Portrait of a Lady On Fire - The Gaze of Gentileschi

The green dress in Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a tone or two lighter, but the subject matter of a female artist still urges you back towards the late Renaissance and Artemisia Gentileschi's magnificent Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting. I do not know if it's an intentional allusion - and the director Céline Sciamma has certainly talked of Gentileschi in relation to the film - but if so, it is just perfect. However, before dwelling on that dress, I should offer up some praise for the film.

Sciamma's ode to the female gaze is an extraordinary and beautiful work of art. Marianne, a French painter, is commissioned to paint the wedding portrait of Héloïse, a wilful, young woman reluctantly betrothed to a Milanese aristocrat. But Marianne must paint Héloïse without her knowledge. Only when the scheme is out in the open and the pair have embarked upon a passionate love affair, do we see a portrait that is fully realised. The plot reads melodramatically. The execution, though, is sublime.

The cinematography is stunning. Bold reds, blues, yellows, and, greens rest upon the wilder neutral tones of the Brittany coastline. The music, used sparingly, ranges from an incredibly moving use of Vivaldi's 'Summer' (I will not spoil how), to a strange and eerie piece entitled 'La Jeune Fille en Feu' that was composed specifically for the film. The latter builds slowly as a group of women chant and clap hands. Our two lovers exchange glances across a bonfire in the dunes, and as the singing increases in volume, Héloïse's dress catches alight. The scene is extraordinary and otherworldly.

In fact, the film's setting, both temporally and geographically, is both of its time and out of time. It is the 1770s, and we are on an island just off the coast of Brittany. Men are only occasionally encountered, and we sense – certainly when Héloïse's mother the Countess departs for a few days – that we are within the realm of a post-Revolutionary utopia. Marianne and Héloïse are joined by Sophie the servant and all three are now on an equal footing. They dine together, discuss pertinent mythological questions together – why does Orpheus look back when he knows what will happen? – and they come to each other's aid, exercising control over their own bodies without unnecessary and disapproving male opinions. Indeed, as the trio of women strolled along the beach, I could not help but think of William Wordsworth's lines looking back from afar at the French Revolution: 'Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive'. Of course, those lines and that poem are imbued with irony, and this classless and feminist dynamic will not withstand the return of The Countess.

Adèle Haenel and Noémie Merlant as Héloïse and Marianne

But to return to the dress and it's possible precursor. In a film dominated by the female gaze, particularly in relation to portraiture, Gentileschi is unavoidable. She is the foremost - indeed, one of the few - female painters working in the Baroque period, and she brings a rare female sensibility and empowerment to subjects invariably tackled by men. Her Judith Slaying Holofernes is more than a match for Caravaggio's treatment of the same subject. Compare the expressions on the faces of the women in the two paintings. And that Self-Portrait as the Allegory of Painting is one of my favourite works of art, means that I am almost duty-bound to muse upon it. I have written about it previously, focusing on the delightful way that the gravity and the tilt of the artist's head causes the necklace to fall, and how that detail is my own version of Proust's petit pan de mur jaune. What the film has done, though, is to switch my gaze onto other aspects of the work, not least the dress. Look at the gorgeous play of light and shade in Gentileschi's left sleeve - and not just in the green, but in how a shimmer of light shifts the spectrum and brings out a completely different colour below the crook of the elbow.
 

Artemisia Gentileschi's Self-Portrait as an Allegory of Painting (1638)

Indeed, how a figure fits and occupies a piece of clothing can make a startling difference to a finished work. Marianne's struggles to both capture Héloïse's frame and features, and to place them in a dress that she isn't even wearing, are raised to the level of quiet drama in the film. Later in the film, all three women will put on the dress revealing it as an object of symbolic fraternity.

Ordinarily, I would be urging you to to head out to the cinema to watch this amazing piece of film-making. Coronavirus will almost certainly put that on hold for the moment. And just to add to that minor disappointment - there are certainly greater travails and concerns to come - the Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition due to start at London's National Gallery next month has just been postponed. Such a shame. Let's hope that this passes quickly and we get to see the world via the searching gaze of Gentileschi soon.