Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough (review)

In this novel in verse, McCullough imagines the voice of seventeenth-century Italian painter Artemisia Gentileschi, whose artistry secured Medici patronage and whose depictions of Biblical heroines upended male-dominated interpretations of her contemporaries. Here, however, the focus is on a tragic yet pivotal episode in Gentileschi’s early career, in which painter Agostino Tassi is hired by her artist father to tutor her in skills beyond his own mastery. Mistaking Tassi’s attention and compliments as forerunners to a marriage proposal, Artemisia hopes that he will free her from her father’s oppressive control and launch her career in tandem with his own. Instead, Tassi sees her as a potential mistress, and when she spurns his offer, he rapes her. Impelled by the lessons she derives from the Biblical stories of Susanna and Judith, Artemisia and her father bring Tassi to court, with its traditional bias for the defendant, and Artemisia must endure physical torture to establish the veracity of her allegation. McCullough, who originally chronicled Gentileschi in a play of the same name, presents a passionate, moving tale of a young woman marshaling her fury and determination in service of her art. She also, more importantly, ties Gentileschi’s story to the present (in sometimes contemporary language) as a vehicle for exploring the long and sorry history of women seeking justice against rapists and its deep roots in paternalism and gendered imbalance of power. Readers are led through sadness and outrage, but hopefully many will also research later chapters in Gentileschi’s career and discover vindication through her achievements. A very brief afterword serves as epilogue, and resources for contemporary victims of sexual violence are included; there are no notes.