Artemisia

       Anna Banti's Artemisia is a dynamic novel about the daughter of an artist who has gone through an immeasurable amount of pain throughout her life. She was rejected by her father and later abandoned by her husband. Abandonment can have a lasting effect in the life of the abandoned. The daughter expresses herself through her artwork. Because she has been abandoned throughout her entire life she is afraid to love, for the simple fact that she does not want to be hurt again. She has been through so much pain, and in order to get past all of that sorrow she turns to art. Art is her representation of what she is missing. Art fills the void in her life. Her art represents what she hides from the world. Her art is essentially a revelation that she comes to after all that she has been through. I find this novel to be very poetic. Even though it has lost some of its meaning in the translation, you can tell that it is beautifully written. There is a deeper meaning behind the story which is what makes it interesting. This novel combines so many thing and it is surprising that Banti was able to take on this task.