The Reluctant Queen by Jean Plaidy Friday, Mar 12 2010

Wow. I started this a personal project, never expecting anyone but myself to actually read it. So it has surprised me that I’ve gotten so many hits lately. The nifty thing about WordPress is that it shows you the website from which readers found your blog. While I’ve gotten a few hits from my Facebook profile, I realized I’ve also been getting hits from the Tudor Book Blog from EverythingTudor.com! So I had to check it out, and turns out parts of my reviews are up there, with links to my blog, and all I have to say is “!!!!!!!”. I feel like such a dork getting excited about that, but I think it’s pretty darn cool. And to the author of the Tudor Book Blog at EverythingTudor.com, I love your blog!

So, back to the actual order in which I read things (I read this directly after Helen of Troy). And back to Tudor England!

I was very hesitant about The Reluctant Queen at first. I’m a stickler for detail and accuracy, and the blurb on the back of the book really threw me off. I read it and got really confused, and at first I didn’t think I would read the book because it didn’t seem to be historically accurate. Whoever wrote it must have either gotten confused, had their people mixed up, or something, because it says: “In 1470, as reluctant Lady Anne Neville is betrothed by her father, the politically ambitious Earl of Warwick, to Edward, Prince of Wales. A gentle yet fiercely intelligent woman, Anne has already given her heart to the prince’s younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester.” Does anyone else see what’s wrong with this summary?

Yes, Anne Neville was betrothed to Edward, Prince of Wales. But no, Richard (Duke of Gloucester) was not his younger brother; instead, he was the younger brother of a different Edward, King Edward IV. The Edward (Prince of Wales) that Anne Neville was betrothed to was the son of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou. When I read the back of the book, I thought that somehow Jean Plaidy was going to suggest that Anne Neville was at some point betrothed to Edward VI, which made no historical sense whatsoever. But once I got into The Reluctant Queen I realized the mistake and really enjoyed the book.

The Reluctant Queen‘s main focus is the love story between Richard, Duke of Gloucester and Anne Neville, who were close friends in their childhood and went through many trials (Anne’s father’s fall from grace, Anne’s betrothal to Prince Edward, politics, Anne’s kidnapping by the Duke of Clarence, etc.) before they were finally able to be together. But that wasn’t the end of their troubles. After Edward IV dies, his young son Edward V takes the throne, with Richard as his Protector. Richard worries that Edward is too young and vulnerable to rule, and when a priest brings forward “proof” that Edward IV was already married when he married Elizabeth Woodville, young Edward V is declared illegitimate and thus his claim to the throne isn’t valid. Next in line is Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who takes the throne to become Richard III and places young Edward in the Tower (once again, as stated in the post for To the Tower Born, he was not imprisoned but was kept rather comfortably in the royal quarters). The book ends with Anne’s death, which is portrayed to have occurred before the princes disappeared from the Tower, so that subject, unfortunately is not breached. However, there are references to the supposed love affair between Richard III and Elizabeth of York. While the narrator, Anne, is adamant that it is just a rumor and that Richard was faithful and loved her very much, there seems to be a lot of vagueness on the subject, so it is not clear where Jean Plaidy stands on the rumored love affair.

Next up: a trip to a convent in Italy during the Counter-Reformation.

One Response »

 

And now for something completely different… Thursday, Mar 11 2010

When I started this project, and was already slightly behind in writing about the books I was interested in, I told myself I would stick to reflecting on the books in the order in which I read them. But about ten minutes ago, I finished a book that blew me away, and I just had to write about it immediately.

I’m on the Borders.com and BarnesandNoble.com mailing lists and get emails almost daily with coupons and book suggestions, etc. When I first saw Robert Goolrick’s book A Reliable Wife advertised I thought it sounded interesting, different from what I’ve been reading, and I put it on my “Books to Buy” list. A couple of months passed. I received over thirty books for Christmas, and with so much to read, I hadn’t bought myself a single book since October (a big deal for me!). But as my boyfriend was getting his hair cut Tuesday afternoon, I walked next door into my favorite used book store. I spent quite some time in the used books section of the store, and for once had no luck. On my way out, I noticed the new book display, with A Reliable Wife right there in front of me. I saw this as a sign (haha, I will use this to justify buying a book at any time) and spent the fifteen dollars to buy it.

