What do Italian Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi and 20th century novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch have in common? In addition to the obvious--that they're both women--their life stories have eclipsed their art; sadly, because their work is of real significance and interest. Gentileschi has been the subject of an earlier novel by Anna Banti and a 1998 film. In actuality, she was raped at 19 by one of her father's fellow painters, Agostino Tassi, and the documentation of the seven-month trial has survived, to be given very different interpretations in all these accounts. Susan Vreeland's Artemisia is a feisty feminist, brimful with brio and passionate about her painting, who offers her narrative in the intimacy of the first person. After Tassi's trial, Artemisia's father arranges her marriage to Pietro Stiattesi, a Florentine painter--and dedicated philanderer. Artemisia, so she hopes, is to begin life anew in Florence. Indeed, she gives birth to a beloved daughter, Palmira, and distinguished painting commissions come to her. She is accepted as the first woman into the Academy of Art and Design, is envied for of Cosimo de' Medici's patronage, befriends Galileo, and soon outstrips her husband's reputation.

Her marriage asunder, she begins her peripatetic travels to Genoa, Venice, Florence and eventually to London, always in search of work, and always fleeing the taint of her rape. Vreeland paints her character and the different worlds she inhabits with loving and compelling detail--the sights and sounds of Florence, the snooty male hegemony of the Academy, the Medici feuds and intrigues. But the writing, particularly in Artemisia's own reflections and dialogue, is often jarringly clunky: "I really was living the life of an artist in the greatest art city in the world"; "I wanted to hug them all"--and this does detract from the novel's tone and persuasivenss. The book's cover is a travesty: a portrait of St Cecilia--the model is thought to be Artemisia and the painting is by her father. But why not one of Artemisia's own extraordinary paintings: indeed, her absorbed, intense self-portrait speaks volumes? What a sad irony that its very boldness has been sacrificed to the more saccharine beauty of her father's work. --Ruth Petrie

limping for greatness, 08 Oct 2008
I have been interested in AG for years.
I mean 20 or so. Anna Banti's book was written by a real writer at least but before the full publication of the rape trial transcripts. I wonder what she would have done with them.
Ward Bissel did the academic spadework and others followed.
I even tried the premiere of the Merlet (worthy.)
No-one has really grasped the essence of this greatest of all female painters: the fact that, far from not fitting in with the stereotypes of baroque womanhood - it is from those of modern woman that she escapes. Here the reading is that of a nice second year arts student. The point is that such extraordinary individuals invite identification, due to their gender, from others unable to retreat far enough to give an account of their genius. The parodic (as Tassi would have said) spate of interest in her life is like watching an unsteady 8mm film of a rose blooming. Pointless. Observe the paintings and try to understand the quality of the art (with respect to her father and teachers) and drop the degrading special pleading with which the brave Artemisia would have had no truck.

Talented, beautiful and brave beyond belief, 23 Aug 2007
Artemisia is a beautiful and passionate woman - but her chief love is painting, not satisfying the social conventions of her time. She is driven by her talent and powerful feelings about being a woman in a male dominated society, creating ground-breaking masterpieces that lead to her eventual acceptance by the art establishment of her time. This is in spite of being raped, publicly tortured and humiliated, and betrayed by the men in her life. Her life and achievements were totally new to me, and I now find that the book is based on the true events of her life - although in reality she encountered even more tragedy than contained in the book. It is a beautifully written and compelling story, as Artemisia uses the suffering that she goes through to give more powerful expression to her paintings.

Moving in places, but...., 17 May 2007
I really enjoyed reading this book, but there are flaws in the story: as another reviewer here (rightly) points out, the speech is sometimes oddly jarring e.g. Americanisms such as 'gotten' in the mouth of a 16th century Italian? But more than that, there are strange emotional gaps in the narrative as the author crams a whole life into the book: I never really understood how Artemisia moved from being the raped and victimised girl, married off by her father to a man who wanted her dowry, to somehow falling in love with that same man and being devastated when she finally realises that he has a mistress seven years later - where does she think he's been all day? And why should he owe her any loyalty, given the purchased nature of their 'relationship'?

