This weekend, in my series looking at paintings of narratives centred on women, I tackle two tragedies: the first is the rape of the Roman noblewoman Lucretia, leading to her suicide. Tomorrow I look at a story from classical legend with a happier ending, the abandonment of Ariadne by Theseus on the island of Naxos.
The story of Lucretia, who died by her own hand between 510-507 BCE, is well known. Various versions, all of which date from about 500 years later, contain slightly different details, so I’ll try to offer as much of a consensus as I can.
Lucretia, the daughter of Spurius Lucretius, the prefect of Rome and a “man of distinction”, was married to one of its consuls, Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, who was the son of the king’s nephew. For whatever reason, Sextus Tarquinius, the son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus the king of Rome (when Rome was still a monarchy), was being entertained by Lucretia and her household, her husband being away at the siege of Ardea.
At night, Sextus entered Lucretia’s bedroom, and offered her the choice of submitting to his sexual advances and becoming his wife, or he would kill her and one of her slaves, and claim that he had caught them engaged in adulterous sex. He thus raped her, and left.
The following morning she dressed in black and met with her father and witnesses, in front of whom she gave account of what had happened, and called for vengeance. While her father and the witnesses were discussing the matter, she drew a dagger and stabbed herself in the chest, dying in front of them. Her husband returned, was distraught, and swore an oath on the dagger that he would overthrow the current king’s dynasty and end its tyranny. Those mourning Lucretia’s death swore the same oath on the dagger and Lucretia’s blood. Lucretia’s body was then paraded in the Roman Forum, and fuelled the overthrow of the king and Rome’s early monarchy, transforming it into the great republic which we know as the Roman Empire.
A story of passion, strong emotion, and gravity, this has been depicted in many paintings, with written accounts by Chaucer, Shakespeare, and many others. Benjamin Britten also wrote an opera The Rape of Lucretia, first performed in 1946.
Sandro Botticelli’s comprehensive account of The Story of Lucretia, painted in 1500-01, isn’t one of his well-known works, but tells the story effectively using multiplex narrative. At the left, Lucretia is raped at knifepoint by Sextus Tarquinius. She then commits suicide in shame, and anger erupts through Rome. Her body is carried from her house (right) and placed in the Forum. There, her husband and his friends swear to overthrow the king (centre), and this brings about the new constitution.
Jacopo Tintoretto painted Tarquin and Lucretia in 1578-80. This is one of the earlier works depicting the rape scene, and provides many signs of the violent struggle taking place. The string of pearls around Lucretia’s neck has just broken, and its pearls are seen symbolically falling to the floor. Tarquin’s dagger rests by her right foot, a bronze statue tumbles to the ground, together with a white cushion. These are accentuated by the bold and painterly highlights on the fabrics.
In the century from 1580, the attention of the masters shifted to the moments of Lucretia’s suicide, bringing some of the most moving images in the Western canon.
Veronese shows Lucretia in her funereal black robes, clearly in opulent surroundings judging by the rich but sombre drapes, with the dagger held at her breast. She wears fine jewellery, as would be appropriate for a woman of her status, and her hair is elaborately decorated with pearls and stones. Her face is cast down, as if starting the collapse after she had thrust her dagger into her chest, its expression mask-like, as death starts to overwhelm her. Her left hand holds her robes up above the dagger grasped in her right hand. The viscid, dark blood covering the end reveals that it has already been thrust in, and has just been withdrawn. As she now crosses the threshold of death, she will fade back into the blackness of her robes, and the oblivion beyond.
Guido Reni’s sensitive version of Lucretia shows her looking up to the heavens, as her imminent destination.
The daughter of a painter who became probably the finest of the successors to Caravaggio, Artemisia Gentileschi was herself raped by Tassi when she was his pupil, and then had to undergo the ordeal of his trial. Never afraid to tackle such challenging and emotive subjects, she is believed to have painted several versions of Lucretia. A later painting (from c 1630-5) may have been made by her, or Massimo Stanzione, but this version is distinctively hers.
