Magnificent Beards: Antonietta Gonzalez

Harper Truog
Fontana, Antonietta Gonzalez, 1595
Magnificent Beards
By HARPER TRUOG

This child doesn’t have a beard so much as mutton chops, but I could not resist including it. The image is jarring to see such a hairy person in royal garments. The child’s round cheeks combined with facial hair also creates confusion over her gender. 

The painting of the hair itself is good, it looks thin and soft like a baby’s should. Fontana was known for doing portraits of royal family members. She is considered the first female painter to work within the male sphere. Paintings of babies were often used like pictures are today; to show other family members how cute it is and that it is healthy. Think of the family of a distant cousin huddling around a canvas and cooing over the new family member. Fontana puts great detail into the clothing which shows status. The paper and writing also signifies status and education. There is a hint of a crown on top of the child’s head, signifying royal blood. Fontana is not my favorite painter, but she does not shy away from weird subject matter.

There is an actual condition where some children are born with hair all over their bodies, but usually it falls off and they look normal within a couple years. It is very interesting to see a child painted like this. I would have thought that the parents would have told Fontana to not paint the excess hair. The hair and beard make her look much older than she probably is.
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Judith with the Head of Holofernes

Judith with the Head of Holofernes
Lavinia Fontana, Judith with the Head of Holofernes, c.1600
By LIBBY ROHR

Picture it, biblical Israel.

The Israelis are in the midst of a war with the Assyrians. Bethulia, a town in the little narrow strip towards Jerusalem, is under siege. For 34 days, just over a month, this town has been taken hostage by the brutal, dominating Assyrians, lead by the horrifying General Holofernes. The people of Bethulia who started off strong and passionate are now exhausted and debilitated, growing even more so by the day. They're five days out from surrender, unable to continue. They pray for divine intervention but in their state faith in their success is dwindling. What they need is a miracle, or a gorgeous, badass, jewish lady.

This is the story of Judith and Holofernes, one of the Bible's best stories of women heroes. Lavinia Fontana, one of the first significant female artists, was certainly a fan of such stories. Though she was most famous as the first female a court painter in the male-dominated public art sphere, she painted many mythological and biblical paintings. Her focus in most of these works was the woman's perspective, like in Noli Mi Tangere and The Assumption of the Virgin. Her religious works show the emotion and passion of the women in the biblical world and their importance in the stories. Therefore it is natural for an artist with such focuses to create her own version one of the most frequently painted biblical stories of the non-Jesus variety.

Judith, a notably beautiful widow, is the hero Bethulia needed. She hears of the plan to surrender and absolutely refuses to backdown. She will not tolerate an oppression of her people, so she concocts a plan. She adorns herself in beautiful jewels and dons a stunning and provocative outfit, transcending her already stunning beauty, before leaving her city behind. She enters the Assyrian camp and claims to be a deserter with information on how to bring down the Jews once and for all. Holofernes is completely taken by her. She is invited to feast with him and she spouts all manor of lies about the defenses in Bethulia. By the end of the night, Holofernes is set on taking her to bed. Upon reaching his chambers, however, he is so inebriated from an evening of feasting that he is nearly defenseless. Judith takes the mighty general's sword from it's scabbard and uses it to slice off the enemy's head with two strong strikes. Her servant rushes in to collect the severed head and the two disappear over the horizon of the camp long before any of the Assyrians discover what has happened. Upon arriving in Bethulia again, she presents the head to her people, who rally immediately, revived to their own strength and proceed to chase the Assyrians out of their land and far from Bethulia.

Fontana paints herself as Judith, clad in a sensual blood red, and all the adornments of the original story. The head of Holofernes sinks into the shadows, far from the focus of the painting. All of the emphasis is on the strength of Judith. Rather showing her as a bloodthirsty woman hacking off the head of a general as is seen in most other renditions of the story, Fontana paints her regal and put together, showing the power of the feminine, and holding the head as a symbol that her people will not back down.
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Assumption of the Virgin

1583

Lavinia Fontana, Assumption of the Virgin, 1583
Fontana’s scene is disturbing. Assumption attempts to depict what should be a glorious scene of fulfillment after Mary’s long life comes to an end. However, Fontana for whatever reason, instills the work with a sinister quality that leaves me wondering what she was actually trying to say. The color palette immediately strikes me. The dark reds fading into black make me uncomfortable. Honestly, Mary’s destination does not look friendly like Fontana must have intended. No cool colors or even neutrals offer any kind of respite—Mary seems headed for fire. Mary looks frightened. Her facial expression betrays her unwillingness to part as she seems to recoil from the crown over her head. Fontana abandons subtlety when she draws the faces. Hundreds of disembodied souls swirl chaotically around the Virgin, surrounding her as they follow her into the sky. When paired with the red color palette, many of these souls appear tormented. A lot of them also look like really creepy dolls, which doesn’t dovetail well with the salvation vibe.

Despite all these strange aspects of the painting, I struggle to read too much into any sort of subversion on the part of Fontana. She enjoyed by far the most successful career of any female painter in her time. Twenty years after the commission of this painting, she traveled with her family—which survived on solely her income—to Rome where she remained on a commission to paint for the Church. She even painted a portrait of Pope Paul V. Although her choices for the color palette seem strange, heresy was probably not her intent.

The bottom half of the painting, separated from Mary’s divinity by a layer of clouds, connects the mundane with the spiritual. Saints Cassian and Chrysogonus, two 4th century Saints martyred by Diocletian—or maybe not, as there are at least five Cassians—point upward at Mary while retaining a connection to the real world, portrayed by the miniature town at the feet of the saints. Two papal mitres sit on the outside of each saint, perhaps telling the viewer that the path to God lies through the church. The position of the saints’ arms and faces adds to the upward movement of the painting.

Fontana’s small devotional provides a preview of the success she would one day attain working on massive commissions for the church. Compositionally, perhaps, she still had a way to go. Her use of color definitely needs a little tweaking. However, her ability to depict emotion and use symbols already presents itself here and shows much of the talent that would shine through in masterpieces like Minerva Dressing 30 years later.


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