Blood Water Paint

Set in early seventeenth-century Rome, this novel in verse follows seventeen-year-old painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Although she has surpassed her father’s artistic skill, she receives no credit because she is a woman. After being raped by a perspective tutor hired by her father, Artemisia publicly accuses him and endures an emotionally and physically brutal legal process. Stories of the biblical figures Susanna and Judith, told in prose between the verse sections, give her strength as she continues to claim her work as a painter.