GroupNumber4

Russ Hunt

I thought I'd check the obvious source and report what I found just as a way of showing how a wiki entry might look. I checked "Sally Clark" in Wikipedia, and after identifying the right one, found a quick bio -- she arrived in Toronto in 1973 and has worked with a number of theatre companies there, including Theatre Passe Muraille and the Shaw Festival. The wikipedia article is just a "stub" (maybe we could edit it after we've done the work?), but it suggests looking at the [|Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia] and [|The Playwrights Database] for further material. Wikipedia also lists a number of plays, but I'm not sure it's all of them.

Also, if you Google Artemesia Gentileschi you find not only a wikipedia entry, but an ambitious Web site called "[|The Life and Art of Artemisia Gentileschi,]" which you wouldn't want to quote but looks like a great starting point for finding out more about her. I've linked it. It offers this bibliography:
 * 1) Garrard, Mary D. 1989. Artemisia Gentileschi - The Image of The Female Hero in Italian Baroque Art. Princeton University Press.
 * 2) Garrard, Mary D. 1993. [|Artemisia Gentileschi.] Rizzoli Publications Inc., New York.
 * 3) Alexandra Lapierre, 1998 (translated by Liz Heron, 2000), [|Artemisia - a novel], Grove Press, New York.
 * 4) Bissell, R. Ward, 1999. Artemisia Gentileschi and the Authority of Art. The Pennsylvania State University Press.
 * 5) Garrard, Mary D. 2001. [|Artemisia Gentileschi around 1622: The Shaping and Reshaping of an Artistic Identity.] Discovery Arts Series, University of California Press.
 * 6) Vreeland, Susan 2002 The Passion of Artemisia Headline Book Publishing.

Meghan Jagoe

I found an article discussing Artemisia Gentileschi and the preponderance of the historical figure being used as a fictional character. In it, the author mentions the fact that until the feminist movement of the 1970's "rediscovered" Artemisia, she was relatively unspoken of in a general context. The reasoning behind her presence in writings now is, according to the author, due to two main reasons: 1) Artemesia's talent in art and 2) the rape trial which is the main event of Sally Clark's Life Without Instruction. The author gives a few other examples of works involving Artemesia as a character, including Germaine Greer's The Obstacle Race (1979) and Mary Garrard's Artemisia Gentileschi: The Image of the Female Hero in Baroque Art (1989). Also mentioned is Griselda Pollock's Differencing the Canon: Feminist Desire and the Writing of Art's Histories (1999). The article goes on to examine the play Life Without Instruction as a text, reading into Artemisia's life not solely through her biography, but also through her paintings themselves. The author gives a historical background of Artemesia's life and the trial, giving a clear outline of the play itself (Grace 119-120). The author of the article also gives some context to Sally Clark's life, saying "Sally Clark, who trained as a painter before she turned to writing (Rudakoff 76), wanted to write about Artemisia Gentileschi she studied the available sources, notably Greer's chapter in The Obstacle Race and Mary Garrard s major study" (Grace 122). The article discusses the idea of perspective: both how Artemesia's art, as well as Caravaggio, the main influence of many artists of the time, deals heavily with perspective and how that is reflected in the play. The rape scene, while clearly intended to be traumatizing and a violent act for the woman, is often treated through shifting perspectives throughout the play. There is an edge of dark comedy added to the treatment of the rape, starting as early as the next scene.

A very brief [|biography] of Sally Clark is given at the Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia, [|as well as] at the Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature. They list some of her works to date and a brief history of her academic career. Also available through the Oxford database is a brief history on both Gentileschis, father and daughter. In terms of the Biblical tale highlighted in the play, this [|site] gives some valuable insight into the story of Judith and the history behind the book.


 * Brooke**

Who is Holofernes? Holofernes is King Nebuchadnezzar's general. King Nebuchadnezzars "reigned over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh" (Judith 1:1). He is also the man who Judith beheads.

Who is Judith? (Hebrew, "Jewess") the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and one of Esau's wives (Gen. 26:34), elsewhere called Aholibamah (36: 2-14).

-The trial and rape of Artemisia (1612) is listed on that site. Tassi never confessed but did serve time. This information was taken from a site about Tassi. "In reality, Tassi was known as what might now be called a multiple sex offender. He had been sued for raping and impregnating his sister-in-law, equated with incest, and there was testimony at the trial that he had arranged and paid for the murder of his own wife, whom he had also acquired by rape."

-There is also a movie of Artemisia which was released in 1998.

-I wanted to post these pictures so that incase others havn't looked at them they are here if needed. There are many different versions of these paintings and a lot of people, other then Artimisia did their own versions. - This site is a site dedicated completely to Artimisia. The particular page I listed is of all her paintings. I notice that the one of Susanna and the Elders is the brightest of all paintings. I dont know why this is the case but this is what I see. The rest of them are very dark. Also noticed is the nudity in most of them. By looking at these I can understand why the Feminism movement would adapt Artimisia as a feminist by looking at her paintings.


 * Mare Spence**

I looked into the main artists in the play:

//Caravaggio// [|Biography] from Britannica Online. Caravaggio was an Italian Baroque painter. He used great contrast between light and dark. He was also one of the first artists to use real people as models for his artwork, and to portray them realistically rather than idealize them. __//Judith beheading Holofernes//__

//Artemisia Gentileschi// [|Biography] and [|another]



//Orazio Gentileschi// [|Biography]


 * Cathy Doucette

Marriage by Capture: also known as "bride kidnapping" and "marriage by abduction"

It is a historical practice and still happens today in some places, and is a culture thing in others. 'Marriage by Capture' is when a man kidnaps a woman he wants to marry. Some peoples and places consider this a sort of sex crime, along the lines of rape. However, in other places, elopement is considered along with this.

Raptio: abduction of women. More refers to the kidnapping of more than one women at a time for this purpose--like claiming women for brides during the war.

In Italy, a marriage by capture was considered to be both a kidnapping and a rape, followed by a "rehabilitating marriage". **