your story.
9.
Linseed oil?
Adds gloss and transparency to paints.
Drawbacks?
Can yellow and become brittle with age.
Father’s boots clomp
across the floor
like elephants in
our attic studio.
Each time he barrels past
I brace the table
where I grind our pigments,
prevent them from tumbling
to the ground.
Alternatives?
Poppyseed oil or safflower oil.
I don’t know how many times
I have to demonstrate
my superior
grasp of our trade.
(Except I do: as many times as Father asks.)
I turn my head
from sour breath
as he looms over
my shoulder
to peer into my mortar
at the pulverized vermilion.
Grind that finer.
Turpentine comes from . . . ?
I throw my shoulder into it,
more pressure than I need,
but the harsh scrape
of marble on marble
relieves an itch
I can’t otherwise reach.
Turpentine, Artemisia!
I exhale too hard.
A bloodred cloud
of ground vermilion
balloons into the air.
Comes from—
I sneeze
—pine tree resin.
But we use . . . ?
Venice turpentine.
From the—
—larch tree.
I do not wait
for him to ask
what’s next.
The sooner this is over
the sooner I can return
my eyes (my heart)
to the canvas.
Because it adds
to the stability
of the paint surface
and yellows very little.
He glares.
Not because I’ve left something out.
Because I haven’t.
10.
The fumes
from Tuzia’s onions
meet me on the stairs
as I descend, their tendrils
dancing into my senses,
catching hold and dragging me down
to whatever task
awaits.
The moment I step foot
inside the kitchen,
Tuzia plunks down
a bowl, skitters a knife
across the block of wood between us.
Chop.
I do not know the difference
between chop
slice
dice.
I do not care to know
but take some pleasure
in the blade I wield.
The onions needle
at my eyes, my nerves,
no matter how many layers peeled back,
the same relentless stinging.
(No matter how skillful my painting,
Father’s incessant nagging.)
Somehow even more meddlesome:
my brothers darting
constantly through.
Serves Giulio right
when he burns his tongue
on a ladleful
of boiling stew
(but I’m the one
who cleans the mess
What they’ve been doing
all day long
I couldn’t say.
They have no aptitude
for painting, but still
they could be taught
the business.
Father says
they do not have
the head for numbers
charm for clients
patience
cunning
fortitude.
Here’s what they do have:
freedom.
11.
Once upon a time
I was a child,
not the woman
of the house.
Not so long ago
but long enough
the days of tugging
on my mother’s skirts
in hopes of being lifted up
at every whim
are hazy round the edges,
like a shadow bleeding
into light.
It’s hazy how,
her belly round
with brothers,
Mother still made room
for me to crawl
up on her lap
to hear a story
no one else would tell.
How she’d look down
and ask me what I thought
of Father’s paintings,
listen to my answer.
It’s hazy how
she made my father
laugh.
How when I’d startle
in the night she’d soothe me
with a tune
to chase away
the monsters.
It’s hazy how
her last few weeks,
confined to bed,
the child inside
a greater weight
than those who came before,
and even when the child arrived
a sister, finally, cold and blue,
and fever dreams bled
into pain laced with delirium,
Prudentia Montone spent
the last of her strength
to burn into my mind
the tales of women
no one else would
think to tell.
Those stories
of a righteous woman,
her virtue questioned
through no fault of her own;
of a widow
with nothing left to lose . . .
No way to tell
where shadow ends
and light begins
but Mother was always
the light.
12.
Light dances on the child’s curls
and whether Father sees
or not
the bond between the baby
and his mother is
perfection.
Twelve years
with my mother
were not enough
but I know how to paint the love,
the source of light.
The final touches that remain
would go unnoticed to an unskilled eye.
In truth, I could release her now.
A signature the final touch,
Orazio Gentileschi,
(never Artemisia)
the client would be satisfied,
and none would be the wiser.
But I would know
not quite right.
It wraps around the baby,
yet still looks flat.
Father babbled out
some useless nonsense
when I tried to ask him
how to fix the problem.
I don’t think
he understood
my question.
If he cannot see
the problem to begin with,
how could he ever solve it?
It’s only a commission,
doesn’t even bear my name.
But I’m not only painting the Madonna.
I’m building a ladder,
each new technique,
a rung.
13.
Every time my father shoos me
down the stairs
away from my studio,
each time he speaks to buyers
as though I am not there,
each time they leer at me
as I descend in seething fury,
my mother’s stories
stoke the flames inside.
We mostly deal in Bible tales,
some portraits, ancient histories, myths.
But all the maestros
sign their names
to David, Adam, Moses.
Those who follow strive
to leave their mark as well.
I can paint a David—king or upstart boy,
but when I do
there’s nothing of me
on the canvas.
Susanna, though, is different.
My mother never held a brush
but still composed
the boldest images
from the brightest colors
drawing the eye—the mind—
to what mattered most:
the young woman
stealing a moment
of peace to wash
away the day
then her world,
stained beyond repair.
Susanna and the Elders.
Father’s made attempts at Susanna,
just like the other painters—men—
who think they have the right
to tell the story of a woman
always watched.
But one can’t truly tell a story
unless they’ve lived it in their heart.
The longer I’m shuffled
in and out of the studio,
used for what I can offer,
not what I long to share,
the more certain I am
I can do Susanna justice.
I can do my mother justice.
I can have justice.
But I’m holding back
until I think
perhaps
my skills
can match
my heart.
14.
My arm cradles my palette,
rounded, three-dimensional.
I paint alla prima in my mind
exactly how it should look.
Why then can I not transpose
the image in my mind
the image of my flesh
onto the canvas?
I stare at the Madonna’s
flat, flat arm so long
my eyes begin to blur.
