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

Product Information

This Artemisia is still searching what she wants from life and how her art can reflect that. Her father Orazio is a determining factor in the lives of his daughter and sons. And then there is Zita, her chaperone and occasional model who pursues her own demons. Artemesia Gentileschi was 17 years old when she was groomed, raped, and then forced to testify about her abuse while being tortured. In the same year she painted her infamous Judith , and one of the great Renaissance masters was born. A young woman is put on trial. She has accused her painting teacher of the darkest betrayal - he accuses her of being an immoral liar. What really happened, and why will this trial scandalise seventeenth-century Rome? The book's afterword explains the author's personal reasons for writing the book, and the extent to which she has fictionalised the history ,which is helpful for the reader - I wish more writers in this genre did the same. Artemisia Gentileschi helps her father Orazio with his work as a painter and it soon becomes clear that she may be more gifted than he is. However, when commissions aren’t coming in as much as they hoped, Orazio wants to marry his daughter off to a wealthy husband. When Agostino Tassi enters Artemisia’s life to give her painting lessons, it seems that his intensions aren’t as honorable than she thought.

Until a mysterious tutor enters her life. Tassi is a dashing figure, handsome and worldly, and for a moment he represents everything that a life of freedom might offer. But then the unthinkable happens. Sinds ik een aantal jaar geleden Susan Vreeland's boek over Artemisia las, vind ik zowel haar levensverhaal als haar werk fascinerend. Ik stond afgelopen voorjaar voor haar Judith slaying Holofernes in het Uffizi met open ogen te kijken. That being said, whatever revisionist history it may be, I’m still fully okay with us reclaiming Artemisia as a feminist pioneer and female empowerment icon and I enjoyed this absolute love letter to Artemisia. She’s portrayed here with incredible strength and a richly realized individual character. Orazio gets the raking over the coals we often think he deserves. Tassi gets the never-enough-punishment that he got in reality ( ffs). And Piero and Zita were marvelous inventions/reimaginings.This isn’t the story of a female painter trying to break the glass ceiling with her work. This is the story of a young girl being wronged and trying to gain recognition for it and, above all, escape from it. A woman who wants to be able to make her own choices – and that’s a story of all times. Artemisia Gentileschi dreams of becoming a great artist. Motherless, she grows up among a family of painters -- men and boys. She knows she is more talented than her brothers, but she cannot choose her own future. She wants to experience the world, but she belongs to her father and will belong to a husband.

Elizabeth Fremantle has created an incredible character in Artemisia. Finally, a female protagonist who is not reduced to sitting in a corner as silent tears of rage drip down her cheeks, no more internal dialogue berating herself over expressing anger. Artemisia is furious; she is vocal about it and rightly so. It was refreshing to see how Fremantle handled this portrayal of female rage. Ultimately Artemisia is constrained by the era she is born into but, she is not willing to sit noiselessly with the injustice of it. Artemisia made several paintings of the same subject. Recently Judith and her Maidservant was displayed at the Nelson Atkins Museum Of Art, and I was impressed by its large size, 72.44 in × 55.75 in. My only real quibble is that I would have liked to read more about Artemisia's subsequent life and her later achievements which were significant. This novel has a wonderful, if somewhat bloody beginning, acting like a promise of what’s to come and the author had captured my attention straight away. 6-year-old Artemisia witnessing with her father the execution of a young girl, an experience that will shape and mould her artistic vision. MAGICAL, THRILLING, WONDERFUL, EXCELLENT. HEARTPOUNDINGLY TENSE AND ABSOLUTELY ENGROSSING. CLEVER, AMAZING AND INSPIRING' DAILY MAILSome readers may be familiar with the talented 17th century Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1656), the Italian baroque artist whose paintings include Susanna and the Elders, Judith Slaying Holofernes, and Judith and Her Maidservant, there has been a resurgence of interest in her in more recent times. Elizabeth Fremantle blends fact and fiction in this well researched novel, to depict an earlier part of her life, growing up in Rome, she had lost her mother and is raised by her Caravaggio influenced artist father, Orazio. She is shaped by the norms and expectations of women, the limitations and to be ruled by men, Artemesia underwent the drama of what is a well known period of horror and trauma in her life.