The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: McCullough, Joy. Blood Water Paint. Penguin Random House, 2018. Kindle.

The novel is narrated primarily in the first-person present by Artemisia Gentileschi, a 17-year-old painter who is superbly talented but oppressed because of her gender. The novel is broken into five distinct parts. The novel is told primarily in verse. However, beginning in Part 2 there are narrative chapters that are voiced by Artemisia’s mother, Prudentia Montone. In these sections, Prudentia speaks directly to Artemisia, telling her reimagined versions of the Biblical figures Judith and Susanna. While Prudentia and her stories exist in the narrative past, her voice is presented in first-person present, and the stories of Susanna and Judith are also presented in the present, as if all of them exist at the same moment.

The year is 1611 and Artemisia lives in Rome with her father, her younger brothers, and her family’s servant, Tuzia. The house is dilapidated and uncared for since neither Artemisia nor Tuzia is much concerned with cleanliness. Artemisia and Tuzia share a bedroom. At the top of the house is a studio. Artemisia’s father, Orazio Gentileschi, is a painter who supports the family through commissions. After his wife dies, he takes Artemisia on as an apprentice rather than sending her to a nunnery because she is a skilled painter. By the time she is 17, Artemisia is more talented than her father and she creates works that he signs his name to. She also fixes mistakes in his paintings when he is out drinking on the town. Her father does not appreciate her and often belittles her. He quizzes her on rudimentary facts she has mastered long ago. He critiques her paintings, but he does not understand the complex questions she has about perspective and depth.

In Part 2, Orazio hires Agostino Tassi to tutor his daughter privately. Orazio has heard that Agostino has been hired to work on the Medici’s Quirinal Palace commission. Orazio hopes a closer friendship with Agostino will get him work on the palace as well, which would mean quite a lot of money. Artemisia is shocked when Agostino appears in her studio unannounced because it was considered improper for a man and woman to be alone. However, Agostino is charming and handsome. He impresses her with his knowledge of painting and convinces her to call him “Tino.”

In narrative sections contained in chapters that are set apart from the main narrative, Prudentia tells the young Artemisia her version of Susanna and The Elders. Susanna feels confined and overwhelmed with her life, so she asks her sister and servant to leave her alone while she bathes in the pond in her backyard. Naked and alone in the water, she realizes that men are watching her. She quickly runs out of the pond and grabs her robe. The men jump over the fence and demand that she take off her robe. If she does not comply, they say they will tell the town that they have seen her being unfaithful to her husband. This will result in death by stoning. Susanna does not care and refuses to take off her robe.

In the present moment, Artemisia becomes so inspired by the memory of her mother’s story of Susanna that she attempts to paint her. Her father sees her attempts and encourages her to continue while he works on a painting of Judith. He forces Artemisia to pose nude for him. Artemisia tells Tino what her father makes her do, and Tino consoles her before the two share a kiss.

In Part 3, Artemisia becomes infatuated with Tino. She uses her mother’s old mirror to draw herself naked, then masturbates to the thought of Tino. He comes to her studio and asks her to move to his studio, which is much less drab. She thinks he means to marry her, but when she asks him to clarify he says that he wants to use her as a nude model. Disgusted, she tells him to leave and never returns. He does not listen to her and instead returns drunk. He rips up her picture of Susanna.

In separate chapters, Prudentia tells the young Artemisia the story of Judith, a young Hebrew woman whose husband was killed by the Assyrian army. Unwilling to sit back and let the army defeat her people, she concocts a plan to seduce and kill the Assyrian army’s captain with her servant, Abra. After Judith has sex with the captain, he falls asleep. Judith lets Abra into the room and they cut off the captain’s head.

Tino pays Tuzia to let him into the house, then steals into the studio and rapes Artemisia. After, she imagines that both Judith and Susanna are in the studio with her, speaking to her and consoling her.

In Part 4, Prudentia continues the story of Susanna. Susanna is tied up in the town square and set to be stoned. Daniel arrives and decides to investigate the claims. He questions the men, who give conflicting answers about what sort of tree they saw Susanna underneath when she was engaging in adultery. Daniel questions Susanna alone, then tells her that he is ordering the men to be stoned because they lied. Susanna is enraged because it is not her truth that convinces Daniel, but the men’s lies. Prudentia also continues the story of Judith, who flees through the night with Abra at her side and the captain’s head hidden in a bread basket.

In the main verse, Artemisia falls into a deep depression for weeks. Tino continues to come to her studio and attempts to pretend that she wanted to have sex with him. She threatens to tell her father, but Tino laughs at her and says that since she is a girl she cannot press charges on him, then threatens to ruin her reputation. Despite his threats, Artemisia tells her father what happened. At first her attempts to persuade her to keep quiet, but then he agrees to press charges against Tino for destroying his property, which is the only legal recourse Artemisia has. The trial drags on for months. Artemisia is subjected to inspections by midwives and Tino tells horrible lies about her. Finally, the judge decrees that she must undergo torture in order to test her integrity.

In Part 5, Artemisia’s hands are bound with thick string which is twisted in a garrotte until her bones break and her skin is shredded. Throughout the torture, she maintains her story is the truth.

Prudentia finishes her stories, telling young Artemisia how Judith and Abra stay together for the rest of their lives, consoling one another through night terrors. Susanna’s sister Rebecca rejoices at the sentencing, but Susanna remains morose knowing that only a tree stands between herself and a horrible death by stoning.

In the central verse, the judge sentences Tino to five years of banishment, but it is unlikely he will have to do even this because of his connection to the Medici’s. Artemisia’s father arranges a marriage for her in Florence. She learns to paint again, despite her injuries.