Artemisia

Overview

While the accomplishments of 16th century Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi may have been all-too-often silenced in the predominantly-male history of art, Anna Banti saw in the talented artist the universal symbol of the tenacious woman incessantly fighting for the vindication of her dignity. Banti composed a first novel channeling the voice and gaze of the painter, the manuscript of which was sadly destroyed in the Nazi bombing of Florence in August, 1944. Years later, Banti returned to her project to create a new, poetic, multifaceted book. A two-part choral where the voices of two women—a female artist erased by history and a modern-day writer striving to rebuild a present in ruins—join to share the burden of the world's indifference to their talent.

Author Biography

Anna Banti is the pseudonym of the writer Lucia Lopresti. She is a historian and art critic, author of novels such as Le donne muoiono, Le mosche d'oro, and the fascinating autobiographical work Un grido lacerante, her very personal writing, rigorous and steely, focused on giving a voice to women who fought against the prejudices of their time and who pursued the dignity that corresponded to them.