I didn’t start it right away, as I was finishing The Queen’s Sorrow by Susannah Dunn–to be reported on later. But we were at my boyfriend’s mom’s house waiting for her to get off work, my boyfriend napping and me reading, when I finished The Queen’s Sorrow and decided to pass on the other book I brought with me.

The first thing I noticed about A Reliable Wife was that it caught my attention right from the start. I started reading and in what seemed like no time, I was already fifty pages into it. Most books take me quite some time to get into; usually I’m stuck on the first fifty pages for at least a day or two, maybe more. But not this book. I, sadly, had to put the book down when the time came to go out to dinner with my boyfriend and his mom (don’t get me wrong, dinner was fun; I was just so into the book, I didn’t want to put it down). I picked back up a few hours later when we got back to our apartment and read late into the night. I read all throughout yesterday, and finally finished the book tonight.

What really got to me about this book is that I found myself feeling intensely connected to the characters. I really liked Ralph Truitt and Catherine Land. But the thing is, it’s clear from page one that they are not good people and have even worse motives. The three main characters in the book become so fully developed by the end, it’s truly amazing. The depths of their lives and personalities stunned me. I can’t even get my thoughts about the book together into coherent written sentences. And not only were the characters so movingly portrayed, the plot stands out as well. The book has you questioning everyone’s motives from the start, but you never do quite expect the twists and turns that A Reliable Wife offers.

Robert Goolrick’s A Reliable Wife is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. It has made my top three books, up there with The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani and Sacred Hearts by Sarah Dunant. I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend it.

Leave a Response »

 

The Wicked Series by Gregory Maguire Thursday, Mar 11 2010

Wicked is advertised as a retelling of The Wizard of Oz from the Wicked Witch of the West’s point of view. When I started the book, I was surprised to find it was much more than that. Yes, the story follows the life of Elphaba (a.k.a. the Wicked Witch of the West) and some of the characters from L. Frank Baum’s stories appear, but other than that, Wicked stands on its own. Gregory Maguire completely reinvents the Oz we all knew and loved in our childhood. But it is definitely not meant for children. The Wicked series is extremely dark, and includes a lot of political and social commentary, and is very explicitly sexual at times.

Here’s a quick breakdown for each book (I guess I have to say it: SPOILER ALERT):

• Wicked follows the life of Elphaba, later known as the Wicked Witch of the West, from before her birth, to her childhood, through boarding school, her work undercover, her love affair, her life with her lover’s family, to her death. Unlike L. Frank Baum’s book, Dorothy plays only a small role in Wicked. This was, by far, my favorite book in the series.
• Son of a Witch focuses on Liir, Elphaba’s son and his journey to find his half-sister, Nor. Along the way, he tries to help a Princess of a nomadic tribe, becomes involved in a political plot, gets attacked by dragons, and fights against the government of Oz alongside all the birds of Oz. Son of a Witch took me the longest to get through, and I found it to be the darkest book of the three, especially the scenes involving Shell, Elphaba’s brother, who works in the prison in the Emerald City.

• A Lion Among Men sounds like it would be mostly about the Cowardly Lion. And that’s true, to an extent. Brr, or the Cowardly Lion plays a large role, but so do Nor (the child of Elphaba’s lover Fiyero and his wife, half-sister to Liir) and Yackle (the old crone who mysteriously shows up all over the previous two novels). Basically Brr is working for the government, trying to track down Liir, the son of Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West. While interviewing Yackle about her involvement with Elphaba, we learn his story, as well as get a lot of questions answered about who Yackle is, who the dwarf is (he, like Yackle randomly pops up in the other books), and what happened to Nor. I thought A Lion Among Men would be the last book in the series. It definitely seemed to be tying up a few loose ends, but it raised a lot more questions and the ending suggested that there would be a fourth book sometime in the future.

I would definitely recommend the Wicked series to anyone who enjoys books that allow for an escape from reality. They are not strictly fantasy books. They are heavy with political and social commentary, and it’s easy to see references to many controversial issues. They aren’t exactly fast reads. They’re pretty heavy. But if you like dark stories, and re-tellings of classic tales, you’ll enjoy them.

