By Zainab Saad | Junior Editor of Local Arts & Culture
(TW: mention of rape and SA)
I wake up in the morning, make myself some tea and sit down to look at my personal visual board. Old paintings appear to be the prominent theme of my vision, more specifically paintings of raging women defying all the stereotypical features of an acceptable ‘female’, and I’d like to call it my new self-care routine.
One painting in particular stands out to me the most. A woman in a blue dress presses down a man by his torso, another woman in a yellow dress holds onto his head in a hand and cuts his throat using a golden sword with another. His tortured expression, and pathetic attempts to resist appear to be useless in the face of the strength of two women. That man is Holofernes, the Assyrian general in the Old Testament, and the woman is Judith who beheaded him, saving her people. He also happens to be an artist called Agostino Tassi and that woman also happens to be Artemisia Gentileschi.
Inspired by her previous experience with sexual violence, and after her unusual testimony in the court against her rapist that wasn’t met with the justice she deserved, it is possible that the self-portrait she painted is a portrayal of the justice she was denied. Even when Tassi was set free, with Gentileschi enduring utter public humiliation, she refused to remain silent. Instead, she used art to glorify the rage that inspires women with similar experiences to speak and refuse any subjugation or injustice.
In a similar case, a popular tale in Plutarch’s biography of Alexander the Great is painted by Elisabetta Sirani who portrayed woman to be the champions in her works. In that painting she represents the tale of Timoclea who leads her rapist – a captain in Alexander the Great’s army – to her garden’s well and throws him in before dropping heavy rocks down the well and killing him.
Such paintings successfully show us how the tables are turned upside down–and so is the man. This, in my opinion, can be clearly interpreted as a quite literal inversion of the hierarchy.
Art can also portray the patriarchy getting smashed, again in a literal sense. The other biblical reference work of Gentileschi, where Jael hammers a tent peg into Sisera’s head smashing his head is one example.
Whether it is the Renaissance and Baroque depictions of Judith beheading Holofernes, Timoclea throwing her rapist down the well, or Maenads ripping Orpheus apart, those art works give a voice to the woman’s rage at the injustices of the systems of the present.
The channeled female rage is considered as a catalyst for possible political and social change. Therefore, this type of art can trigger every woman’s unchecked anger: the terrifying rage that is often hidden inside in fear of being judged or labeled as ‘overly emotional’ or ‘irrational’.
I’m not suggesting we throw men down a well, but I would indeed argue that anger is effective, even beautiful. It is important that we allow ourselves to be emotional, and feel big emotions without guilt or shame.
Women’s anger has been lurking under the surface for centuries. It is most inspiring, even liberating, when this rage breaks out of the gaslighting ‘cool girl’ male fantasy.
So embrace your frustration, take action, and resist.
It’s a beautiful day to destroy the patriarchy.