Giulia Lama was said to have been born in 1681 in the parish of Santa Maria
Formosa in Venice. She was not only a painter, she was also a poetess. She was
trained by her father Agostino Lama.
There is some debate as to whether she was a student of Giovanni Battista
Piazzetta or a student who painted alongside Piazzetta at the Scuola di Antonio
Molinari in Venice. However, records show that they were fellow painters, not teacher
and student.
That fact that they were friends is evident in a portrait of Giulia painted by
Piazzetta.
Influenced by one of Venice's most eccentric painters, Lama pushed
Piazzetta's style of using dramatic lighting and shading in
his unusual interpretations of familiar earthy subjects even further. Not
content to pursue an easy path to
success by painting in the lighter and more pleasing Rococo style, she successfully embarked
on a career in the prestigious and lucrative field of private and public figure
painting. She was clearly having some public success in a style that was
typically a position held by men, apparently giving rise to opposition from her male
counterparts who were not prepared to tolerate such competition. That she was able
to compete at all is amazing because painting human subjects required study of the human
figure and particularly the nude figure, and most women of her era did not have
access to study nudes. Giulia Lama appears to have been the first woman to break the barrier against women studying and drawing the nude figure from
life. Over 200 drawings that were recently discovered clearly show that she
indeed studied both male and female nude figures during her training.
The life and career of Giulia Lama is so poorly documented that it is not
known for certain when she was born or when she died, only that she was still
alive in 1753. A letter that was discovered after her death gives an idea of the extent
of her accomplishments and reveals several social attitudes that are relevant
to Lama's career as well as the career of other women artists.
Since the 18th century, art critics have compared Lama’s physical
unattractiveness and plainness, with her artistic talents. They made statements
such as the one in a letter dated March 1728 from the Abbé Conti to Madame de
Caylus:
"I have just discovered a woman here who paints better than Rosalba Carriera
when it comes to large compositions. I was much taken by one of her works in miniature, but she is presently engaged on a large work. The subject of the
picture is the rape of Europa, but the bull is still in a wood far from the sea:
the companions of Europa crowd round the bull on which the laughing Europa is
mounting. This group of figures is full of poetry because this woman excels as
much in that art as in painting, and I find in her poems all the virtues of Petrarch; her name is Giulia Lama. In her youth she studied mathematics under
the celebrated Father Maffei. The poor woman is persecuted by other painters,
but her virtue triumphs over her enemies. It is true that she is as ugly as she
is witty, but she speaks with grace and polish, so that one easily pardons her
face. She works in lace and has thought much about the machine that Clelia Borromea has thought up for making lace mechanically as one makes stockings and
materials. I believe that this machine is not impossible to realize, and the one
who invents it will earn a lot of money, and will halve the time now needed by
women lace makers. Suggest this idea to your son; perhaps he saw Lama when he
was in Venice. She lives, however, a very retired life."
This letter has been very important in determining Lama's background and
character. It reveals that in addition to being a great painter she was gifted
in mathematics, a wonderfully skilled poet, a lace maker, and an inventor. It
also brings to light the opposition of male artists to the career of a woman and
the prejudices regarding physical beauty, this was an issue that also confronted
Rosalba Carriera.
As an obviously highly trained professional, she was just as capable of
painting a sensitive portrait such as, Young Man with a Turban, as she was of
carrying out large, original commissions, such as altarpieces, with self-confidence. It is through the identification of three such altarpieces in a
Venetian guidebook of 1733 that Lama's artistic personality began to be
reconstructed. That she was as fully competent as the male artists with whom she
competed is demonstrated by the names to which her work has been attributed.
Recovery of Lama's oeuvre has required reattribution of works by not only
Piazzetta, but also artists such as Federico Bencovich, Domenico Maggiotto,
Francesco Capella, and Zurbarán, among others. Once again we see the
problem of appropriate attribution that certainly occurs with male artists, but
is prevalent with female artists, and is a reflection of the historical attitudes
regarding the ability of women to be great artists. Hopefully, as research
reveals more information, Giulia will take her rightful place
in art history.
The exact date of her death shall always be a mystery. It is known that she
was still alive in 1753, but there is nothing that suggests she was alive after
that year.
I could not find many examples of her work on the internet, here are the few I was
able to find:
- http://www.wga.hu/art/l/lama/judith.jpg
- http://tinyurl.com/6qvmv
More information on other lesser known female artists can be
found here
Sources:
Artists You Should Know. 1st ed. Danville: Redwood Publishers, 1971.
Women Artists. 1st ed. : Ruggio Publishing, 1977.
Image Sources:
http://www.wga.hu
http://www.mallams.co.uk