Artemisia in Other Works
The first writer who produced a novel around the figure of Artemisia was Anna Banti, wife of Roberto Longhi. Her first draft of the manuscript, dated 1944, was lost during the war. Three years later she started again with the book, to be called Artemisia, writing in a much different form. Banti's book is written in an "open diary" form, in which she maintains a dialogue with Artemisia, trying to understand why she finds her so fascinating.
More than 50 years later, in 1999, the French writer Alexandra Lapierre became fascinated by Artemisia and wrote a novel about her, derived from scrupulous study of the painter and the historical context of her work. The novel seeks to understand the relation between Artemisia the woman and Artemisia the painter, and ends with describing as "leitmotiv" the relation between her and her father, composed of both love insufficiently expressed, and a latent professional rivalry. Artemisia, and more specifically her painting Judith Beheading Holofernes, are referred to in Wendy Wasserstein's 1988 play The Heidi Chronicles, where the main character Heidi lectures about it as part of her art history course on female painters. At the end of the play, Heidi adopts a daughter she names Judy, which is at least a partial reference to the painting. Canadian playwright Sally Clark wrote several stage plays based on the events leading up to and following the rape of Artemisia. "Life Without Instruction" was commissioned by Nightwood Theatre in 1988, and was developed during an Ontario Arts Council Playwright's Residency in 1989. It was workshopped in 1990, under the direction of Kate Lushington and dramaturged by Jackie Maxwell. "Life Without Instruction" premiered at Theatre Plus Toronto on August 2, 1991.
The film "Artemisia (film)" (1997) by Agnès Merlet is also inspired by the painter.
In 2002, Susan Vreeland's The Passion of Artemisia was published by Penguin.
Read more about this topic: Artemisia Gentileschi
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“Any balance we achieve between adult and parental identities, between children’s and our own needs, works only for a time—because, as one father says, “It’s a new ball game just about every week.” So we are always in the process of learning to be parents.”
—Joan Sheingold Ditzion, Dennie, and Palmer Wolf. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 2 (1978)