That apart, the depiction of Artemisia as a painter is done well and imaginatively, though there are no real surprises there.

The relationship with her daughter Palmira was my favourite: while there is no doubt that Artemisia loved her daughter passionately, you really feel the everyday irritating-ness of a child who won't sit still and constantly wants attention when her mother desperately wants to paint.

Overall, I think this is too short a book to achieve what it wants to do, and so there are emotional short-cuts all the way through: all the female charcters love each other devotedly, even when they've just met. Artemisia never has to struggle to get patrons or be accepted by the Academy or make friends in all the various cities she moves to. She slips easily into marriage with a stranger and suddenly they're a family. And yet something about the story pulls you on anyway, that is stronger than all these quibbles.

Pretty good if not totally convincing, 25 Jun 2006
This is an interesting story with an interesting setting. It's main flaw is in it evocation of historical speech and behaviour. Like so many books of its kind (Tracy Chevalier is a much more serious offender) the characters do not sound like people from a different age, and this saps their sense of being real. This carp aside it is enjoyable.

An artist and mother, 21 Mar 2006
This book was an unexpectedly, very enjoyable read. It tells the story of real-life character Artemisia Gentileschi, a post-renaissance painter and a woman in a man’s world, “the story of a glorious woman, gloriously told” the blurb gushes. Set in a time when painting was the key art form, when emotion poured out of each canvas and where the art consumer discussed the moral wherefores hinted at by the position of a dagger or a woman’s glance off canvas. It’s an exercise by author, Vreeland, in understanding an artist through their work. Written in the first person, Artemisia as she refines her skills and art struggles with her own personal demons, mulls over each brushstroke and the implications of composition. When she paints Lucrezia who, in all previous interpretations of the story, kills herself to avoid the shame of rape. For Artemisia this has a special resonance since she experienced rape herself at the hands of her father’s collaborator and then suffered torture and humiliation by the Inquisition as well as being called a whore by all in Rome. She feels blameless and struggles to paint the story in such a way that she can retain integrity. It’s fascinating stuff; throughout we are immersed in the world-view of the time that art teaches us.

In our visual age, we have greater access to Artemisia’s work then she did. We can Google her images in seconds whereas for her to see one of her father’s pieces in a private chapel, she had to obtain a special eitter of permission from Cardinal Borghese and suffer a sarcastic interrogation.

The book is about the sacrifices people make in order to create art. Artemisia tells her daughter,

"I heard once that an English queen had denied herself suitors in order to wed England, and I understood at what cost."

One of the most compelling part of the book is when she meets Galileo;he suggests to her that Earth is not at the centre of the universe but that in fact we rotate around the Sun.

I found Artemisia’s relationship with her daughter fascinating and painful to read about.

"What do they want? Sack cloth and ashes? Repentance that I was born a woman? I’m glad I’m a woman and I want you to be glad too."

This book is an inspiring, enlightening and rewarding read written in short, easily digestible chapters.

Novelist Susan Vreeland has made a career of fictionalising the lives of artists and of particular paintings. In her third novel, The Forest Lover, Vreeland's subject is the courageous Canadian painter Emily Carr, who travelled through native villages and wilderness of British Columbia in the early 1900s, often alone, on a quest to paint totem poles and other artifacts before the indigenous traditions died out and the poles were destroyed or sold. Vreeland's Carr is deeply respectful of the people she meets, and is rewarded with their trust and their stories. She brings the same sensitivity with her to Paris to see the new art, is exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, and returns to Vancouver in 1912 with a style so direct, and colours so expressive, that a conservative local reviewer dubs her a wild beast, literally, a Fauve. Vreeland's strength is in the tacks of emotion during dialogue, and in her nimble, exact prose. As she depicts her, Carr is an endearing and believable balance of sensitivity and determination, an artist of life as well as a remarkable painter. --Regina Marler, Amazon.com

