Left Bracket Sixth Round Elimination: Gentileschi v. Homer!

---

When I decided that the Infinite Art Tournament was going to be double-elimination, I worried a little that the left-side bracket would be completely irrelevant.  My concern was that the talent would stack up so heavily on the right-hand side that every time someone lost in the Third or Fourth Round, say, they would immediately crush the competition on the left hand side, making everything that had gone on over there in the first few rounds completely moot -- before getting crushed themselves by the next person falling out of the winner's bracket.

It didn't turn out that way.  Here, now that we are down to our last twenty artists, here are Artemisia Gentileschi, who has won five straight after losing in the Fourth Round, and Homer, who has won nine straight after losing in the Second.  That's a lot of winning!  And one of them is even going to win again!  But only one.

---

Artemisia Gentileschi
1593 - 1652
Italian

Artemisia Gentileschi was an early Italian Baroque painter, and the only female follower of Caravaggio, whom she worked with in Italy in the early 17th century. Her innovative compositions and focus on Biblical heroines set her apart from her male contemporaries and have lead to the celebration of Gentileschi as a painter with a uniquely female perspective.

- Brooklyn Museum

• Slew Gentile da Fabriano in his tent in Round 1.
• Dispatched Théodore Géricault in Round 2.
  
• Outpolled Jacques-Louis David in Round 3.
• Lost to Caspar David Friedrich in Round 4.
• Defeated Carel Fabritius in the Left Bracket Fourth Round by a single vote. YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!
• Vanquished Lyonel Feininger in Left Bracket Fourth Round Elimination.
• Ousted Atkinson Grimshaw in the Left Bracket Fifth Round.
• Snuck by Caspar Freaking Friedrich in Left Bracket Fifth Round Elimination by a two-vote swing. YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!
• Beat Thomas Hart Benton in the Left Bracket Sixth Round Elimination by another two-vote swing. YOUR VOTE STILL COUNTS!!!

---

---

Winslow Homer
1836 - 1910
American

...this great painter of the American scene did not lose the edge when it came to the probity and drama of his art.... In works such as Fox Hunt (1893) and Right and Left (1909), Homer dealt with profound issues of existence, while in his paintings of the pounding surf of the Maine coast he brought nature to center stage.

- Smithsonian

• Beat the great German expatriate Hans Holbein in an unusually high-octane Round 1 match.
• Lost to Dutch master Pieter De Hooch by a single vote in Round 2. YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!
• Crushed André Beauneveu in the Left Bracket Second Round.
• Decisively beat Katsushika Hokusai in Left Bracket Second Round Elimination.
• Crushed Ferdinand Hodler in the Left Bracket Third Round by another two-vote swing.
• Beat Pieter De Hooch with a dramatic grudge match reversal in Left Bracket Third Round Elimination.
• Defeated Frida Kahlo in the Left Bracket Fourth Round.
• Beat the unbeatable Adolphe William Bouguereau in Left Bracket Fourth Round Elimination.
• Held off Peter Severin Krøyer's comeback attempt in the Left Bracket Fifth Round.
• Beat Frederick Church in Fifth Round Elimination. 
• Defeated Thomas Eakins in the Left Bracket Sixth Round.

---