Disobedient: The gripping feminist retelling of a seventeenth century heroine forging her own destiny

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As Artemisia patiently goes from lesson to lesson, perfecting her craft, a mysterious tutor enters her life. However, when commissions aren’t coming in as much as they hoped, Orazio wants to marry his daughter off to a wealthy husband. The word choice is also questionable, for a book set multiple centuries ago, the way the characters speak is too contemporary. Artemisia seeks to paint the truth in its more sincere form, whether that truth is amenable to society is a different matter.

We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. I’m interested to read A Portrait in Shadow, another Artemesia novel that interestingly came out this year, to see if that resonates with me more. There is nothing that transports the reader to Rome in the seventeenth century, except for a few mentions of the Colosseum etc. Until one day, he does the unthinkable and in one violent act, Artemisia sees her future threatened, and she may be powerless to do anything about it.Just finished reading this gem - an unputdownable story of revenge, ambition , and how women overcome adversity. But from the brutal rape sprung her most renowned paintings, full of unflinching violence and passion. Yet to accuse Caravaggio of a prurient interest in women is frankly hilarious; Gentileschi's work has far more naked female skin than Caravaggio's!

The motif of the Hermaphroditus figure appears as an attempt for Artemisia to grasp at breaking the gender binary, and there's a lovely scene where she draws a man in a dress to try and better understand gender taboos. The author's frustration bleeds through, and it is like in the quote above, one piece of art in conversation with another. I also read the graphic novel Artemisia, by Nathalie Ferlut, which covers both her young and adult years. Fremantle describes the period when Artemisia lived in Rome before her marriage – and thus the period of her rape and trial.There is a scene where Gentileschi decries Caravaggio's Judith as being too sexual-- after all, we can see the shape of her nipples through her dress.

The paintings are evaluated through a feminist lens that acknowledges the artist’s experiences and the effect those must have had on their works.I was wholly transported to 1611 Rome and delivered in the midst of a family of painters, none more talented than the young female of the family, Artemisia Gentileschi. Please note that images of special editions are digitally constructed by the publisher and may differ from the final product due to the production process. They are both Historical Fiction set in Italy with a headstrong female character who ends up in a relationship she doesn't want to be in, and both novels feature the act of painting.