Leave a Response »

 

Helen of Troy by Margaret George Tuesday, Mar 9 2010

Ah! Definitely not doing well on catching up. So far behind… Once again, let’s try to keep this short and sweet…

Margaret George is an excellent writer. Her books are meticulously researched and extremely detailed. Sometimes a little too much. I still haven’t managed to get through The Memoirs of Cleopatra. I’m fascinated by Egypt and Rome (hence my degree choice: anthropology/archaeology). However, I felt The Memoirs of Cleopatra dragged on a little too much, and I stopped when Marc Antony came into the picture. Curiously, this is the point that also stopped me reading Karen Essex’s Pharoh. Odd… Anyway, in the fall I gave Margaret George another chance, this time with a character close to my heart: yeah, you guessed it, Henry VIII. Surprise, surprise. And the book was amazing. So then I figured I’d try another book by Margaret George and chose Helen of Troy.

Unlike the rest of the historical figures that Margaret George chooses to write about (Henry VIII, Mary Queen of Scots, Cleopatra, Mary Magdalene), there is no evidence that suggests that  Helen was a real person and not a myth. However, George handles the subject matter in the same way as her other historic novels. And thankfully–or else I would have cringed and this post would be a very long rant–she sticks to actual findings in the archaeological record. Helen of Troy brings the Trojan epic cycle to life in a new way and I was really glad for it. She gave new depth to old characters. For once I didn’t see Paris as (pardon my language) a pussy. In the author’s note at the end, George discussed a major dilemma she faced when writing: to include the gods as characters or to leave them out. I’m pleased with her choice and believe the book would have pretty much been crap without the gods. Yes, it’s written as historic fiction, but you can’t have a story about Helen without including the mythology. So, another successful book by Margaret George. I’m not ready to go back to The Memoirs of Cleopatra yet, but I do have a copy of Mary Called Magdalene, that I’ll be reading very soon.

So yeah. Kind of short… but not really. Next up: The Wicked series.

Leave a Response »

 

The Rose Without a Thorn by Jean Plaidy Tuesday, Feb 23 2010

Yes, yet another Jean Plaidy book. Get used to it! Anyway, so much for catching up. My job hunt keeps getting in my way of my writing (but not my reading!), so I think I’m six books behind now… So I’m going to try to keep my comments short.

Many historians, Alison Weir included, refer to Katherine Howard as “shallow” and “stupid” and “wanton”. She is often portrayed as a silly, materialistic, horny, and completely unintelligent young woman (see Philippa Gregory’s The Boleyn Inheritance). However, Jean Plaidy paints a more sympathetic picture of poor Katherine Howard. She proves that one needs to look at the entire picture when judging a person’s character. All people are subject to their past experiences.

I’ve always found it interesting that the two wives that Henry VIII had executed were cousins–Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. But the two girls grew up in very different circumstances. Anne was sent to France in the court of the Princess Mary Tudor when she was very young and was thus given an outstanding education. Katherine came from a more poor branch of the Howard family and was sent, because of a slight resemblance to Anne, to live with the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, her grandmother. While in residence with her grandmother, the Dowager Duchess was often forgetful and for the most part neglected Katherine’s education (except for in music). Katherine was left to the ladies boarding at her grandmother’s manor, who encouraged her to join in their festivities with their lovers in the dormitories at night.  Katherine Howard was very young when she caught the King’s eye; she was eighteen I believe. She seems to have been a very naive girl, who fell in love very easily. She was sent to court under the impression that she was betrothed to her childhood sweetheart. So, when the king caught her attention, though she was excited to be the object of affection of the king’s, she was still in love with Thomas Culpepper. And once again, she was under the influence of people of questionable morals and motives–the scheming Jane Boleyn.

Katherine Howard did not have the opportunities of a great education as her cousin Anne Boleyn did, and was constantly surrounded by those who would use her as a political pawn and otherwise negatively influence her. As Jean Plaidy shows us in The Rose Without a Thorn, Katherine’s naivety and indiscretions can be understood if we take a look at the circumstances of her past, before catching Henry VIII’s attention.

