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.

Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, perhaps best known for her unusually bloody Judith Slaying Holofernes, 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 spends a good portion of the book on Artemisia's rape and the subsequent, well-documented prosecution of her rapist, but she doesn't dwell there permanently, spending far more time detailing the painter's growing fame as an artist and her struggles to maintain a career while estranged from her husband and raising her children alone. The endless names are dizzying, and though the pages are text-heavy, Siciliano's portraits and renditions of paintings have marvelous fine detail, made all the more impressive by her medium: ballpoint pen. Lengthy notes sift through the many, often contradictory scholarly sources from which Siciliano drew much of her information and pinpoint moments when she decided to invent scenes or dialogue.--Sarah Hunter Copyright 2010 Booklist

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.)