What do Italian Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi and 20th century novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch have in common? In addition to the obvious--that they're both women--their life stories have eclipsed their art; sadly, because their work is of real significance and interest. Gentileschi has been the subject of an earlier novel by Anna Banti and a 1998 film. In actuality, she was raped at 19 by one of her father's fellow painters, Agostino Tassi, and the documentation of the seven-month trial has survived, to be given very different interpretations in all these accounts. Susan Vreeland's Artemisia is a feisty feminist, brimful with brio and passionate about her painting, who offers her narrative in the intimacy of the first person. After Tassi's trial, Artemisia's father arranges her marriage to Pietro Stiattesi, a Florentine painter--and dedicated philanderer. Artemisia, so she hopes, is to begin life anew in Florence. Indeed, she gives birth to a beloved daughter, Palmira, and distinguished painting commissions come to her. She is accepted as the first woman into the Academy of Art and Design, is envied for of Cosimo de' Medici's patronage, befriends Galileo, and soon outstrips her husband's reputation.

Her marriage asunder, she begins her peripatetic travels to Genoa, Venice, Florence and eventually to London, always in search of work, and always fleeing the taint of her rape. Vreeland paints her character and the different worlds she inhabits with loving and compelling detail--the sights and sounds of Florence, the snooty male hegemony of the Academy, the Medici feuds and intrigues. But the writing, particularly in Artemisia's own reflections and dialogue, is often jarringly clunky: "I really was living the life of an artist in the greatest art city in the world"; "I wanted to hug them all"--and this does detract from the novel's tone and persuasivenss. The book's cover is a travesty: a portrait of St Cecilia--the model is thought to be Artemisia and the painting is by her father. But why not one of Artemisia's own extraordinary paintings: indeed, her absorbed, intense self-portrait speaks volumes? What a sad irony that its very boldness has been sacrificed to the more saccharine beauty of her father's work. --Ruth Petrie

limping for greatness, 08 Oct 2008
I have been interested in AG for years.
I mean 20 or so. Anna Banti's book was written by a real writer at least but before the full publication of the rape trial transcripts. I wonder what she would have done with them.
Ward Bissel did the academic spadework and others followed.
I even tried the premiere of the Merlet (worthy.)
No-one has really grasped the essence of this greatest of all female painters: the fact that, far from not fitting in with the stereotypes of baroque womanhood - it is from those of modern woman that she escapes. Here the reading is that of a nice second year arts student. The point is that such extraordinary individuals invite identification, due to their gender, from others unable to retreat far enough to give an account of their genius. The parodic (as Tassi would have said) spate of interest in her life is like watching an unsteady 8mm film of a rose blooming. Pointless. Observe the paintings and try to understand the quality of the art (with respect to her father and teachers) and drop the degrading special pleading with which the brave Artemisia would have had no truck.

Talented, beautiful and brave beyond belief, 23 Aug 2007
Artemisia is a beautiful and passionate woman - but her chief love is painting, not satisfying the social conventions of her time. She is driven by her talent and powerful feelings about being a woman in a male dominated society, creating ground-breaking masterpieces that lead to her eventual acceptance by the art establishment of her time. This is in spite of being raped, publicly tortured and humiliated, and betrayed by the men in her life. Her life and achievements were totally new to me, and I now find that the book is based on the true events of her life - although in reality she encountered even more tragedy than contained in the book. It is a beautifully written and compelling story, as Artemisia uses the suffering that she goes through to give more powerful expression to her paintings.

Moving in places, but...., 17 May 2007
I really enjoyed reading this book, but there are flaws in the story: as another reviewer here (rightly) points out, the speech is sometimes oddly jarring e.g. Americanisms such as 'gotten' in the mouth of a 16th century Italian? But more than that, there are strange emotional gaps in the narrative as the author crams a whole life into the book: I never really understood how Artemisia moved from being the raped and victimised girl, married off by her father to a man who wanted her dowry, to somehow falling in love with that same man and being devastated when she finally realises that he has a mistress seven years later - where does she think he's been all day? And why should he owe her any loyalty, given the purchased nature of their 'relationship'?

