Tag: Art

The Portrait Artist by Dani Heywood-Lonsdale

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Dani Heywood-Lonsdale’s debut novel, The Portrait Artist, is an art mystery set in Victorian England with hints of the supernatural and some similarities to Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.

When a portrait of a Kunekune pig is left on the steps of the National Gallery in London one morning in 1890, it sends the art world into turmoil. Both the signature and the technique point to the artist being the mysterious Timothy Ponden-Hall, thought to have been dead for the last fifty years. Ponden-Hall, an explorer and painter, caused a sensation earlier in his career, when rumours spread that he had discovered the elixir of life during a sea voyage and was using it to bestow immortality on those who sat for his portraits. Does this new portrait mean the artist is still alive – and why has he started to paint again after so many decades of silence?

Art historian and Ponden-Hall expert Solomon Oak is brought in to investigate, but as he tries to interpret the new painting and its meaning, he makes some discoveries that cause him to question everything he thought he knew about the reclusive artist. Meanwhile Solomon’s daughter Alice has been befriended by Lou, the coachwoman, who gives her a job helping to deliver parcels. But why do their deliveries always take place under cover of darkness – and could Alice’s new job and new friend lead her to solve the mystery of Ponden-Hall before her father gets there first?

I enjoyed The Portrait Artist. My only problem with the book came towards the end, when the truth about Ponden-Hall was revealed. It wasn’t exactly a surprise – I had already at least partly guessed it – but it required a huge suspension of disbelief which was just too difficult for me to accept. Still, the story up to that point had been fascinating to follow. Solomon and Alice Oak are both characters I liked and I thought the complex relationship between them was handled well, with Alice feeling that she can never quite live up to the memory of her late sister Emma, who had been the closest to their father. Solomon, for his part, has to come to terms with Alice growing into a woman and not wanting to follow the path through life he has mapped out for her. Another interesting character is Grace, an artists’ model from a humble background who longs to be part of the world of academia and sees a possible route to that by involving herself in the Ponden-Hall mystery.

Heywood-Lonsdale explores a lot of different issues throughout the novel, including the idea of the dead being immortalised through art, both literally and figuratively; how adding to our knowledge of the artist and the sitter can change the way we view and appreciate a painting; and the difficulties of being of mixed race heritage in Victorian society. The supernatural element involving the question of whether youth can be preserved in a painting is mainly there to explain the level of mystique that has formed around Timothy Ponden-Hall and we can choose how much we want to believe.

Apart from my problems with the ending, I think this is an impressive first novel and I hope Dani Heywood-Lonsdale will write more.

Thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

Woman in Blue by Douglas Bruton – #ReadIndies

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There’s clearly something about the paintings of Johannes Vermeer that inspires novelists; first, Tracy Chevalier’s Girl With a Pearl Earring and now Douglas Bruton’s excellent Woman in Blue, which is published today. This is the second of Bruton’s books I’ve read, the first being 2021’s Blue Postcards and apart from the shared word in the title (Bruton certainly seems to like the colour blue!) and the shared theme of art and artists, I found this one very different in style and structure.

The novel begins in the present day with our unnamed narrator, referred to only as ‘a man in Amsterdam’, visiting the Rijksmuseum to look at a painting. Just one painting, which he has become so obsessed with that he barely notices any of the others. The painting is Vermeer’s Woman in Blue Reading a Letter and the narrator returns to the museum day after day to study the colours and the composition, but most of all just to spend time in the woman in blue’s company and to imagine the human being who inspired the picture. He’s transfixed by this particular painting for its own sake, but also because the woman reminds him in subtle ways of both his wife and another woman he once loved.

In 17th century Delft, we meet the woman in blue herself – or rather, the young woman who sits for Vermeer as he paints her portrait. Her chapters alternate with the present day ones, slowly building up a history of the woman in blue, her life in Delft and her relationship with the artist. In reality, the true identity of the sitter has never been confirmed (Vermeer’s wife, Catharina Bolnes, has been suggested as a likely candidate, but it seems there’s no actual evidence to prove it), so Bruton has the freedom to create his own fictional story for the woman, whom he names Angelieke.

Although the book is set in two different time periods and narrated by two different characters, the lines dividing the two are blurred. Angelieke is a real woman in 1663, but in the modern day sections, she’s aware that she is a painting in a museum and that the male narrator comes to see her every day. She looks forward to his visits and feels a connection with him, just as he feels one with her. This is not the first novel to give a painting a mind of its own (I, Mona Lisa by Natasha Solomons does the same and I’m sure there must be others) but I really liked the way Bruton handles that element of the story, giving it a dreamlike feel and merging the two narratives so that they don’t feel too separate or disconnected.

