The Passion of Artemisia

It was very hard to relate to the main character and her sensibilities, but the author is quite right to pen Artemisia Gentileschi in such a frustrating manner. She was a woman of her time who possessed a difficult manner. Most of the characters are difficult to understand, but I think it was the time and the patrician nature of religion. The author sees through it and allows her feminine characters to be true to themselves.

The setting was irresistible and the tale is well told. As I was reading, I looked up the paintings mentioned and looked at each through the author's/character's eyes. Very satisfying.

When I started reading this book I had high hopes, since it's a book about a female painter in Rome. I was disappointed after the active beginning that most of it came across as either a textbook on art or on Italian history, neither of which I was expecting. However, as the characters developed more and the timeflow became less irregular (or rather I became more accustomed to the irregularity), the real message of forgiveness and how our lives impact others came across. Overall it was worth the read but could have used an editor with a heavier hand. It also dealt heavily with rape and the mentality surrounding it: specifically that the victim should be ashamed instead of the perpetrator, a concept she brings to the forefront to show more question and reason against. show less

In this work of historical fiction, Susan Vreeland paints a vibrant portrait (pun intended) of the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, an actual 17th-century woman painter in Italy. Raped by her father's friend Agostino Tassi, who is also her painting tutor, Artemisia is humiliated and her reputation in ruins when Tassi is all but exonerated in the crime. To escape Rome and its cruelty, she arranges to marry Pietro Stiattesi, a Florentine painter. In Florence, Artemisia realizes success in her art, painting biblical figures from a uniquely feminine perspective, and becomes the first woman accepted into Florence's Accademia dell'Arte. However, from her jealous husband Pietro, who has not found equal success in his art, she earns only show more resentment.

This was a relatively quick read which inspired me to learn more about Artemisia and her contemporaries, and I look forward to trying more of Vreeland's historical works. show less

The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland
Source: Purchase
My Rating: 5/5 stars
My Review:

As some of you know, I am an Art Historian in my “real” life and one of my favorite genres is historical fiction related to art and artists. Susan Vreeland is hands-down one of my favorite authors and when she wrote The Passion of Artemisia, she found a fan for life in me. I hate being asked who my favorite artist is because I could never, ever choose just one but I do have a top twenty-ish list and Artemisia Gentileschi has been near the top of that list for many, many years.

Artemisia Gentileschi was a woman far, far ahead of her time and her place and despite the all of the significant odds against her, she was able to succeed in a time and show more place when women were little more than property. Artemisia was born to paint and from an early age her father trained her in order to enhance her own innate talent. Intent on being a painter for the rest of her life, Artemisia’s path was set until the moment she was raped by one her father’s colleagues. For more than a year, Artemisia endured a very public trial to determine her guilt or innocence. Yes, you read that correctly, her guilt or innocence was on trial, not her rapists. For all intents and purposes, the allegation alone was enough to taint Artemisia and her reputation for life. By all accounts, Artemisia didn’t allow the rape nor the trial to defeat her but to empower her and inform her art for the rest of her life.

Along with her trial, history also tells us that Artemisia did things that no woman before her ever had. First and foremost among her accomplishments was being the first woman admitted to the prestigious Florentine Academy. Following her admittance to the Academy, Artemisia spent her time and her life in the service of her patrons. From Rome to Florence to Venice to Naples and, to England, Artemisia worked for some Europe’s most important citizens including the Medici Family and the King of England. She tended toward large canvases featuring strong, determined and completely capable women as seen through the eyes of and interpreted by a woman who refused to be known as a victim but rather as a preeminent painter.

The Bottom Line: This is my second reading of Vreeland’s Passion of Artemisia and as with the first reading, I was simply blown away. Vreeland has a singular ability to bring history to life. Vreeland takes the historical information that remains and turns it into a living, breathing human being, an individual whose impact on the world of art is nothing short of significant. Reading Vreeland’s account of Artemisia’s life reminds me of the fact that nothing is impossible!! Artemisia survived an unspeakable horror and rather than allowing that event to define her life, she rose above all that was done to her and succeeded in a way that no woman before her ever had. If her accomplishments during her own lifetime weren’t enough – and they certainly were – Vreeland’s accounting in this modern age is finely crafted reminder of what genius looks like. show less

As a young girl, Artemisia Gentileschi (c. 1593-1656) had learned from her father how to paint the dramatic Biblical and mythological scenes that were popular in the homes of the well-to-do during the post-Renaissance era. Despite this advantage, Artemisia nonetheless leads a difficult life. She survives sexual abuse at the hands of her father's friend, a humiliating rape trial, and a marriage of convenience to a man who is jealous of her superior talents. All this happens in the first few chapters. As the story progresses, Artemisia evolves into a woman modern readers can understand: a single, working mother who strives to provide the best for her bratty daughter (the same basic set-up as Joan Crawford's soapy movie Mildred Pierce), show more while worrying about where her next commission will come from.

In an interview with the author in the back of the paperback edition of the book, Vreerland admitted that she streamlined Artemisia's life, eliminating her real-life "brothers, sons, and many of the people she for whom painted in order to reveal her relationships with her father, husband, and daughter more deeply." (p. 5). Vreeland also made the interesting decision to make her Artemisia convent-educated, literate and even able to quote the Bible at will. In real life, eighteen-year-old Artemisia testified at the rape trial that she was illiterate. Apparently, she did learn how to read and write as an adult. But much of Artemisia's art involved storytelling, and it would have been intriguing for Vreeland to examine how Artemisia's illiteracy as a young woman impacted the narrative quality of her paintings.

Nonetheless, despite its lack of historical accuracy, I did enjoy the Passion of Artemisia as a Baroque soap opera. show less

A fine historical fiction following the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, the first woman in 1600s Italy to be accepted to the Academy of the Arts of Drawing in Rome. Her works, of which her series of the Judith story is the most famous, portray strong females with attention to their natural form, rather than the more commonly idealized version of the female form by male painters of the time.

Her life as a painter was almost destroyed when she stood a public and humiliating court trial after her father accused her painting teacher of raping her. She was subjected to a public gynecological examination and tortured with thumbscrews during her interrogation. The belief at the time, was that, if a person could tell the same story under show more torture, then it must be true. She bore the physical scars of the thumbscrews for the rest of her life on her hands.

To escape from the jeers and slurs in Rome slung at her, her father arranged her marriage to a Florentine artist and she left Rome. While being a wife and mother, her artistic career started to take flight in Florence, where she gained the protection of the Granduke Cosimo de Medici. She became friends with Galileo, and she was favored by Michaelangelo Buonarroti the younger, (nephew of the great Michaelangelo).

But an artist's survival depends on patrons who commission works from them, and that meant sometimes that the artist had to move to new cities to find new commissions. Artemisia took her family with her as she moved from Florence to Rome, Venice, Naples and briefly England.

The fictitious take on Artemisia's life, while changing some of her conditions and certainly the make up of her family as a child, and her family after marriage, doesn't detract from showcasing a woman who lived for painting, a woman who didn't allow her past to turn her into a meek and apologetic woman, a woman curious about the world and a woman who sought to make those who look at her works think of the people in them, as opposed to looking at them as flat figures. In a way, I'd say she sought to challenge their opinions of familiar subjects. show less

I thought this was a good biographical novel on the artist and I was particularly impressed with the author's characterization of Artemisia. But did it blow me away? Not really. Did it challenge me? Nope. Will I remember it for years to come. Don't think so. It was average, though not in a bad way. Just an average way. I'd still recommend.