Author: Susan Vreeland
Type: Audiobook
Narrator: Gigi Bermingham
Genre: Historical Fiction
Series: No
Copyright: 2002
Publisher: Highbridge Audio
Rating: 2.5 out of 5
Summary: from goodreads
Recently rediscovered by art historians, and one of the few female post-Renaissance painters to achieve fame during her own era, Artemisia Gentileschi led a remarkably "modern" life. Susan Vreeland tells Artemisia's captivating story, beginning with her public humiliation in a rape trial at the age of eighteen, and continuing through her father's betrayal, her marriage of convenience, motherhood, and growing fame as an artist. Set against the glorious backdrops of Rome, Florence, Genoa, and Naples, inhabited by historical characters such as Galileo and Cosimo de' Medici II, and filled with rich details about life as a seventeenth-century painter, Vreeland creates an inspiring story about one woman's lifelong struggle to reconcile career and family, passion and genius.
Feelings:
I started listening to this audiobook over a year ago but never finished it. When I saw it at the library, I decided to give it another try. I enjoyed the story, however, it wasn't as good as I had hoped. I am glad that I finished it, I don't feel like it was vital that I finished it. There are some books that I feel if I don't finish them I'm missing something. This was not one of those books.
Artemisia is an interesting character who makes decisions that advance her career as an artist. As a result, she forgoes many of the pleasures of human relationships. That aspect of the story was sad. It made me wonder how much of it was fictional and how much based on history. I did enjoy the descriptions from the point of view of the painter seeing detail in the things around her and wanting to share them with her daughter and friends.
This is not a book I would recommend to many people. I enjoyed the audiobook narration. It was very well done and carried the story through to the end.
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