With it being a real painting rather than a fictional one, it’s easy to google it so you can refer to the picture itself as you read. The narrator’s observations, made during his repeated viewings, helped me to see things in the painting that I probably wouldn’t have noticed for myself. With each chapter, he finds new details to study and focus on – the map on the wall, the letter in the woman’s hand, the blue bed jacket she’s wearing and the question of whether or not she could be pregnant. At times, Bruton returns to a theme he also touched on in Blue Postcards: the idea that a painting offers something different to each individual who views it and that the viewers themselves can almost ‘become’ part of the painting:

What I like about the painting – one of the many things I like – is how cleverly the artist has included me in it and made me complicit in the looking. It is an intimate and private moment and Vermeer intrudes on it without at all breaking it, and we – Vermeer and me – stand silent, breath held, just looking at this young woman turned in on herself.

For a short book – a novella at 144 pages – there’s so much packed into it that I’ve probably only scratched the surface in this review. I would recommend Woman in Blue to anyone who loves art, but even if you don’t, there’s still a lot here to enjoy.

Thanks to Fairlight Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

As this is an independent publisher, I am counting Woman in Blue towards this year’s #ReadIndies event hosted by Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings and Lizzy’s Literary Life. You can find out more about Fairlight Books by visiting their website here.

Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle

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Elizabeth Fremantle is an author I always look forward to reading and I have enjoyed all six of her previous novels, including her two historical thrillers published under the name E.C. Fremantle. This seventh novel takes us to 17th century Italy and tells the story of Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the most important and accomplished female painters of her time.

Artemisia grows up in Rome, the daughter of the painter Orazio Gentileschi. Having lost her mother while still a child, Artemisia is raised by her father, spending time in his workshop learning to draw and paint. Orazio is a talented artist, heavily influenced by the more famous Caravaggio, but it quickly becomes obvious even to him that his daughter’s work is better than his own.

In 1611, the painter Agostino Tassi enters Artemisia’s life, first as her tutor and then as her intended husband. However, Tassi’s arrival leads to a terrible experience for Artemisia – something I won’t go into here because I think any reader who has come to this book with little or no knowledge of Artemisia’s life will probably prefer to discover her story for themselves. The second half of the book becomes quite dramatic as the repercussions of this incident become clear, so if you don’t already know all the details in advance, which I didn’t, it’s interesting just to watch it all unfold.

Artemisia is a great subject for historical fiction, being a strong, ambitious, determined woman whose work has left a lasting impact. Although we can’t know her true thoughts and feelings, Fremantle does a good job of getting inside Artemisia’s head and showing us what may have provided the inspiration for some of her paintings, such as Susanna and the Elders and Judith Slaying Holofernes. You’ll probably find yourself wanting to look up the paintings online as you read. As well as Artemisia, there are other characters in the novel who are equally well drawn; I’ve already mentioned Tassi and Artemisia’s father Orazio, but there’s also Zita, who becomes a model and chaperone for Artemisia, and Piero, Orazio’s assistant.

Disobedient covers only the earlier part of Artemisia’s life and the novel ends with a lot of her story still untold, but after reading Fremantle’s author’s note where she explains her personal reasons for wanting to write this book, I can see why she chose this period to focus on and I appreciate the courage it has taken for her to do so. I don’t think it’s my favourite of her novels, simply because some of the other settings and historical figures she has written about have interested me more, but I still enjoyed this book and am pleased to have had the opportunity to add to my knowledge of this fascinating artist.

Thanks to Penguin Random House/Michael Joseph for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

This is book 8/20 of my 20 Books of Summer 2023

This is book 29/50 for the 2023 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge.

The Colour Storm by Damian Dibben

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Damian Dibben’s previous novel, Tomorrow, was a fascinating and unusual story of an immortal dog searching for his master across two centuries (it was better than it sounds, honestly!). I was curious to see what his next book, The Colour Storm, would be like, but it turns out that it’s a much more conventional historical novel this time. It’s also a very good one; although the subject reminded me of another of my recent reads, The Fugitive Colours by Nancy Bilyeau, the setting gives it a very different feel.

The Colour Storm is the story of the Italian painter Giorgio Barbarelli, who lived and worked in Venice during the Renaissance. He was a real person, as are many of the other characters in the novel, and you may already be familiar with his paintings – if not, you can easily find images online of some of the pieces attributed to him which will give you an idea of the quality of his work.

At the beginning of the novel, Barbarelli – or ‘Zorzo’ as he is called throughout the book – is finding life difficult. Work is becoming hard to find, the competition from other artists is fierce and Zorzo’s debts are increasing. He’s responsible not only for himself, but also for his team of young apprentices and assistants, so he urgently needs to find some way of gaining commissions from rich clients. An opportunity arises when a wealthy German merchant, Jakob Fugger, arrives in Venice and is said to be looking for an artist to paint an altarpiece for St Peter’s Basilica. When Zorzo hears that Fugger also possesses a new colour, a pigment known as ‘prince orient’, he becomes even more determined to bring himself to the merchant’s attention.