Leave a Response »

 

The Lady in the Tower by Jean Plaidy Monday, Jan 25 2010

Anne Boleyn is my favorite female historical character. The fact that there are so many historical fiction books out there about her really pleases me. I’ve read many of them, so many that my boyfriend always asks, “Don’t you ever get sick of reading the same stories over and over?” I always answer him with a no. Yes, it’s the same basic plot line but each author of each book brings something different to the table. Lately there’s been a movement to portray Anne Boleyn in a better light, now that historians recognize that she was not an adulterer but was a political pawn and scapegoat, so that Henry the VIII could get rid of her and marry Jane Seymour. Alison Weir, Jean Plaidy, Robin Maxwell, Susannah Dunn, and many other writers follow this trend, as does the television show The Tudors. (Well, the parts that are historically accurate. Some parts, such as Mary Tudor’s marriage to and murder of the King of Portugal, rather than the King of France… ugh don’t get me started…) Philippa Gregory however takes us one giant step backward in The Other Boleyn Girl, where she insinuates that Anne Boleyn was a bitch, a whore, and committed incest resulting in a disfigured baby with her brother George.

Jean Plaidy is a champion for Anne Boleyn. She researched very well for The Lady in the Tower and was able to make Anne seem very real. Unlike some writers, Jean Plaidy includes the rumors of the “sixth finger” on Anne, making it out to be a deformed fingernail on her pinky finger. While many historic fiction writers make Anne Boleyn seem like a real person, Jean Plaidy does it the best. Anne’s hot-headedness, stubborness, confrontational personality, her humor and love of life, and her desire to keep good-looking, smart, and witty men who admired her around her (though she never became involved with any of them beyond friendship; she was not a very sexual person after the shame her sister Mary brought to her after her affairs in the French court) all remind me of my best friend Natalie. Whenever I tried to imagine the story in my head, I would see Anne Boleyn portrayed by Natalie. This only strengthened the connection I feel to Anne. I LOVE to read. I mean, I’m crazy about it. And I always end up feeling strong connections to many of the characters. But in The Lady in the Tower, that connection was even stronger. Even though I knew what happened at the end of Anne’s story was inevitable, I found myself very emotional at the end of the book.

Leave a Response »

 

To the Tower Born by Robin Maxwell Saturday, Jan 23 2010

The fate of the princes in the Tower is one of history’s most fascinating mysteries, at least in my opinion. Since the time of the two boys’ disappearances, many theories have been put forward as to what happened to them and if they were indeed killed, who had the strongest motives for their murder? Unsolved mysteries of the past create a perfect subject for historical fiction writers; they provide events that are not set in stone, and thus a lot of interpretation is allowed by the author. Shakespeare and other writers, from directly after the princes’ disappearance until fairly recently, have placed the blame on Richard III, and theorized that he had the two murdered. Philippa Gregory in The White Queen continues this tradition and puts the blame on Richard III. However, she added her own theories in also. She believed that there was no way that Elizabeth Woodville would have actually surrendered her second son Richard (also called Dickon) to Richard III and the Tower. She thought that the former queen found a young boy who resembled young Prince Richard and put him in the Tower, sending the real Richard off to relations in mainland Europe. Other authors like Josephine Tey, have placed the blame on Henry Tudor (Henry VII).

In her author’s note, Robin Maxwell discusses what led her to formatting her theories. She discusses the theories that say Henry Tudor murdered the princes. She says that because Henry  Tudor was exiled from Britain and did not set food on English soil for seventeen years before the boys’ disappearance and for some time after, it is extremely unlikely that he was behind the disappearance/murder. Instead, To the Tower Born suggests that one of the most intelligent and powerful women in England was behind the plot: Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII and grandmother to Henry VIII. The book suggests that Richard III was completely innocent of the situation and put the princes in the Tower strictly because he believed they would be safer there. (When most people think of the Tower of London, they think of only prison cells and torture. The Tower was originally a palace, and when the two princes were taken there, they were not kept in a prison cell but resided in the royal quarters.) She also suggests a rescue mission, where the main characters stumble across the boys in a prison cell below one of Margaret Beaufort’s residences and attempt to smuggle them out of the country. Edward does not make it due to sickness, but Richard is secretly sent to live with his royal relations in Burgundy.

The difficulty of how to tell this story from a particular character’s point of view, was cleverly solved by Robin Maxwell. The said character must be a part of the royal family and thus privy to the inner workings and events in the royal residences. But there are many times in which the royal family was exiled and cut off almost completely from the outside world, and thus there would be great holes in the story. To the Tower Born is actually told from two different points of view: those of Nell Caxton (the daughter of the famous William Caxton, whose printing press served the royal families of both England and Burgundy) and Princess Elizabeth (later Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville and sister to Edward V and Prince Richard; she was later married to Margaret Beaufort’s son, Henry Tudor/Henry VII). The chapters alternate between the points of view of Nell and Elizabeth. This way, we get a complete sense of the events happening around the princes’ disappearance.

