Artemisia: A Novel - Hardcover

Lapierre, Alexandra

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802116728 ISBN 13: 9780802116727

Publisher: Grove Pr, 2000

Synopsis

In a vivid re-creation of Baroque Italy, Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the Western world's first major women artists, is raped by her father's partner, Agostino Tassi, and refuses, in the face of family pressure, scandal, and torture to deny the crime, an attitude that ostracizes her from Rome and from her father. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

In this heroic, passionate story, Alexandra Lapierre sweeps her audience through the streets once frequented by Caravaggio, Velasquez, and Van Dyck and the studios of the artists who used their daggers as efficiently as their brushes.

Born to the artist Orazio Gentileschi at the beginning of the 1600s, when artists were the celebrities of their day, Artemisia was apprenticed to her father at an early age. She showed such remarkable talent that he came to view her as the most precious thing he owned. But at the age of seventeen Artemisia was raped by her father's best friend and partner, Agostini Tassi. Soon the Gentileschi name was being dragged through scandal, for Artemisia refused, even when tortured, to deny that she had been raped. Indeed, she went farther: she dared to plead her case in court. For eight months all of Rome was riveted by the trial. Artemisia won the case, but in return she was ostracized from Rome and from her father.

This is a story of the love-hate relationship between master and pupil, father and daughter, at a time when daughters belonged to their fathers and had no legal rights. Artemisia's talent was such that she overturned the prejudices of her time, winning the admiration of wealthy patrons, kings, and queens. Lapierre brings Artemisia Gentileschi to vivid life as she tells of the emotional struggle of this remarkable, fascinating woman.

"This is one of the most vivid biographies ever written about an artist. It is also a lively portrait of Rome during the epoque of the Cenci and Caravaggio, and of Venice and Naples and London in the throes of Baroque excess. Above all, Artemisia is a fascinating, if often frightening, study of the relationship of a brilliant father and daughter and their tortured but endlessly colorful lives."--Nicholas Fox Weber, author of Balthus: A Biography

"A book bristling with adventure, noise, passion and color which re-creates Baroque Italy in all its diversity, from the ballrooms to the torture chambers, from trials to marriages, from drinking parties to underground conspiracies."--Les Echos

"Alexandra Lapierre's heroines live passionately and wildly.... This book is simply wonderful."--Le Figaro

"Artemisia is cut from the marble of masterpieces."--Beaux Arts

"[Lapierre] has more than achieved the challenge she set for herself and given us a magnificent portrait of a painter and the world in which she moved."--Cesare de Seta, Corriere della Serra

"This wonderfully researched...full of interest and intrigue. It is not art criticism but it does deal with questions of greatness and gender.... A book worth reading."--Jeanette Winterson, The Times (London)

Alexandra Lapierre's most recent book, Fanny Stevenson: A Romance of Destiny was awarded the highly regarded Elle magazine literary prize in 1993.

Reviews

LaPierre's heavily researchedAbut racyAhistorical novel covers the passionate life of Italian Renaissance artist Artemisia Gentileschi (1592-1653), who survived rape, ostracism and public scandal and went on to imagine powerful women in her energetic paintings. Artemisia's father was the much-in-demand Roman painter Orazio Gentileschi, who took the unusual steps of making his daughter both his apprentice and his model.As Artemisia entered her late teens, Orazio grew extremely protective, then arranged for her to marry his unscrupulous associate, painter Agostino Tassi. When Artemisia refused Tassi, he raped her. A dramatic trial ensued; Artemisia won, but the scandal drove her to leave Rome, and to marry the lawyer who defended her. All this transpires in the first half of LaPierre's book, which draws on and sometimes interpolates real transcripts from the trial. LaPierre (Fanny Stevenson) then follows father and daughter on their subsequent travels, which bring them both in time to the England of King Charles I. The detailed narrative straddles the line between biography and novel; some passages stack up piles of Renaissance facts, while others reimagine Artemisia's dramatic life scene by scene. (There are even long notes, and a bibliography.) Though the prose is fluent, and the characters gripping, Artemisia is no Romola. The volume succeeds more as history than as literature, but it makes history very hard to put down. LaPierre and translator Heron (who used both the novelist's French and the sources' Italian) offer a remarkable entr?e to the eventful life of a pioneer female artist and to the dangerous Europe in which she lived. (Oct.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This fictional rendering of the life of renowned artist Artemisia Gentileschi, daughter of Italian painter Orazio Gentileschi, first published in France in 1998, reads more like an exhaustive social history than a novel. But that is to its credit. Lapierre (Fanny Stevenson: A Romance of Destiny) weaves 17th-century European historyDreligious beliefs, church/state power struggles, wars, and skirmishesDinto the story of an audacious woman who defied convention by taking her place among the great artists of her time. The book is at times overly detailed, but it does provide a vivid look at the social mores governing Baroque Italy. In addition, the 40-year rivalry between Orazio and Artemisia is perceptively written. So, too, is the section chronicling Artemisia's rape, at the age of 17, by her father's best friend, Agostino Tassi. Artistic squabbles, gender restrictions, government thievery, sexual philandering, and experimentation all come alive in this well-wrought text. Highly recommended for all academic and large public libraries.
-DEleanor J. Bader, Brooklyn, NY
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Grove Pr
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802116728
• ISBN 13: 9780802116727
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 544