[.ca] Artemisia (ISBN 0802138578)

From Amazon.com:
Small wonder that biographer Alexandra Lapierre was drawn to write about Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the first female painters to gain acclaim in the male-dominated 17th-century art world. Her story has all the ingredients of high drama: rape, jealousy, and an infamous court trial set against a backdrop of art and passion. Meticulously researched, framed in a fictional context, Lapierre's treatment applies a painterly touch to a scholarly work. Billed as a biography in the U.K. but as a novel in the U.S., it combines the rigor of one genre with the page-turning immediacy of the other. Born in Rome to the artist Orazio Gentileschi and his wife Prudenzia, Artemisia's life was turned upside down after the death of her mother. Orazio jealously guarded his only daughter, refusing her outside contact even as he taught her the subtleties of painting. At 17, Artemisia, already a skilled artist, was facing a life of spinsterhood as her father's prisoner. Yet the Gentileschi household was full of the comings and goings of artists whose shifting allegiances were as complex as the politics of the time. When Orazio's friend, arrogant trompe l'oeil master Agostino Tassi, set his sights on young Artemisia, her refusals only stoked his passion. What followed was rape. Tassi kept her quiet through promises of marriage; when marriage was not forthcoming, Tassi found himself in court. Even under torture, Artemisia's statement never wavered, and eventually Tassi was convicted. The mild sentence scarcely harmed him, yet the experience had a lasting effect on his victim. Touched by scandal, Artemisia was able to marry an inferior painter only by virtue of a substantial dowry. Through an unhappy marriage, the deaths of her first children, and the lives of her daughters, however, she continued to paint, eventually gaining considerable acclaim. Interestingly enough, given her experiences, her paintings of religious allegory often portrayed women in illustrations of strength and dominance. If her depiction of Judith violently decapitating Holofernes elicited the Grand Duchess's repulsion, the Grand Duke Cosimo II was riveted. Others in the room saw the allusion to the artist's own past: "'This face, so close to death, brings someone to mind,' the secretary, Andrea Cioli, interjected insidiously. 'A painter, your Highness...'" Artemisia blends storytelling and careful detail in a complex rendering that will particularly appeal to readers with an interest in either Baroque art or Italian history. Color plates illustrate the haunting quality of Artemisia's work, and the end notes make clear which portions derive from documentation and which are fictional strokes of color. The uninitiated may have a difficult time unraveling the intricacies of characters and politics, perhaps because Lapierre is more at home with scholarship than with fiction. Worse, her breathless prose sometimes tries too hard, even while doing little to reveal her characters' inner worlds. In the end, it's both the compelling quality of Artemisia's story and the lushness of Lapierre's supporting detail that hold this unusual book together. --Anne DeGrace

research documentation is refreshing!:
I liked this book about Artemisia by Alexandra Lapierre precisely because of her extensive research. She weaves the story around the actual data which she found. If it gets tedious to read so much research, I say skip some, but at least you're getting the flavor of the times and the actual documents which were used then. I'm thankful to the author for the time she took to travel to the sites to do the research.

Maybe Too Much Historical Detail:
It seems as though there has been a lot of interest in Artemisia Gentileschi recently and I really have to think it has more to do with the circumstances of her life than her painting, which is really only mediocre. I recently read Anna Banti's beautiful and lyrical ARTEMISIA and, while it was gorgeous, it didn't delve into the life of this extraordinary woman as does Alexandra Lapierre's biographical ARTEMISIA. The facts about Artemisia's Gentileschi's life are sketchy and most of what is known can't be verified with absolute certainty (but Lapierre certainly tried). There exists the transcript of the trial of her rapist and some letters and other documents and that's just about it. Most of the people writing about Artemisia have had to use their own imagination and inventiveness in order to "fill in the blanks" regarding her life. Most did not do it well. This isn't so with Alexandra Lapierre's book. Lapierre has created some of what she's written, but, to her credit, she has tried to document everything she tells us, although ARTEMISIA is still classified as a historical novel. I think it says a lot about Lapierre's intentions to record the truth as closely as possible when one considers that she learned both Latin and Italian simply so she could read the documents about her subject in their original language. Her five years of research have been well rewarded in this wonderful book. It was Lapierre who dug deeply enough to find out the verdict and the sentence of Agostino Tassi, the man accused of raping Artemisia. I won't tell you what that sentence was here...you'll have to read Lapierre's book to find that out. ARTEMISIA is a very scholarly book (Lapierre is a French scholar and writer) and readers not familiar with 17th century Italy may find they have a difficult time following parts of the book...but those who do will be well rewarded, however. ARTEMISIA is a wonderful book and stands head and shoulders above other accounts of this artist's life, including Vreeland's THE PASSION OF ARTEMISIA. Although I would never call ARTEMISIA a "feminist" book, she may have been the world's first feminist. Or perhaps she felt no need for feminism, already feeling liberated enough to do what only men, in 17th century Italy, did. Artemisia Gentileschi somehow found it within her soul to stand alongside men like Rubens and Caravaggio. Exquisitely written, ARTEMISIA is set against the panorama of the art world of 17th century Italy and it a fascinating historical background. I do have to agree with the reviewers who said this book contained too many archival references, however. I realize Lapierre wanted to be extremely accurate, but, unless one is a historian, all those references to documents and dates get to be "too much." I'm interested in Artemisia, the woman, not in documents and dates. I trust Lapierre to be accurate. Although I've praised Lapierre's research, the many references did cut down my enjoyment of the story of this extraordinary woman's life. Still, this is a book written with both love and passion for the subject matter and it certainly shows. I would recommend this book very highly to anyone interested in Artemisia Gentileschi or 17th century Italian art. While Artemisia didn't play a dominant role in the art world, she is never going to be forgotten and one can't say they "know" or "understand" Italian Baroque art without "knowing" about the life of Artemisia Gentileschi. I highly recommend this book over any of the others out there. This one is, by far, the best.