She shows Lucretia with her robes in disarray, seated, and looking up. Her face is contorted, her brow knotted, and her lips pursed. She has none of the fine jewellery that might be expected, and her black garb is replaced by fabric the same dark red as congealing blood. She brandishes the dagger in her left hand, its blade pointing up into the air, but almost concealed by the surrounding black gloom. Her right hand grasps her left breast from underneath, pushing it upwards as if to clear the way for the thrust of the blade. It’s not immediately clear whether she has already driven the dagger into her chest: I suspect not, and that she is just about to make that final voluntary effort, in a swift arc with her left hand.
In the earlier of Rembrandt’s two paintings, from 1664, Lucretia is seen just about to run the dagger home into her chest. Rembrandt dresses her in fine contemporary clothes, rather than the black robes of the story, and she is richly decorated with jewellery. She is seen facing the viewer, but her head is slightly inclined to the right, and she stares emptily at her right hand. Her face shows calm resignation to her fate, with a tinge of wistful sadness. Her arms are outstretched, to the edges of the canvas. The left hand is grubby and held open, palm towards the viewer, perhaps protesting her virtue. The right grasps the handle of a dagger, which is just being brought around in an arc to impale her chest and bring her end.
Rembrandt’s later painting of 1666 is more remarkable still: Lucretia has already pierced her chest with the blade. Her fine clothing has been pulled back to reveal her simple white shift, which has a broad streak of fresh, bright red blood running down from the point at which the dagger was inserted. Her arms are outstretched here too, but for very different purposes. The right hand still clutches the dagger, which has dropped to waist level already. Her left hand is dragging a beaded bell-pull, presumably to summon her family to witness her final moments on earth. It is her face, though, that makes this painting. Her eyes, moistened by welling tears, are looking away to the right of the painting, in an absent-minded stare. Her brow is tensed with subtle anxiety. She knows that she is about to die, and is preparing herself for that moment.
My last painting is one of the few narrative works painted by the most prominent and successful British portraitist of the late 1600s and early 1700s, and was painted in 1672-5.
Sir Godfrey Kneller’s Lucretia catches her at the moment that the dagger pierces her chest. She isn’t wearing the standard black robes of the story, but a plain dress which has been thrown open to bare her chest and right breast. Her head and eyes are cast up in a posture similar to that shown by Artemisia Gentileschi, as if looking towards her destination in heaven. She appears tensed and anxious, and her mouth is part open as if she is gasping as the metal passes through the wall of her chest. She grips the dagger in her right hand, which drives it into her body. Her left arm hangs by her side, inactive, and behind her is a deep red drape, reminding us of the blood that will soon run from her wound.
Each of these paintings shows Lucretia on her own, her lonely decision made, resolving her inner conflict by ending her life. In this narrative climax it anticipates the resolution, in which Lucretia’s fearless defence of her virtue leads the Romans to defend theirs by deposing their tyrannical king, and becoming a republic. This guides us to the view that it was Lucretia’s self-sacrifice that inspired the whole Roman Empire.
From the eighteenth century, Lucretia’s story was strangely abandoned by specialist narrative painters, and seems to have been completely forgotten in the nineteenth century.
References
Wikipedia’s excellent comparative account of the text narrative.
Bal M (1991/2006) Reading Rembrandt. Beyond the Word-Image Opposition, Cambridge UP and Amsterdam Academic Archive. ISBN 90 5356 858 1.
Bikker J & Weber GJM et al. (2014) Rembrandt, the Late Works, Yale UP. ISBN 978 18 5709 557 9.
Locker JM (2015) Artemisia Gentileschi. The Language of Painting, Yale UP. ISBN 978 0 300 18511 9.
Salomon XF (2014) Veronese, National Gallery Co and Yale UP. ISBN 978 1 85709 553 1.
Schama S (1999) Rembrandt’s Eyes, Penguin. ISBN 0 14 028841 4.