Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier (2003)
Not much is known about 17th century Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) except that he was not a very prolific painter—only 35 paintings survive as known Vermeers. Girl With a Pearl Earring is titled after a Vermeer painting and attempts to flesh out the bare bones we know about this Baroque painter.
Girl With a Pearl Earring is told from the point of view of a servant in the house of Vermeer who becomes the model for the title painting. This book not only helps to make more lucid the life of Vermeer, it also educates about the culture of Holland in the 1600s. Vreeland describes the light and color of Vermeers masterworks masterfully and lovingly. Who was Vermeer? Read this of historical fiction book to find out what might have happened.
The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland (2002)
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1651/1653) was an Italian early Baroque painter who experienced unlikely success in the male dominated art world in Italy at the time. The Passion of Artemisia opens with the female artist being tortured with thumbscrews in court, so as to determine if her rape charges against her father’s friend were true or false. Think of it as a medieval lie detector test. While this might sound like a work of fiction, this court information is true since it was recorded in documents that survive today.
Artemisia was the first woman admitted into the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Italy, and received commissions from wealthy art patrons of the day. The Passion of Artemisia gives us insight into the life of a working female artist and mother, and a glimpse into the culture of post-Renaissance Italy. We also get a chance to live in the imagined brain of Artemisia and how the Biblical paintings she created were influenced by her femininity, her experiences and her unique point of view. Vreeland’s descriptions of Artemisia the artist and mother at work are insightful and so very believable. What makes Artemisia’s success doubly sweet is that she is painting in the shadows of all of the great Italian artists who came before her: Michelangelo, Brunaleschi, Donatello, Raphael, the big boys of the Italian Renaissance are dead and in their ashes rises…an awesome painter who just happens to be female.