In an attempt to win Fugger’s favour, Zorzo agrees to paint a portrait of his wife, Sybille – but as he becomes closer to Sybille, he finds that he has become involved in a conspiracy which could have huge implications for the people of Europe. And then, while Zorzo is still considering his next move, a new threat arrives in Venice…the plague:

Only the poorest folk, who have no choice but to go to work, are continuing as normal, but they’re wary, treading more carefully than usual. Many cover their faces with their sleeves or improvised masks and everyone keeps their distance. From behind closed windows and shutters, Zorzo’s aware of families pressed together, restless shadows, watching and fretting as to whether this episode will pass – as most do – without significant horror, or if this one will be severe.

Still very relevant, isn’t it? The plague plays a part in the later stages of the novel, but before that we follow the story of Zorzo’s search for the prince orient and his entanglement with Jakob and Sybille (also real historical figures). We are given some insights into the workings of an artist’s studio in Renaissance Venice and there are appearances by other famous names from the art world, including Bellini, Titian, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. By focusing on the dark side of life in 16th century Venice, Dibben creates plenty of atmosphere, and although the parts of the book that concentrate on Zorzo’s relationships with Sybille and her husband interested me less, I found this an enjoyable read overall.

Thanks to Michael Joseph for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

This is book 4/20 from my 20 Books of Summer list.

This is book 30/50 read for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2022.

The Fugitive Colours by Nancy Bilyeau

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A new Nancy Bilyeau book is always something to look forward to. I’ve loved everything I’ve read by her so far: her Joanna Stafford trilogy, about a nun displaced in Tudor England after the dissolution of the monasteries; Dreamland, set in a Coney Island amusement park; and The Blue, a wonderful historical thriller involving spies, art and the race to create a beautiful new shade of blue. The Fugitive Colours is a sequel to The Blue and another great read; the two books stand alone, so it’s not necessary to have read the first novel before beginning this one, although I would recommend doing so if you can.

It’s 1764 and Genevieve Planché, heroine of The Blue, is now a married woman running her own silk design business in Spitalfields, London. With the help of her two young assistant artists, Caroline and Jean, Genevieve is beginning to find buyers for her silk designs and is determined to make the business a success. However, she has not given up on her dream of becoming a serious artist and when she is invited to a gathering at the home of the portrait painter Joshua Reynolds, it seems she could still have a chance of achieving her ambition.

This in itself would have been the basis for an interesting novel – a woman trying to build a career for herself in what was still very much a male-dominated field – but there’s a lot more to the story than that. Due to the parts played by Genevieve and her husband in the recent search for the blue, their names have come to the attention of some very powerful people who are hoping to enlist them in further conspiracies. Yet again Genevieve is forced to wonder who she can and cannot trust, but this time one wrong decision could mean the end of her dreams, the loss of her business and even the destruction of her marriage.

The Fugitive Colours is perhaps not quite as exciting and fast-paced as The Blue, but I found it equally gripping. Set entirely in London, it’s a very immersive book taking us from the Spitalfields workshops of the Huguenot silk-weaving community to the grand homes of the rich and famous and the nightlife of Covent Garden. While Genevieve and most of the other main characters are fictional, we do meet some real historical figures too – not just Joshua Reynolds but also Giacomo Casanova, the Earl of Sandwich and the fascinating Chevalier d’Eon. I particularly enjoyed the portrayal of the 18th century art world, the snippets of information I picked up (not coming from an art background myself, I didn’t know what ‘fugitive colours’ were, but now I do), and the insights into how difficult it was for women like Genevieve and the real-life Frances Reynolds, Joshua’s sister, to gain recognition for their work.

I hope there will be another book in the Genevieve Planché series as I think there’s certainly a lot more that could be written about her. If not, I’ll look forward to seeing what Nancy Bilyeau decides to write next.

Thanks to Lume Books for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

This is book 21/50 read for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2022.

I, Mona Lisa by Natasha Solomons

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Many of us will, on a trip to Paris, have stood in the Louvre in front of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. We may also know some of the details of the painting’s history – its creation in Renaissance Italy, its theft from the Louvre in 1911. However, this new novel by Natasha Solomons adds a whole new dimension to the Mona Lisa story, taking us inside the mind of the painting itself and showing us the world through the eyes that look out from the portrait. Whether or not you enjoy this book will probably depend on whether you can accept that a painting is narrating the story. If you’re happy with that idea, then I think you’ll find I, Mona Lisa an interesting and entertaining read.

