The Passion of Artemisia
Susan Vreeland
Format
Paperback
Dimensions
4.58 (w) x 7.38 (h) x 0.94 (d)
Pages
352
Publisher
Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Publication Date
December 2002
ISBN
9780142001820
Book ISBN 10
0142001821
About Book
Reviews
Despite the brutal opening scenes, this isn't a sensational victim story. Instead, it is a thoughtfully rendered account of Artemisia's unconventional and inspiring life after the trial. Shaped around the events that "could have" inspired the paintings ascribed to the real Artemisia Gentileschi, the narrative chronicles her quickly arranged marriage to Pietro, the birth of her daughter and her struggles to define herself as a painter at a time when only male artists were taken seriously.
Like one of Artemisia's chiaroscuros, this novel's themes are presented theatrically; its famous characters are drawn with boldcontrasts of darkness and light. In Florence, Artemisia is admired by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, who gives her a paintbrush once owned by his great-uncle, "Il Divino." When Artemisia strikes up a fond acquaintanceship with Galileo one night at the Pitti Palace, the astronomer reveals to her the "wild and dangerous notion" that Jupiter has four moons instead of seven, and that the Earth revolves around the sun. It's easy to forgive Vreeland for these moments of heavy-handedness, because the book also explores Artemisia's subtle and complex relationships with more obscure characters.
Amused and intrigued by his wife's interest in painting, Pietro allows Artemisia to paint. After their daughter is born, they work side by side, with the child Palmira crawling between the legs of their easels. It isn't until Artemisia becomes the first woman accepted into the Academy of Florence—before Pietro is accepted—that professional jealousies drive them apart.
Alternately a distracted and doting mother, Artemisia is continually torn between her devotion to painting and her love for her daughter. Most of all, she feels guilty for denying her daughter contact with Orazio. For Artemisia, he is the father who told her stories of "sibyls, muses, and saints" and taught her how to paint. He's also the man who announced her shame to the Roman public and watched silently as the court attendant nearly severed the fingers from her hands. Vreeland suggests that Orazio's influence, as well as his betrayal, shaped Artemisia's character the most.
Thirteen years after the trial and her break with Orazio, Artemisia returns to Rome and visits the Borghese Casino. She discovers that Orazio had painted her image on the ceiling, and that he'd aged her into a "distracted" matron. She realizes that Orazio had predicted what the trial and the years ahead would do to her. Still unable to forgive him, she begins to understand why he didn't defend her at the trial—he simply needed to get back to his painting. Nothing else mattered.
In writing her second novel, Vreeland drew from the written testimony of the rape trial and Artemisia's documented correspondences with Galileo, Cosimo de'Medici II and Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, but she gleaned her heroine's voice and spirit from the actual paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi. Unlike biographer Alexandra Lapierre's meticulously researched and dense Artemisia, which was published in 2000, Vreeland's novel is a more distilled version of the woman's life; it targets readers who will enjoy the narration regardless of how familiar they are with Gentileschi's work.
Some people may question whether another speculative historical fiction about Artemisia is necessary. The answer is yes. In historical documentation, the facts of a woman's life are far more mutable than a man's. Though she was a respected artist at the end of her life, her work soon fell into obscurity, and her character was sexualized rather than admired. Vreeland's novel reminds us that Artemisia was a fiercely independent, prodigiously talented woman, the first to paint traditional religious and historical heroines from an original, female perspective. She painted Judith with the sleeves of her lavish gown pushed up her powerful forearms, a look of patient concentration on her face as she slayed Holofernes; her Cleopatra languished and died of public shame long before the asp bit her. Like Gentileschi's important works, The Passion of Artemisia provides an imaginative and respectful point of view to a compelling woman's story.
—Susan Tekulve
Recently rediscovered by art historians, and one of the few female post-Renaissance painters to achieve fame during her own era, Artemisia Gentileschi led a remarkably "modern" life. Susan Vreeland tells Artemisia's captivating story, beginning with her public humiliation in a rape trial at the age of eighteen, and continuing through her father's betrayal, her marriage of convenience, motherhood, and growing fame as an artist. Set against the glorious backdrops of Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Naples, inhabited by historical characters such as Galileo and Cosimo de' Medici II, and filled with rich details about life as a seventeenth-century painter, Vreeland creates an inspiring story about one woman's lifelong struggle to reconcile career and family, passion and genius.
