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Overview
An international best-seller, Alexandra Lapierre's Artemisia sweeps us through the streets once frequented by Caravaggio, Velasquez, and Van Dyck and into the studios of artists who used their daggers as efficiently as their brushes. Born in the early 1600s when artists were the celebrities of the day, Artemisia was apprenticed to her father, the artist Orazio Gentileschi, at an early age. Raped by his partner Agostino Tassi at seventeen, the Gentileschi name was 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. Artemisia is the story of a powerful love/hate relationship between master and pupil, father and daughter, and a talent that overturned the prejudices of the day, winning commissions from wealthy patrons, nobles, and kings. Lapierre brings Artemisia Gentileschi to vivid life as she tells of the emotional struggles of the most fascinating and controversial artist of her time.Synopsis
An international best-seller, Alexandra Lapierre's Artemisia sweeps us through the streets once frequented by Caravaggio, Velasquez, and Van Dyck and into the studios of artists who used their daggers as efficiently as their brushes. Born in the early 1600s when artists were the celebrities of the day, Artemisia was apprenticed to her father, the artist Orazio Gentileschi, at an early age. Raped by his partner Agostino Tassi at seventeen, the Gentileschi name was 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. Artemisia is the story of a powerful love/hate relationship between master and pupil, father and daughter, and a talent that overturned the prejudices of the day, winning commissions from wealthy patrons, nobles, and kings. Lapierre brings Artemisia Gentileschi to vivid life as she tells of the emotional struggles of the most fascinating and controversial artist of her time.
Publishers Weekly
LaPierre's heavily researched--but racy--historical 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 Cahners Business Information.|
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
LaPierre's heavily researched--but racy--historical 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 Cahners Business Information.|Library Journal
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 history--religious beliefs, church/state power struggles, wars, and skirmishes--into 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. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/00.]--Eleanor J. Bader, Brooklyn, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\Peter Bricklebank
In the French novelist Alexandra Lapierre's enthralling new novel, Artemisia, 17th-century Italy is a place where ''Art always prevailed over Justice'' and is collected with criminal voracity, and where a sycophantic connection to powerful popes and noble families was a prerequisite to any aspiration to success.... Though published here, in this graceful translation by Liz Heron, as a novel, the book features extensive notes and a text threaded with documentation, suggesting why it was published as a narrative biography in England. Whatever its genre, Artemisia employs admirable artistry in depicting the turbulent life and times of two great painters.—New York Times Book Review