This mannerist and Florentine training G. put to good use, coming at the age of 17 to Rome, where he worked in fresco at S. Giovanni Laterano, at S. Maria Maggiore, and in the Sistine Library in the Vatican. In Rome he then formed his own style, originally interpreting works from the early period of Caravaggio, without violent contrasts of light and shadow, but rather enhancing the precious quality of color through the luminous effect of silken draperies and translucent fabrics in a clear and drawn vision of Tuscan derivation. At the same time he benefited concretely from contacts with other Caravaggisti, such as Saraceni and Adam Elsheimer, but he also collaborated with Agostino Tassi. After 1615 G. worked in the Marches, achieving effects of movement and compositional complexity, sometimes contrived (the Madonna of the Rosary, Fabriano, S. Domenico), sometimes straightforward and simple (the Virgin and St. Clare, Fabriano, Casa Rosei). In 1621 G. was in Genoa, where he met Van Dyck. He then went to France (Rest on the Flight into Egypt, in the Louvre) in the service of Maria de' Medici; and finally (1626) to England at the court of Charles I (Rest on the Flight into Egypt, Hampton Court; Lot and his Daughters, Bilbao, Museum; Finding of Moses, Howard Castle). In the English period the chromatic variety diminishes, but the singular naturalism of G. becomes more complex, blending in his works accents of restrained yet concrete pathos. G. had two painter sons: FRANCESCO and ARTEMISIA. The latter, b. in Rome in 1597, d. in Naples after 1651, was an excellent painter. A pupil of her father and of Agostino Tassi, she later married a Pierantonio Schiattesi. Effects of robust plasticity, emotional intensity, and naturalism distinguish the works of Artemisia G. from those of her father. Closest to Orazio is the painting: Two Women at a Mirror (Berlin, Museum); but among Artemisia G.'s works the following should be noted: Judith with the Head of Holofernes (Florence, Pitti Gallery); the Penitent Magdalene (there); Judith Beheading Holofernes (Florence, Uffizi).
Artemisia influenced the Neapolitan school, notably the Stanzione circle.