Allegory of Inclination

Artemisia Gentileschi painted Allegory of Inclination around 1615–16, a ceiling painting commissioned for the Casa Buonarroti in Florence as part of a cycle celebrating Michelangelo's various qualities. Inclination — the natural gift or disposition that directs an artist toward their vocation — is personified as a nude female figure, and Artemisia's composition was the most prominently erotic and physically immediate of the cycle's allegorical figures. The ceiling format, visible from directly below, required her to address the challenging perspective problem of the foreshortened figure seen from beneath, demonstrating her technical mastery of the academic challenges alongside the allegorical program.

The upward-floating nude figure is rendered with confident Caravaggesque modeling, the luminous flesh tones and dynamic pose creating a powerful allegorical image that demonstrated Artemisia's mastery of the female nude.