Leave a Response »

 

Green Darkness by Anya Seton Thursday, Jan 21 2010

Barbara Samuel’s introduction to Green Darkness is what inspired me to start this project. She wrote about keeping a reading journal, and that appealed to me. It’s a wonder the thought never crossed my mind before. But now that I’m out of school and have a lot of extra free time on my hands (and thus feel much less guilty spending most of my free time reading than I did when I chose reading for fun over reading for class), I have plenty of time to read and start a new personal project. Lately, I’ve been reporting on really good books that I read prior to Christmas. I started Green Darkness right before Christmas and finished it maybe a week after. After this entry, I will be starting on the 34 books I received for Christmas from my family. I’ve made it through three and a half in the last three weeks, so I’m making good progress. I am trying to get them posted on here rather quickly so I can catch up, and write when thoughts pop into my mind rather than trying to remember them later.

Basically, Green Darkness is centered around the author’s belief in reincarnation. Celia, the main character, suffers from a clouded marriage. The air surrounding her and her husband Richard feels heavy, and when she moves into his estate in England, both start experiencing odd flashes and identity confusion. After a horrific rape scene, Celia sinks into a deep coma, in which the doctors don’t think she will survive. Her mother’s love interest, a man from India, believes that Celia and Richard’s past lives are haunting them and must be resolved, so he leads a comatose Celia through the past. And thus, we are taken back to Tudor England and experience the tension that was felt in those tumultuous years when first Edward V, Mary, and Elizabeth I ruled. Celia retains her name and is an orphaned girl working in a tavern, where she meets a long-lost relation (the past incarnation of her mother), who takes her to live at the estate (Cowdray) where she lives disgraced among Sir Anthony Brown and his family. There, Celia meets and falls in love with the house monk, Stephen (the past reincarnation of Richard). Their forbidden love comes to nothing for many years due to attempts by those around them to separate them. Celia is married off once and when widowed, engaged for a second time. She runs away rather than enter into said second marriage. At one point earlier in the book, during her first marriage, Celia goes to a witch to acquire a potion to help her get pregnant. Instead of using it on her first husband, she eventually uses it to seduce Stephen and as a result she becomes pregnant. At the end of her journey into her past life, prying eyes catch Stephen & Celia in the act of intercourse and Celia is captured and buried alive inside the walls of Ightham Mote. When she awakes from her coma, Celia is magically pregnant and also magically (and much to my annoyance) has no memory whatsoever of the rape. She goes back to Cowdray to fix things with Richard, who also remembers their past lives, and they take advantage of the second chance given to them.

The idea of reincarnation in this book really fascinates me. The idea that a small group of people are reincarnated together time after time through history until their troubles are resolved is an interesting one. It is frightening as well to think that life could actually work that way, that the bad people I’ve dealt with in my life and have tried to move past, could haunt any future lives I may or may not have. I am not a very religious person, so I’ve always been open to different spiritual ideas from all over the world. Reincarnation has always fascinated me, and Green Darkness most definitely fed this fascination for me.

Leave a Response »

 

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan Monday, Jan 11 2010

While I love reading historic fiction, I usually stick to England, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, Italy, or France. But something about Lisa See’s “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”, set in 19th Century China, caught my attention. I’ve only read one other fictional book set in Asia before this, and that was Golden’s “Memoirs of a Geisha”.

There were a lot of very interesting ideas in this book. One of which was the concept of a laotong, or “old same”, a friendship between two women of good status who will make good marriages in their futures. This bond is made when the girls are young, and are supposed to continue throughout their entire lives. A woman in 19th Century China was married out at a young age to become a member of her husband’s family, and as her husband often lived in another village, she would have to leave her family behind. So a laotong was supposed to be a constant presence throughout her life, who would suffer the processes of foot binding, marriage (in which women suffered poor treatment from their in-laws), and childbirth.