San Francisco Chronicle
Vreeland's remarkable ability...makes this novel an accomplished work of art.From The Critics
This engaging novel, based on the life of the Baroque Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi, begins with a notorious trial. When Artemisia's father, painter Orazio Gentileschi, publicly accuses his colleague, Agostino Tassi, of raping his teenage daughter, the case is brought before the papal court of Rome. At one point in the seven-month trial, Artemisia's palms are pressed together and her fingers are bound with a cord that is attached to a screw, which could be turned "just enough for the cords to squeeze a little." With her accused rapist sitting across from her, Artemisia is forced to defend her honor while the court attendant turns the screw until her fingers begin to bleed. On another day, she is examined by midwives who determine, in front of the whole courtroom, that she has been deflowered. After the court adjourns, Agostino receives a brief prison sentence, Orazio returns to painting Cardinal Borghese's Casino of the Muses and Artemisia is married off to a painter named Pietro Stiatessi, who whisks his "tainted" bride away to his native Florence.Despite the brutal opening scenes, this isn't a sensational victim story. Instead, it is a thoughtfully rendered account of Artemisia's unconventional and inspiring life after the trial. Shaped around the events that "could have" inspired the paintings ascribed to the real Artemisia Gentileschi, the narrative chronicles her quickly arranged marriage to Pietro, the birth of her daughter and her struggles to define herself as a painter at a time when only male artists were taken seriously.
Like one of Artemisia's chiaroscuros, this novel's themes are presented theatrically; its famous characters are drawn with boldcontrasts of darkness and light. In Florence, Artemisia is admired by Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, who gives her a paintbrush once owned by his great-uncle, "Il Divino." When Artemisia strikes up a fond acquaintanceship with Galileo one night at the Pitti Palace, the astronomer reveals to her the "wild and dangerous notion" that Jupiter has four moons instead of seven, and that the Earth revolves around the sun. It's easy to forgive Vreeland for these moments of heavy-handedness, because the book also explores Artemisia's subtle and complex relationships with more obscure characters.
Amused and intrigued by his wife's interest in painting, Pietro allows Artemisia to paint. After their daughter is born, they work side by side, with the child Palmira crawling between the legs of their easels. It isn't until Artemisia becomes the first woman accepted into the Academy of Florence—before Pietro is accepted—that professional jealousies drive them apart.
Alternately a distracted and doting mother, Artemisia is continually torn between her devotion to painting and her love for her daughter. Most of all, she feels guilty for denying her daughter contact with Orazio. For Artemisia, he is the father who told her stories of "sibyls, muses, and saints" and taught her how to paint. He's also the man who announced her shame to the Roman public and watched silently as the court attendant nearly severed the fingers from her hands. Vreeland suggests that Orazio's influence, as well as his betrayal, shaped Artemisia's character the most.
Thirteen years after the trial and her break with Orazio, Artemisia returns to Rome and visits the Borghese Casino. She discovers that Orazio had painted her image on the ceiling, and that he'd aged her into a "distracted" matron. She realizes that Orazio had predicted what the trial and the years ahead would do to her. Still unable to forgive him, she begins to understand why he didn't defend her at the trial—he simply needed to get back to his painting. Nothing else mattered.
In writing her second novel, Vreeland drew from the written testimony of the rape trial and Artemisia's documented correspondences with Galileo, Cosimo de'Medici II and Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, but she gleaned her heroine's voice and spirit from the actual paintings by Artemisia Gentileschi. Unlike biographer Alexandra Lapierre's meticulously researched and dense Artemisia, which was published in 2000, Vreeland's novel is a more distilled version of the woman's life; it targets readers who will enjoy the narration regardless of how familiar they are with Gentileschi's work.
Some people may question whether another speculative historical fiction about Artemisia is necessary. The answer is yes. In historical documentation, the facts of a woman's life are far more mutable than a man's. Though she was a respected artist at the end of her life, her work soon fell into obscurity, and her character was sexualized rather than admired. Vreeland's novel reminds us that Artemisia was a fiercely independent, prodigiously talented woman, the first to paint traditional religious and historical heroines from an original, female perspective. She painted Judith with the sleeves of her lavish gown pushed up her powerful forearms, a look of patient concentration on her face as she slayed Holofernes; her Cleopatra languished and died of public shame long before the asp bit her. Like Gentileschi's important works, The Passion of Artemisia provides an imaginative and respectful point of view to a compelling woman's story.
—Susan Tekulve
