/lit/ - Literature

>>22697481
A Portrait in Shadow - Nicole Jarvis (2023)

A Portrait in Shadow is a historical fantasy novel that loosely follows the life of Artemisia Gentileschi, a renowned 17th century painter, who accomplished several firsts as a female painter. The first half is Artemisia at nineteen years old trying to establish herself in Florence. She paints, seeks out patrons, attempts to be accepted by the academy/guild of magical artists, and tries to earn enough to avoid literally being a starving artist. The latter half has a focus on romance, introspection, and conflict. This novel is about her daily life and the struggles she goes through. It's almost entirely character driven. As this is a fantasy novel, the few years of her life that are depicted are considerably different from what is thought to be known. These differences are explained to be because in this version of Earth, magic and mythical beasts exist.

Magic is either healing or necrotic. The passionate emotions that an artist imbues their art with determines its function. A work of art can either be bound to a single person or affect everyone in an area. The two most common healing properties are alleviating chronic ailments and life extension. As a result the wealthy and Vatican priests commonly live to be well over a hundred years old. Artists die young though because they must give away part of their soul for each magically imbued work of art they create. The more powerful the magic is, the more of their soul it costs. At the opposite end is necrotic magic, the most powerful of which caused the Black Plague. The Grave Age then followed where for centuries all artists were hunted down and killed out of fear that they would bring down more plagues upon the world. Even now, centuries after the Grave Age, any artist who is even accused of dabbling in the dark arts can lose their entire reputation and be tortured to death. The two most important beasts are the Griffon and the Blood Drake, which symbolize Good and Evil, and were nearly hunted to extinction in Europe during the Grave Age.

I read this because I'm reading a manga, Arte, that's inspired by the life of the same historical person. It's even further from her life, though that's because isn't meant to be her. I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. A lot of that is because I simply like how it's written. The romance of the latter half is a bit too saccharine and all the would-be sex scenes are fade to black, though I felt it did well enough. I'm conflicted about the purpose of changing so much and saying it's a different version of her rather than being an inspired character, but in this case I'll accept it. I had concerns about how meaningful the beasts and magic would be, but they're both organically integrated into the story in a pleasing way and matter a lot. There's also a considerable amount of sociological exploration concerning magic that I appreciated alongside the social commentary.

Rating: 4/5