Lily and Snow Flower are laotongs. It was very common for laotongs to communicate through writing as they often lived to far away from each other to visit very often. In such communication, Chinese women (who were supposed to be obedient and subservient, and never complain) devised a way to talk to each other away from the prying eyes of men–they created their own language, that of nu shu. Nu shu was taught to young women of high status so that they could communicate with their laotong and their female family members, and was used to share female experiences with each other in a way in which males could not understand. It was also on outlet to make complaints. While many women wrote letters, poems, and the like to each other, Snow Flower and Lily devised a different way to share their experiences. They would send a fan back and forth to each other, writing and drawing on it each time, so that they would be even more connected as laotongs.

Foot binding also played a very large role in the first part of the book. Very tiny feet were ideal on Chinese women in the past, so young girls would undergo an excruciating process in which their mothers tightly bound their feet. This process involved bending the toes underneath the foot so far back that the bones would break and eventually re-set themselves into the desired shape of a lotus flower. The ideal end result was a three-inch-long foot. The ideal three inch, lotus-shaped foot was often thought of as erotic by men. This process was painful and often resulted in infection, which led to death in many cases. In the book, Lily’s younger sister suffers this fate. After reading “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan”, I did some research on my own on foot binding. I’m fascinated with the concept. Maybe it’s the anthropologist in me. The Chinese Communist government banned foot binding when they came into power. When Lisa See wrote this book, she used as an informant a Chinese women living in America, who had had her feet bound before it was banned. Many critics and historians agree that Lisa See’s portrayal of foot binding is very accurate. I’m looking forward to reading more of Lisa See’s books in the future.

Leave a Response »

 

The Passion of Artemisia Thursday, Dec 31 2009

Susan Vreeland’s “The Passion of Artemisia” is the story of the first female Late Renaissance/Early Baroque painter to be accepted as a member of the Academy in Florence, Artemisia Gentileschi. The story starts with the infamous rape trial of Artemisia. As a child, her father and his apprentice, Agostino, taught Artemisia the techniques of painting. Eventually the apprentice, on many occasions, rapes her. Her father arranges a marriage between Artemisia and the apprentice, and uses a painting of his as Artemisia’s dowry. Agostino takes the painting and breaks off the wedding, insulting Artemisia’s father, who then drags Artemisia through a horrifying trial. Agostino claims Artemisia is a whore, a view that is soon shared by most people in Roms. Artemisia is examined to determine if her virginity was intact. This is done in front of the court, behind a thin filmy screen, where everyone present can see her on her back with her legs in the air. Seeing her in this position further strengthens the court’s view of her as a whore. She is also tortured by strings tied around her fingers and tightened whenever she gives an answer the court does not want to hear. The trial is finally brought to an end, when Agostino returns the painting on his own, and the father drops all charges against him. The only punishment received by Agostino is banishment from Rome, which only lasts a few months because his patron was a prominent religious official in Rome.

This part of the book struck a very personal note for me. It was very rough to get through. I almost put the book down many times, almost gave up on reading it altogether. I couldn’t get past the outrage over the trial and how she was treated. But I remembered hearing in an art history class that Artemisia eventually triumphed and had a good life. That was the only thing that kept me reading.

Overall, the book was written very well. Susan Vreeland makes amazing use of imagery in her books. The extent to which she describes the artwork allows the reader to see it clearly in their minds. She makes the reader really connect with Artemisia, so that the reader is invested in the book, no matter how horrible some of the main events were. Artemisia was a very liberal woman for her time.

After her trial, her father married her off to another painter, Pierantonio Stiattesi, and Artemisia moved to his home in Florence. In Florence, her painting career took off. She was persistent and would stop at nothing to become a member of the Academy. Once she gained membership, she began working under the patronage of the Medici family. Pietro (or Pierantonio) becomes jealous, and eventually Artemisia makes a major move and leaves him, taking their daughter with her. She was a very headstrong woman. During a time when divorce was very uncommon, she was able to assert her independence, follow her dream of a career as a famous painter, and take her child and leave her husband. Artemisia pioneered a new type of art, in which emotions come to the forefront of her characters. Her most popular subjects were women from the Bible: Judith, Susannah, Mary Magdalene, and others. She was influenced greatly by Caravaggio and his use of contrasts of light and dark (called chiaroscuro). She was also one of the first artists of the Renaissance to show full understanding of the naked female body. As a female herself, she had much more insight into the way a woman really looks naked and chose to show those little details, rather than showing an idealized form. She really was a revolutionary in her time, and “The Passion of Artemisia” very much reflects this.

Leave a Response »