Renaissance and Early Modern artists drew heavily for their inspiration on Christianity and the Classical past, but this does not mean that they were uninterested in the present. In the hands of a skilled artist, the past became a vehicle for commenting on what was important to the artist, his or her patron, and the community to which they both belonged. The work of the Roman painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–ca. 1656) is a case in point. The daughter of painter Orazio Gentileschi, Artemisia was perhaps the most successful female artist of her day. Her paintings Susannah and the Elders and Judith and Holofernes, both depicting scenes from the Old Testament, demonstrate how deeply personal such works could be. Susannah and the Elders, Artemisia’s first work, was completed in 1610 when she was seventeen. Between that time and the completion of Judith and Holofernes in 1612, Artemisia was raped by one of her father’s colleagues, Agostino Tassi. As you examine these two works, consider the connections between the content and themes of the paintings and Gentileschi’s own experiences. How did she use these paintings to comment on the power dynamics that shaped women’s lives?