolitan Baroque painters rose
and fell as did the efforts to generate the view that the Southern Italians
were viewed as primitive, ungovernable people.  If one did that study, we
would see, first of all, that Orazio Genteleschi became an admirer and
follower of Caravaggio, and helped to spread the fame of Caravaggio's
immensely original work throughout Europe.  Artemesia's connection to the
Neapolitan Baroque painters was expressed not only in her creations, but
also in her having moved to Naples, where she spent the last 21 years of her
life (1630-1651).

One of the most outstanding of the Napolitan Baroque painters, Salvatore
Rosa, was quite famous in The USA.  Rosa was a painter of extravagantly
romantic, almost mystical landscapes. He was also an accomplished poet,
satirist, actor, and musician.  He was very involved in anti-Spanish
political activity.

The famed Hudson River School of painters treated Rosa as their mentor.
In reading some excerpts from the journals of Merriweather Lewis, I was
jolted as I read Lewis' efforts to describe a dramatic scene of water falls
on the upper Missouri, in what is now the state of Montana.  Lewis tried to
describe verbally what he saw, and indicated that he would draw a pencil
sketch, knowing that he could not do justice to the scene.  He then said, "I
wished for the pen of Salvatore Rosa or the pen of [James] Thompson that I
might be enabled to give the enlightened world some just idea of this truly
magnifficent (sic) and sublimely good object. "Apparently, Lewis expected that 
the "enlightened world" of The USA, in 1806, would know that Salvatore Rosa 
could convey the natural beauty of Montana.

I would venture that today most people who think of Italian art would
immediately think of the great Rinacimento painters, the Mannerists, and the
Venetians.

Recently, however, the art world has been giving more and more attention to
the Neapolitan painters. Indeed, many Southern Italians who might have 
attended church in Siracusa or Naples would have seen examples of Caravaggio 
and other Neapolitan Baroque painters.

Those of us who try to understand and appreciate the great
Southern-Italy-to-the-USA can be most pleased that NY City's Metropolitan
Museum is showing the works of the Gentileschis.  Perhaps the art of
Southern Italy will become more famous and appreciated through that effort.