Years back, wandering the
center of Florence on a warm July evening, I went into the English Book store
on the Piazza della Repubblica and discovered there a biographical novel titled
"Artemisia". The author’s name is Anna Banti.
The novel tells the story
of a resident of Florence, a woman writer during the latter stages of World War
II. In a parallel rendering it echoes the experiences of a painter, Artemisia
Gentileschi, who lived hundreds of years earlier. The book cover, violent and
explicit, displayed one of Gentileschi’s great paintings, “Judith and Maidservant
with the Head of Holofernes”. I grabbed the paperback and smitten, I spent the
rest of the day reading. The story sent me into research for the novel I was
working at the time and deep into the world of Artemisia Gentileschi.
The discovery of the book
in Florence was serendipitous, but what followed for me was immense. The very
late Renaissance Gentileschi influenced characters and the atmosphere in my
work. I used the book cover rendering as inspiration for the work of violent justice
required of my own female protagonists. I explored everywhere for further examples
of her works and read as many biographies as I could find. I began to feel the
presence of female characters in my writing from perspectives I’d not imagined.
If you aren't familiar with
Gentileschi you may find that her paintings have the capacity to excite. I
believe she is the equal of Caravaggio and to my eye she creates with a similar
attention to color and sensory appeal in her subjects—she’s vivid and shocking.
As testament to the rich aspects of her brush, there is a shade of yellow
that's named after her. When you encounter it you won’t have to be told that
you’re looking at Artemisia yellow; it will shout at you.
Gentileschi’s courage in
the men’s world of her time has captivated artists and historians since. There
is too much to relate of her many perils, setbacks and successes to place in
this small space but I suggest that you read about her life and her work.
Anna Banti's novel uses the
lush background of Gentileschi’s challenges to tell the wrenching story of a
woman's deprivations, betrayals, and her strengths in the protagonists
circumstances as the Nazis withdrew from Florence in WWII and subjected the
citizens of Florence to their fear, anger, and brutality, in the process. This
is a personal account of an extremely vulnerable citizen inside fierce military
actions and how powerless such people are in the face of the overwhelming
forces of organized war.
When I think of that
afternoon in the Book Store on the Florentine piazza, it occurs to me that
there's a lot more than museums, monuments, cuisine, and churches, in Italy.
Art remains alive there and it continues to change those simply fortunate
enough to pass by over the millennia.
