Bold and talented but capricious, portrait artist Ada Sutter has escaped an unpromising background to hone her craft in Florence, Italy. Bewitched by the beauty of Renaissance art, she labors to replicate the work of the Italian masters. She can duplicate any technique, but what she really seeks - the source, the wellspring of genuine inspiration - remains elusive. What's worse, an expert tells her that her work is banal and derivative. She's ready to trade it all in for Italian babies and sex on the beach. And then the Muse himself appears. Indifferent, androgynous, seductive, he draws everyone - even his own mother - into an erotic vortex of creative power. Grappling with him in a fever of artistic and sexual ferment, Ada's own voice is finally released, upending her life and her work. Paul Gauguin once said that art is either plagiarism or revolution. Ada chooses revolution.