I Know What I Am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi

by Gina Siciliano

Overview

 This debut graphic novel tells the true life story of a pioneering female painter.

Michelangelo, Velázquez, Rubens, Rembrandt — all larger-than-life Renaissance figures celebrated for their mastery of their art. But often overlooked in this pantheon of Old Masters is Artemisia Gentileschi — Italy’s greatest female painter. In her debut graphic novel, Gina Siciliano brings to life the tumultuous 17th-century cities of Rome, Florence, Naples, and Venice where the fearless Artemisia braved the male-dominated sphere of painting to become a groundbreaking artist. I Know What I Am paints a complex, feminist portrait of Artemisia as a single mother, a sexual assault survivor, and a pioneering practitioner of her craft.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683962113
Publisher:	Fantagraphics Books
Publication date:	09/10/2019
Edition description:	1
Pages:	232
Sales rank:	1,121,718
Product dimensions:	7.70(w) x 11.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

GINA SICILIANO is an artist and musician living in Seattle, Washington. She graduated from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon, in 2007.

Editorial Reviews

07/01/2019

Inspired by Artemisia Gentileschi’s grim 17th-century painting Judith Slaying Holofernes, Siciliano delivers a painstakingly well-researched graphic biography of the Baroque artist and rape survivor. Growing up in Rome during a brutal, patriarchal era, and under the religious rule of a Catholic church prone to torture, and where violence against women was a fact of life, Gentileschi proved herself as a talented artist while a teen, under her father’s tutelage. “Women painters were considered quite the spectacle—miraculous freaks of nature,” Siciliano writes—and Gentileschi faced constant sexual harassment (and professional jealousy) from her father’s peers. Their grabby advances and assaults shaped Gentileschi profoundly: “Something deep inside her was giving way, transforming, hardening, darkening.” Her anger fueled her brush as she created works that immortalized women who fought against male control with every weapon they had—including art. Siciliano’s ballpoint versions of classical paintings breathe of thousands of hours of hand-cramping work to recreate the originals. While her meticulously penned panels, often featuring a scowling Gentileschi, are a bit crowded by dense hand-written expository, they carry thoughtful historical context, and emotional urgency. This impressive debut is the detailed, passionate scholarly portrait that Gentileschi deserves. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"An extraordinarily thorough and detailed treatment of a barely believable life, a valuable addition to art history, and in every way, an education."

Strong Words

"Siciliano visually and textually confronts the trauma Gentileschi experienced, while demonstrating the painter’s strong will and passion. Without falling prey to the trope of artistic achievement through trauma, this intensely detailed visual biography does justice to a still undervalued artist."

Hyperallergic

"The riveting life story of Baroque’s most famous woman painter — a fascinating graphic novel about Artemisia Gentileschi."

Daily Art Magazine

"I Know What I Am paints an enduring, detailed portrait through a feminist lens of Artemisia as a woman to remember: as a pioneer, as a master of her craft, as a mother, a survivor of injustices due to her gender, and an artist whose surviving works are timeless."

Black Nerd Problems

"I Know What I Am is an extraordinary debut — a beautifully drawn portrait of the Italian baroque painter."

The Guardian

"This beautifully illustrated book brings into sharp focus Artemisia's role as one of the greatest painters of Baroque Italy, who navigated her way through an extremely patriarchal world."

Art UK

"Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi led a fascinating, richly productive artistic life in a period not well known for women painters. This information-dense graphic biography does an excellent job of putting her life and career in its historical and cultural context, a period of tumultuous change and sometimes violently competitive groups of rival artists. Siciliano's portraits and renditions of paintings have marvelous fine detail, made all the more impressive by her medium: ballpoint pen."

Booklist

"A deep, enduring homage to a brilliant painter and a remarkable woman."

The Comics Journal

★ 10/01/2019

Siciliano (Summertime: A Graphic Novella in Four Parts) presents a passionate portrait of Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi (1593–1653) in this painstakingly researched new biography. In the 17th century, patriarchal Europe was defined by political turmoil, endless war, and religious control. Women were discouraged, if not forbidden, from becoming artists—banned from receiving formal training or joining guilds. Yet a teenage Artemisia, after being trained by her celebrated painter father, Orazio Gentileschi, persists, even after one of Orazio's peers rapes her and another takes the opportunity to steal one of her paintings. Artemisia bravely accuses her attacker and refuses to recant her testimony, even after being tortured during her trial. Afterward, she marries and moves to Florence, where she becomes a mother, embroiled in a love triangle, and specializes in paintings of women battling against male control. VERDICT Siciliano's exquisite craftsmanship is clear on every page of this occasionally dense but consistently engrossing volume, which portrays the artist's plight with affection and urgency, convincingly arguing that Gentileschi's accomplishments are deserved of recognition given her male counterparts.

Library Journal