Lead Review (Disobedient)
- Book: Disobedient
- Location: Rome
- Author: Elizabeth Fremantle
“Isn’t it the duty of an artist to question convention?” And as a woman even more so….
This is the fictionalised story of the earlier years of artist and rebel Artemisia Gentileschi and we are first introduced to her when she is a child. She is the daughter of Orazio, a reasonably well known painter, who hangs out in Caravaggio’s circle (Caravaggio died in 1610). This is the period when the Baroque style was flourishing and exploration of the lives of historical characters was in fashion. St Peter’s Basilica was seeing completion and the skyline of Rome was changing.
It was a period when women were particularly subordinate to men. Artemisia had consummate talent – far superior to anything her brothers had – but it was an unseemly profession for the female of the family. The author wonderfully renders her drive as an artist to keep painting, in secret if necessary, and at whatever cost. That is the sign of a truly talented painter.
There is plenty of information on pigment grinding, glues and priming – which interested me as I studied art history. There is a real sense of time and place as the young woman grows in confidence and asserts her ability, which was quite extraordinary, evidenced in the legacy of her oeuvre still available to view today.
Her desire to learn and immerse herself in the world of painting, barred because of her sex, burns through novel, her ‘disturbing intensity’ consuming her days. Her consummate ability to capture the female form is unequivocal. She painted Judith and Holofernes at the tender age of 17 and as she reflects on her painting “She can hear the puff of the painted women’s breath, can smell their sweat, sense their courage…” . The call of marriage, the pressure to conform, the need to make a good match, is always hovering on the periphery, and with marriage her life would surely change. But, at age 17 – the very year when she painted Judith and Holofernes – her life changes dramatically in a totally unexpected and shocking way, with the advent of a new tutor, Tassi, a handsome and forthright young man.
I enjoyed reading this novel because it explores the life and times of a woman, whose style soon fell out of favour but whose paintings garnered popular appreciation in the later 19th Century. It is written throughout in the present tense and I have yet to learn to really appreciate that particular style – it offers a sense of immediacy to the reader, but I generally prefer the past tense for historical fiction.
The cover is beautifully eye catching and drew me to this novel in the first instance.
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