Most of the novel is set in 16th century Florence, during the period when Leonardo is working on his most famous masterpiece. From the painting’s own perspective, we get to know some real historical figures such as Lisa del Giocondo, the woman who sits for the portrait; Michelangelo and Raphael, da Vinci’s rivals; Niccolò Machiavelli, who approaches da Vinci with a scheme to divert the Arno River; and Salaì, a student in Leonardo’s workshop who is jealous of his master’s relationship with Mona Lisa. Although Mona is an inanimate object, she is portrayed in the novel as having the thoughts and feelings of a real woman, with an emotional attachment to her creator Leonardo.

When Leonardo eventually dies, leaving her vulnerable and unprotected, Mona embarks on the journey that will lead her to France. As the centuries go by, she spends time at the court of the Sun King in Fontainebleau and then at Versailles during the French Revolution, before finding her way to the Louvre where, as the 20th century dawns, she forms a new friendship with another great artist.

I, Mona Lisa is an unusual novel and a unique way of exploring some key moments in history. However, because so much time is spent in Renaissance Italy, the parts of the novel set in France feel more rushed and the characters less well developed. This was maybe the author’s intention, as Mona finds it difficult to bond with the people she meets after Leonardo’s death and makes it clear that her heart will always be in Florence, but it also meant that I felt less engaged with these sections of the book.

I do think that if you’re going to write a book about a painting with human emotions, the Mona Lisa is a perfect choice as it’s such a realistic and iconic portrait. The Mona of the novel is obviously very limited in what she can see and experience (and with whom she can communicate – just Leonardo and a handful of other painters and paintings), but Natasha Solomons does a great job of bringing Mona and her world to life. This is the third of her books I’ve read – the others are The Novel in the Viola and House of Gold. Three very different books, but I would recommend any or all of them.

Thanks to Hutchinson Heinemann for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.

This is book 4/50 read for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2022.

The Woman in the Painting by Kerry Postle

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Of the major Renaissance artists, I think Raphael is probably slightly less well known than Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. In Kerry Postle’s novel The Woman in the Painting she explores not only the life and work of the man himself but the story of his mistress and model, Margarita Luti. It is thought that Margarita, known as La Fornarina, may have been the subject of Raphael’s painting of the same name and although we don’t know this for certain, Postle takes this theory as the basis for the novel.

We see the relationship between Raphael and Margarita develop through the eyes of Pietro, a young man who, at the beginning of the novel, has just become an apprentice to the artist Sebastiano Luciani (later known as Sebastiano del Piombo). Although Pietro’s duties are limited to cleaning brushes and grinding pigments, he works hard and learns from his master and the more experienced apprentices, but despite knowing that he has been given a wonderful opportunity, he can’t help feeling that Sebastiano’s paintings lack true greatness. Following an accident in the workshop, Pietro is dismissed from his position and thrown out into the street, where he is rescued by Margarita, one of Sebastiano’s models. It is when Pietro is offered a new apprenticeship with Raphael, who is newly arrived in Rome, that Margarita is introduced to Raphael for the first time.

It’s not long before Margarita is sitting for Raphael’s paintings and beginning to fall in love with the artist, but as a woman from a humble background – she’s the daughter of a baker – she is not seen as a suitable wife for Raphael. Meanwhile Pietro is also finding himself attracted to Raphael and the affection he had first felt for Margarita soon turns to jealousy.

I enjoyed The Woman in the Painting, although I think I might have preferred it to have been narrated by Margarita. I felt that the choice of Pietro as narrator held me at a distance from Raphael and Margarita and stopped me from fully understanding their relationship and the emotions involved. The focus instead was more on Pietro’s feelings of envy and resentment and the ways in which he acted on these feelings to try to cause trouble for Margarita and get closer to Raphael himself. Still, Pietro was a complex and very human character and although I didn’t feel a lot of sympathy for him, I couldn’t actually dislike him either.

I didn’t really know a lot about Raphael before I started to read this book, so I found that I was learning a lot from it. The descriptions of the day to day work of the artist and his apprentices in the studio particularly interested me. As recently as 2001, X-ray analysis showed that the woman depicted in La Fornarina had originally worn a ruby ring on her finger which was painted over at some point. There is no historical proof for the explanation Postle gives for this in the novel, but it works in the context of the story. We also see, from Pietro’s perspective, the political situation in Rome at that time and get to know some of the historical figures of the period, including not only Raphael, Michelangelo and Sebastiano, but also Agostino Chigi, Raphael’s patron, and Cardinal Bibbiena, to whose niece Raphael was engaged.

This is the first Kerry Postle novel I’ve read, but I see she has written a few others including The Artist’s Muse, about Gustav Klimt and his model Wally Neuzil. Has anyone read that one and what did you think?

Thanks to HQ Digital for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.