Disobedient: The gripping feminist retelling of a seventeenth century heroine forging her own destiny

Product Information

We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. And somehow, in my ageing, illogical brain, reading a digital copy of this book, seemed in harmony with my digital viewing of the exhibition. This was also at the height of my obsession with The History Chicks' podcast, and so, every night Dad fell asleep to the sounds of an episode of a podcast he grew to despise out of sheer exposure to it. It is readily apparent in the male-dominated world of art that she wants to draw her own path on like her art.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. I love Elizabeth Fremantle’s books so much I was prepared to read it digitally rather than wait for my physical copy. I could tell you that it feels like a written record of a woman who's life was previously most accessible through the paintings she left behind. The amazing thing about Artemisia is that she was so talented that people were forced to overlook the fact that she was a woman. That was what Artemisia's father wanted to happen, but lucky for Artemisia her rapist was already married.Disobedience is the story of Artemisia Gentileschi, the baroque painter, seemingly “rediscovered“ of late.

The language of the novel is beautiful, focusing a lot on the language of colour and observation, as you would expect from a story about an artist. This was because a woman posing for a woman painter was considered more proper, and less like prostitution, which is a commerce that, according to Italians at the time, operated between men and women, not women and women. He is keen for Artemisia to marry well and when she puts off one suitor he fixes on a fellow painter, one with patronage that will help pull the family from poverty. Artemisia was an Italian painter, born in Rome, eventually an artist of Florence, and this novel takes place while she is still living with her family in Rome, around the time she paints one of her most famous paintings.Artemisia seeks to paint the truth in its more sincere form, whether that truth is amenable to society is a different matter.

Another great novel that didn’t disappoint and I’m already eagerly looking forward to Fremantle’s next book. Fremantle has immense talent and tells the story of an amazing and inspiring woman with wit and certainty. Fremantle’s Artemisia is passionate, brilliant, absolutely true to herself and is now one of my favourite fictional characters of all time. In Fremantle’s version of the story, the women of the paintings are not merely things to be ogled at; their stories are told in translated interludes. Blending fact with fiction, this beautifully spun novel follows Arti as she battles to just be allowed to paint, but following shocking (but not unusual for the time) events in her life, her paintings take a dark turn.

This historical fiction felt like a deep dive into life in Rome in the 17th century and the restrictions on a talented artist like Artemesia Gentileschi because she was female.