A review by abookishmagpie
I Know What I Am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi by Gina Siciliano

adventurous dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

3.0

This is an insanely well done and researched graphic novel biography of the incredible life of Artemisia Gentileschi. The amount of time and effort Sicilian put into the creation and research of this is impressive for sure and delivers exactly what the title tells you it will; the life and times of Artemisia Gentileschi. I picked this up because I have built a fascination and interest in Artemisia ever since reading 'Blood Water Paint' by Joy McCullough a few years ago and wanted to find a way to learn a bit more about this woman's life beyond just her teenage years and the rape trial that McCullough's book focuses on. And while I for sure got that in this book, I have to say that at times it felt more like a history lesson of the time rather than a straight up biography of Artemisia. The detail that was gone into of the political and religious landscape of the time and virtually every person Artemisia interacted with was a bit trying for me and brought down the interest I had. The artwork was wonderfully done, and it was really cool to see replicas of Artemisia's work and of others of the time in the style of the authors. Overall, I am still pretty happy I picked this up because I did learn more about her life as I intended to, but I am a little bummed that it felt to me that it didn't always keep Artemisia as the focus of the material and at times felt like a history lesson.