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Title: The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland ISBN: 0-14-200182-1 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 31 December, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.64 (64 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A look into a different world.
Comment: This was the first book I had read by Susan Vreeland. Normally, I don't like first person narrative, but this book was wonderfully written. The story of Artemisia is one of betrayal and passion, and the slow realization that reality isn't all that it's cracked up to be. She is forced, by circumstance, to be married to someone she doesn't know. HE can't accept that she is a better painter than he. Artemisia spends the majority of her life trying to reconcile her past to her present and to find a balance between her love of painting and the love of her family.
I would recommend this book to anyone. Not only does it illustrate a period in history that I don't know much about, but it allows the reader to see behind the paintings. The pursuit of art, for art's sake, is a noble venture, and to see the background makes it even more important.
Rating: 5
Summary: A novel of Moral Consequence
Comment: Artemisia Gentileschi, born in 1593 was an artist of great import in 17th century Rome. In her teens she was raped by a friend of her father, setting her painting on a course that showed not only Rome and Italy, but a world of pain as well as the strength she emanated. Her paintings wreak havoc on the senses. Her women are portrayed as independent and strong, something unheard of in this period. She was the first woman to be recognized in the male dominated world of art.
Artemisia spends time with Galileo, an apt pupil to his musings on the theory that the Earth orbits around the sun, a blasphemous idea at the time, for which Galileo was placed under house arrest. He found her to have a meditative mind with a different perspective. She was a woman with vision and was admitted to the Academy of Sciences in Florence, an unprecedented happening for a female painter.
This book is beautifully written. It is a story of healing and forgiveness. Her relationships with her father, daughter and even the husband that is so often absent are developed to perfection. This is a fictitious account of her life and should be read as such. Another book that I enjoyed by this author is GIRL IN HYACINTH BLUE. Kelsana 7/23/02
Rating: 3
Summary: Great story, poor writing, good audio tape
Comment: Oh, how I wanted to like this novel. But the writing is second-rate, at best. The story is of Artemisia Gentileschi, the great post-Renaissance painter, contemporary of Galileo. She is raped as a young woman by a colleague of her painter father, and tortured to test the "truth" of her accusation. Later, she goes on to become a recognized artist with commissions from the Medicis and other nobles of Italy and England.
The writing is embarrassingly flat and unsurprising. Though occasionally, Vreeland has a fine passage about the art of seeing, most of the telling is pedestrian. After the exciting first chapters, this novel falls flatter than a coat of latex.
The audio tape is a good production, the narration by Gigi Bermingham is wonderful, with the actress able to produce character voices with changes in timbre and tone, effortlessly. Her Italian pronunciation is perfection. Sad that she must be reading second-rate material. I enjoyed the tapes, the book, but I wish the writing had excelled. Vreeland can do better. Wish she had done so here with the rich material at hand.
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Title: Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland ISBN: 014029628X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 03 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier ISBN: 0452284449 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 24 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Falling Angels by Tracy Chevalier ISBN: 0452283205 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 24 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier ISBN: 0452282152 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 08 January, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Tulip Fever by Deborah Moggach ISBN: 0385334923 Publisher: Delta Pub. Date: 10 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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