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This is the first biography on the painter, and the novel was
published in 1947. Later, there have been other biographies: e.g. that
by Alexandra La Pierre ( 1998) and Susan Vreeland La passione di
Artemisia( 2002) .
Anna Bantis Artemisia is a difficult novel to define, is a an
autobiography, a biography, or a historical novel? A complex novel,
due to the highly innovative techniques it displayed in the context of
the Italian narrative of the period, it is important to recall that the
novel was written in 1944 and published in 1947. A novel affected by
Bantis interpretation of Virginia Woolfs works, in this case,
particularly, Orlando.
Autobiographical elements in
Artemisia
Autobiographical elements
would leave her breathless and exalted in her many hours of labour.(p.104) .
Artemisia in Naples
A figure that does not fall under the rules or models What her
condition, in fact, is, no confessor has been able to explain to her,
however much she might have insisted: as, however much she has
meditated, she has not yet managed to identify and recognise herself
in an exemplary figure, approved by her century (p.93) In Bantis
novel there is the idea on the existence of a genealogy of women, a
tradition of womens creativity. What is interesting is that Banti
makes Artemisia aware that, in her own time, there are women
artists like her. (see for instance the passage in which Banti has
Artemisia speak of the presence of Sofonisba Anguissola and the
singer Adriana Basile ).
Travelling as a moment of
Freedom
Pictorial sketches and scenes. There are also some beautiful portraits, that of
sixty year old Pietra Spinola, a pipe smoker: With precise, impatient
motions, the lady filled the chamber, pressed the leaf, handled the linchpin,
lighted. She aspired with forceful energy.; those of a girl pulling water from
a well (Time would pass as she gazed on a girl in a scarlet petticoat pulling
water from the well, with particular movements of her arms and hands not
practiced in Italy.), of the inn servant Delfina wide cheekbones and
charmed by singing, with a genial grin of such sweet mischievousness., of
the mother superior of a convent in Paris, A counterfeit midget, her eyes like
two bruised tumors, holding in her right stumpy hand a leaden ebony and
gold crosier. Her lawn dress was horribly form fitting., Of Cardinal
Richelieus carriage speeding on the Pont Neuf, escorted by a battery of
red, wild riders, so that the paving, nay, even the mud burst with sparks .