That apart, the depiction of Artemisia as a painter is done well and imaginatively, though there are no real surprises there.

The relationship with her daughter Palmira was my favourite: while there is no doubt that Artemisia loved her daughter passionately, you really feel the everyday irritating-ness of a child who won't sit still and constantly wants attention when her mother desperately wants to paint.

Overall, I think this is too short a book to achieve what it wants to do, and so there are emotional short-cuts all the way through: all the female charcters love each other devotedly, even when they've just met. Artemisia never has to struggle to get patrons or be accepted by the Academy or make friends in all the various cities she moves to. She slips easily into marriage with a stranger and suddenly they're a family. And yet something about the story pulls you on anyway, that is stronger than all these quibbles.

Pretty good if not totally convincing, 25 Jun 2006
This is an interesting story with an interesting setting. It's main flaw is in it evocation of historical speech and behaviour. Like so many books of its kind (Tracy Chevalier is a much more serious offender) the characters do not sound like people from a different age, and this saps their sense of being real. This carp aside it is enjoyable.

An artist and mother, 21 Mar 2006
This book was an unexpectedly, very enjoyable read. It tells the story of real-life character Artemisia Gentileschi, a post-renaissance painter and a woman in a man’s world, “the story of a glorious woman, gloriously told” the blurb gushes. Set in a time when painting was the key art form, when emotion poured out of each canvas and where the art consumer discussed the moral wherefores hinted at by the position of a dagger or a woman’s glance off canvas. It’s an exercise by author, Vreeland, in understanding an artist through their work. Written in the first person, Artemisia as she refines her skills and art struggles with her own personal demons, mulls over each brushstroke and the implications of composition. When she paints Lucrezia who, in all previous interpretations of the story, kills herself to avoid the shame of rape. For Artemisia this has a special resonance since she experienced rape herself at the hands of her father’s collaborator and then suffered torture and humiliation by the Inquisition as well as being called a whore by all in Rome. She feels blameless and struggles to paint the story in such a way that she can retain integrity. It’s fascinating stuff; throughout we are immersed in the world-view of the time that art teaches us.

In our visual age, we have greater access to Artemisia’s work then she did. We can Google her images in seconds whereas for her to see one of her father’s pieces in a private chapel, she had to obtain a special eitter of permission from Cardinal Borghese and suffer a sarcastic interrogation.

The book is about the sacrifices people make in order to create art. Artemisia tells her daughter,

"I heard once that an English queen had denied herself suitors in order to wed England, and I understood at what cost."

One of the most compelling part of the book is when she meets Galileo;he suggests to her that Earth is not at the centre of the universe but that in fact we rotate around the Sun.

I found Artemisia’s relationship with her daughter fascinating and painful to read about.

"What do they want? Sack cloth and ashes? Repentance that I was born a woman? I’m glad I’m a woman and I want you to be glad too."

This book is an inspiring, enlightening and rewarding read written in short, easily digestible chapters.

limping for greatness, 08 Oct 2008
I have been interested in AG for years.
I mean 20 or so. Anna Banti's book was written by a real writer at least but before the full publication of the rape trial transcripts. I wonder what she would have done with them.
Ward Bissel did the academic spadework and others followed.
I even tried the premiere of the Merlet (worthy.)
No-one has really grasped the essence of this greatest of all female painters: the fact that, far from not fitting in with the stereotypes of baroque womanhood - it is from those of modern woman that she escapes. Here the reading is that of a nice second year arts student. The point is that such extraordinary individuals invite identification, due to their gender, from others unable to retreat far enough to give an account of their genius. The parodic (as Tassi would have said) spate of interest in her life is like watching an unsteady 8mm film of a rose blooming. Pointless. Observe the paintings and try to understand the quality of the art (with respect to her father and teachers) and drop the degrading special pleading with which the brave Artemisia would have had no truck.

