Booklist
- Passionate About Art: Art in Fiction
THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY│ Irving Stone │ Fic, Vid, DVD
This classic work brings to life the many-sided genius of the sculptor, painter, and architect Michelangelo in 15th. and 16th. century Italy. It is the story of the struggles that fed into his furied creative process and also of a period of the Italian Renaissance. Although this biographical novel is long – about 700 pages – it is immensely rewarding.
THE BIRTH OF VENUS│ Sarah Dunant │ Fic, Q, Cass
In 15th. century Florence, Allesandra Cechi, a well-educated girl from a wealthy family, grows disillusioned with the arranged marriage that she thought would allow her time to pursue art. She finds herself fascinated with the intense young painter who comes to decorate her family’s chapel. Throughout, the glorious art and political turmoil of the time are brought to vivid life.
MY NAME IS RED│ Orhan Pamuk │ Fic
This intellectual mystery takes place in Istanbul during the late 16th. century, when the Islamic Koran forbade the painting of realistic likenesses. When the sultan hires a group of artists entranced with the new Italian figurative art to illustrate an important book glorifying his life, intrigue and murder follow. Throughout, the author offers insight into the mores and customs of the time.
GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING│ Tracy Chevalier│ Fic, Q, YA, VID, DVD
This lovely and colorful story set in the 17th. century Netherlands imagines a relationship between the painter Johannes Vermeer and the girl in the painting named in the book’s title. Here 16-year old Griet enters Vermeer’s household to be a servant, and then becomes his model. But with her simple charm and natural artistic sensibility, an intimacy develps between the two that results in conflicts.
THE PIECES FROM BERLIN│ Michael Pye│Fic
Based on the case of a real woman, this is the story of the fictional Lucia Muller-Ross, who spirited valuable antiques “abandoned” by their German Jewish owners out of Berlin in the 1940s. Sixty years later, a Holocaust survivor recognizes her own table in Muller-Ross’antiques shop in Zurich. As the characters grapple with their memories of the war, the tale is one of guilt and moral complicity.
THE DA VINCI CODE│ Dan Brown│ M, QM, CD, Cass
This page-turner begins in modern-day Paris with the murder of the chief curator of the Louvre, whose body has been laid symbolically at the foot of the “Mona Lisa”. When the Harvard symbol expert Robert Langdon is called in to uncover the secret the curator was protecting, the reader is taken into secret religious societies and across France and England. The story is based on alternate interpretations of the symbols in Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” and also of Christian history.
THE BONE VAULT│ Linda Fairstein│ M, CD,Cass
A glittering reception at the Metropolitan Museum of art to celebrate a joint project between that museum and the Museum of Natural History is interrupted by news of the discovery of a recent corpse in an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus. Fairstein takes her readers on a fast-paced ride through fascinating New York venues – especially the great museums and the honeycomb of rooms underneath.
MARTIN SLOANE│ Michael Redhill│ Fic
Martin Sloane is an Irish-born collage artist who creates nostalgic, magical dioramas of found objects. (The boxes are based closely on the work of the real-life artist Joseph Cornell.) Through his art, Sloane meets a young Bard College student with whom he has a passionate, ten year affair. But then he suddenly and mysteriously vanishes. This novel is a meditation on love, knowing another person, and memory-and includes surprising plot twists.
SV & VB 3/06
|
