In Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy, how is the Gentileschi's Interpretation discussed?
It is one of many paintings by Gentileschi of the Magdalene but the depiction is unusual for the period. The 2020 exhibition catalogue on Artemisia notes that "Mary Magdalene is more usually shown penitent in a landscape ... [here] she is passionately alive and in the throes of ecstatic rapture." The connection to (the various existing copies of) Caravaggio's Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy has been made. They both show more of Mary Magdalene's flesh and shoulder than versions by other artists, suggesting an erotic charge to the devotional scene. Other symbols that were typically used to demonstrate her repentance—skull, candle, ointment jar—are absent, leading art historians to focus on the more sensual feel of the painting in their identification and attribution.
Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy Mary Magdalene Magdalene