I do not notice
the creak of stairs
moan of door
steps that cross
the studio.
Or perhaps he does not enter
like a mortal man
but appears
fully formed
a miraculous apparition.
Then:
a breath
upon my cheek.
Not Father’s breath.
I grope for hiked-up skirts,
fling endless, heavy layers
of propriety
toward my ankles.
I am a model Roman girl
(or I can play the part at least).
The man averts his eyes,
steps back to give me space,
as though he doesn’t realize
his mere presence in this room
drives out all air.
He may as well
be pressed against me.
He did not mean to startle—
that much is clear.
And even now as I
recover
steady my breath
check my skirts once more
his eyes are not on me
but on the canvas.
My name is Agostino Tassi.
And you are Artemisia.
PART II
Surrounded
Forget what you know of the woman in the garden, my darling girl. The woman bathing until two elders of her community happen upon her. Forget the way you’ve heard the story in the scriptures, or seen it on your father’s canvas.
Listen, instead, to your mother. Listen when I tell you that Susanna did not ask to be given to a wealthy man before her elder sister was married. She did not ask for the beauty that attracted him. She did not ask for gold and jewels. To you these might seem like unimaginable luxuries. But beauty is a heavy crown.
So is womanhood.
A servant kneeling at her feet, caressing them with oil, cannot massage away Susanna’s guilt. Those comforts cannot shield her from her sister’s bitterness.
(I so hope this growing seed I bear will be a sister for you. Sisters share a bond unlike any other—thornier, but also tender, full of possibility.)
I do not mean to say Susanna’s life is all a trial. She does not toil for her bread. Her husband does not strike her, and while a man should aim higher than that, Joaquim is truly a good man. Susanna loves him—she thinks. As much as any woman barely into womanhood can love the man who married her so long as she brought herds of goats and storehouses of grain to their union.
There are also the servants. It might seem odd to complain about those who bear the weight of a household. My back aches not only from the weight of the child I bear, but from all I must carry as a woman.
But Susanna is surrounded. Her ladies-in-waiting hang on every word, every breath, and her patience wears thin.
Even as she prepares to bathe, they are there. Watching, waiting. The walled garden is not so private with four other people testing the water, fussing over her robe, setting loose her hair.
Susanna has lived in her husband’s home for months now. She has been patient. But there are many parts of her life in which she has no say, and this is one small hill on which she might take a stand. She decides that even if she causes offense, it will be worth the momentary peace she’ll gain.
(If you remember nothing else of Susanna, remember how she speaks her truth. She knows it will cost her something. She’s not aware yet quite how steep the cost will be, but still, she speaks her truth.)
She shrugs off the lady trying to remove her robe and says to her attendants, “I’d like to be alone, if you don’t mind.”
They mind. They will not say so, but their eyes betray a shock as deep as if she’d slit a throat before them.
From the corner, Susanna’s sister huffs. “They’re your servants,” she sneers. “They’re meant to be on hand if you need anything.”
They are not precisely servants, though. If they were, Susanna could bid them come and go as she pleased. No, these are ladies of a certain station, always groveling, hoping their proximity to a woman like Susanna will help them ascend.
They’re not to be faulted for it, either. They simply wish to survive.
Susanna understands this. But still, she stands her ground. “Thank you, Rebecca, ladies. But I’m more than capable of bathing myself.”
The women go, horrified, muttering among themselves as they file into the house.
Rebecca stays, imagining herself in a different category from the women Susanna just dismissed. And she is. But that doesn’t mean Susanna wants her there, peering across the garden wall at the village beyond the olive grove.
“You should take more advantage of your station,” Rebecca says. “When I have my own rich husband . . .”
And there it is, the root of all the tension since Susanna married J
oaquim: it should have been Rebecca.
There is no satisfactory way for Susanna to respond. She’ll only be stepping into Rebecca’s trap. She decides she can bear Rebecca’s presence, but she will not lower herself to argue.
Instead, she lowers herself to the flat, black rock by the shimmering water and dips her hand in. The temperature is perfect. From here, she can no longer see over the garden wall. No other world exists.
Except Rebecca is still there.
“You’re so ungrateful,” she persists. “Everything is always handed to beautiful, righteous Susanna. Imagine if you were living at home at my age. Then you’d see!”
Susanna has compassion for her sister, but they have had this conversation one too many times.
“I see I’ll never be at peace unless I’m completely alone. You may go, too.”
The hurt that flashes across Rebecca’s face is real. But it’s also a performance—for Susanna, for the ladies watching from the window, for Rebecca herself. She’s always aware of the audience. (So is Susanna—the difference is, Susanna would rather not have an audience.)
“Are you dismissing your own sister like a common servant?” Rebecca doesn’t wait for a response. She stalks toward the door, performing the dramatic exit she craved. She’ll be happier there anyway, where she can play lady of the house and contemplate new reasons to complain.
But for now, my darling, Susanna bathes alone.
15.
My studio
has always been
the place I am
hands and heart,
eyes and mind.
Nothing else.
But now,
a stranger in my studio,
a man,
and I am more aware
of every inch of skin
than inch of canvas.
He doesn’t look at me
but at my work,
my heart outside my body.
That look,
it’s what I long for, fight for—
an audience,
and not just eyes,
but a mind that understands
the skill required—
and yet somehow
a surge of envy
grips my soul.
Envy! Of the Holy Mother!
Rendered by my own brush!
Surely I commit several damnable
sins even as I stand here, immobile.
He shifts his weight.
The moment he’s poised
to turn his gaze on me,
my most fervent wish
is that he’ll never stop
examining the Mother and Child
because I am not prepared
for what’s to come.
My neck has flushed, I feel it;
that color travels down