Good story, but TOO much detail and fact:
This is really, an excellent story about Artemisia, the first major female artist in Europe and it is made very clear that Alexandra LaPierre has done her research. Unfortunately though I found that many sections of the book almost put me to sleep with its endless descriptions of formal documents and exact dates. I understand why she wanted to write Artemisia in this format, though because of the never ending supply of facts it lacks a narrative spice to it.

For Art History Lovers:
This wonderful novel is about the life of 17th century female Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi. The first few chapters familiarize readers with all the elements that went into making a female artist at a time when the occupation was exclusively for men. Readers are introduced to Italy, Artemisia's father, the painter Orazio Gentileschi, the intense rivalry between artists, and the fact that during that time, artists were celebrities seeking fame and fortune. The next sections of the book, until almost the halfway point, are about Artemisia's relationship with Agostino Tassi and the trial that ensues. Agostino was a friend and colleague of Artemisia's father and the man who takes her virginity out of wedlock - a crime the family must defend their honor against - and Tassi is accused of rape, arrested, and tried in Roman court. The author includes a great deal of historical fact, and speculates where documentation is missing, then seamlessly resumes the story so that the book reads like part history, part journalism and part storytelling. However, the second half of the novel was more history with elements of a story than a story steeped in historical detail. This may be due to the fact that the author is extremely faithful to the information of history and felt uncomfortable inventing motivations where there was not enough documentation to support such notions. So, there are several periods of her life that feel like sketches and I wished that the author had invented some for the sake of the story and keeping me interested, but I also liked knowing that the events were grounded in research. Artemisia struggles throughout her life with her desire and drive to become a great painter and win the approval and recognition of her father. Throughout the rest of the book Artemisia has love affairs, several children, and paints in Florence, Rome, and Naples to name a few places. She participates in a great acquisition of masterpieces by the English, socializes with royalty and receives commissions from the papacy. She lived a remarkable life, and enjoyed exceptional success and freedom for a woman. I was so happy that there were color images of the most discussed paintings in the book, as well as maps that helped me to orient myself to the whereabouts of Artemisia in Italy and Europe. I do recommend having access to the internet since you may want to view some other artworks mentioned. I didn't give this book 5 stars because there was a period about three quarters through the book when I was bored, but I persevered and the ending was satisfying and the book was excellent overall.

A magnificent canvas of a remarkable woman painter:
One of two recent popular novels about the female artist Artemisia Gentileschi, I found this a fascinating read, lush with historical detail and the true drama of the world of the artist. Certainly an early model for the feminist movement, this artist was governed by her need to paint her interpretation of art on canvas; her life was defined by light, the shadows and the subtleties of color, the scent and texture of her paints. She lived in a period in which European monarchs emptied state coffers in their passion for the possession of splendor and artifacts, where the artist flourished in a society that used its artists as the instruments of their power. Well-known masters in this Baroque period of the 17th Century were Velasquez, Rubens, Van Dyke and Caravaggio. In Rome, the Pope was not just the spiritual head of Christendom, he was the temporal sovereign and monarch over all the territories belonging to the Church. After the Council of Trent, the Church accelerated from repressive to preventive, with zero tolerance for disobedience. The artist's task was to bear witness for the martyrs of the Church. From around 1605 the principal programs derived from the Council of Trent were aimed at the Reformation, to dazzle the eye with Rome's brilliance, particularly found in the style of Baroque art, proof of the Church's supremacy. Draped in the cloak of 17th Century Italy , the denizens of the art world come alive through the pen of Alexandra Lapierre. Using court records and other legal documents to buttress her story, Lapierre brings Artemisia Gentileschi vividly alive, as well as her father-painter, Orazio Gentileschi and Agostino Tassi, the man who deflowered Artemisia and later spurned her demand for marriage. Tassi may not have been free to marry, involved as he was in an incestuous relationship with a sister-in-law. Or he may simply have been a scoundrel, whose lust leveled any conscience in the forced seduction of the virginal Artemisia. Lapierre's Artemisia is rendered as a confused and driven young woman striving to be a painter in her own right like her father and to gain his recognition. She is, as well, a spirited young woman who needs a legal marriage to free her from her father's possessive grip on her very identity as an artist. Swept along by the bureaucratic layers of a Papacy determined to assert itself against the forces of the Reformists, Artemisia, Orazio and Agostino become puppets of these vested interests, ever under the watchful eye of the Inquisitors. Even in the face of torture, Artemisia refuses to renounce her rape by Tassi, truth her only shield in a world rife with snickers and innuendoes. The author displays a fine grasp of the particular world the artist inhabits, one drenched in emotion, drama, passion and color. The tapestry she weaves of the backdrop against which they created their masterpieces defines the complexity of a society caught up in the love of objects and the call of fame and recognition. Artemisia is a wonderful experience, one to be appreciated and savored.