Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi (ca. 1593 – 1656) has recently garnered herself a great deal of scholarly (and public!) attention. Though an artist of formidable skill in her own right, it is rather the dramatic details of her early life – including a widely publicized rape trial – that have been the primary cause for her rise to art historical fame. As a result, her early works have also received the most attention, and the paintings of her later career have often been neglected.

Jesse M. Locker’s beautifully illustrated “The Language of Painting” addresses the works of Gentileschi’s later career. Locker also warns against interpreting all of Gentileschi’s works through the lens of her personal life; Locker sets aside her personal trauma to focus exclusively on Gentileschi’s career as an artist.