Talented, beautiful and brave beyond belief, 23 Aug 2007
Artemisia is a beautiful and passionate woman - but her chief love is painting, not satisfying the social conventions of her time. She is driven by her talent and powerful feelings about being a woman in a male dominated society, creating ground-breaking masterpieces that lead to her eventual acceptance by the art establishment of her time. This is in spite of being raped, publicly tortured and humiliated, and betrayed by the men in her life. Her life and achievements were totally new to me, and I now find that the book is based on the true events of her life - although in reality she encountered even more tragedy than contained in the book. It is a beautifully written and compelling story, as Artemisia uses the suffering that she goes through to give more powerful expression to her paintings.

Moving in places, but...., 17 May 2007
I really enjoyed reading this book, but there are flaws in the story: as another reviewer here (rightly) points out, the speech is sometimes oddly jarring e.g. Americanisms such as 'gotten' in the mouth of a 16th century Italian? But more than that, there are strange emotional gaps in the narrative as the author crams a whole life into the book: I never really understood how Artemisia moved from being the raped and victimised girl, married off by her father to a man who wanted her dowry, to somehow falling in love with that same man and being devastated when she finally realises that he has a mistress seven years later - where does she think he's been all day? And why should he owe her any loyalty, given the purchased nature of their 'relationship'?

That apart, the depiction of Artemisia as a painter is done well and imaginatively, though there are no real surprises there.

The relationship with her daughter Palmira was my favourite: while there is no doubt that Artemisia loved her daughter passionately, you really feel the everyday irritating-ness of a child who won't sit still and constantly wants attention when her mother desperately wants to paint.

Overall, I think this is too short a book to achieve what it wants to do, and so there are emotional short-cuts all the way through: all the female charcters love each other devotedly, even when they've just met. Artemisia never has to struggle to get patrons or be accepted by the Academy or make friends in all the various cities she moves to. She slips easily into marriage with a stranger and suddenly they're a family. And yet something about the story pulls you on anyway, that is stronger than all these quibbles.

Pretty good if not totally convincing, 25 Jun 2006
This is an interesting story with an interesting setting. It's main flaw is in it evocation of historical speech and behaviour. Like so many books of its kind (Tracy Chevalier is a much more serious offender) the characters do not sound like people from a different age, and this saps their sense of being real. This carp aside it is enjoyable.

An artist and mother, 21 Mar 2006
This book was an unexpectedly, very enjoyable read. It tells the story of real-life character Artemisia Gentileschi, a post-renaissance painter and a woman in a man’s world, “the story of a glorious woman, gloriously told” the blurb gushes. Set in a time when painting was the key art form, when emotion poured out of each canvas and where the art consumer discussed the moral wherefores hinted at by the position of a dagger or a woman’s glance off canvas. It’s an exercise by author, Vreeland, in understanding an artist through their work. Written in the first person, Artemisia as she refines her skills and art struggles with her own personal demons, mulls over each brushstroke and the implications of composition. When she paints Lucrezia who, in all previous interpretations of the story, kills herself to avoid the shame of rape. For Artemisia this has a special resonance since she experienced rape herself at the hands of her father’s collaborator and then suffered torture and humiliation by the Inquisition as well as being called a whore by all in Rome. She feels blameless and struggles to paint the story in such a way that she can retain integrity. It’s fascinating stuff; throughout we are immersed in the world-view of the time that art teaches us.

In our visual age, we have greater access to Artemisia’s work then she did. We can Google her images in seconds whereas for her to see one of her father’s pieces in a private chapel, she had to obtain a special eitter of permission from Cardinal Borghese and suffer a sarcastic interrogation.

The book is about the sacrifices people make in order to create art. Artemisia tells her daughter,

"I heard once that an English queen had denied herself suitors in order to wed England, and I understood at what cost."

One of the most compelling part of the book is when she meets Galileo;he suggests to her that Earth is not at the centre of the universe but that in fact we rotate around the Sun.

I found Artemisia’s relationship with her daughter fascinating and painful to read about.

"What do they want? Sack cloth and ashes? Repentance that I was born a woman? I’m glad I’m a woman and I want you to be glad too."

This book is an inspiring, enlightening and rewarding read written in short, easily digestible chapters.