Hot Topic: Art in Novels

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Great art often inspires conjecture and speculation about the people depicted in the paintings. There are many examples of novels in which the writer has run with their imagination and conjured up stories, mixing history with their own take on events, and producing very compelling narratives. Here are some examples, all of which are available at Dunedin Public Libraries.

Portrait of an Unknown Woman. Vanora Bennett
It is 1527 and the young painter, Hans Holbein, has come to live in London where he is commissioned by Sir Thomas More to paint a family portrait. Holbein paints two portraits, seven years apart, and the second portrait reveals some of More’s family secrets.

The Da Vinci Code. Dan Brown
Symbologist Robert Langdon receives news that a curator in the Louvre has been found murdered, his body covered in strange symbols. Langdon and cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, discover a trail of clues hidden in the works of Leonardo da Vinci. Deciphering the symbols, they reveal that the late curator was involved in a secret society and held an ancient secret.

The Painted Girls. Cathy Marie Buchanan
This book is inspired by the real-life model for Degas’s Little Dancer Aged 14. Set in Belle Époque Paris, the Van Goethem sisters are struggling financially. Marie is sent for ballet training where she meets Edgar Degas, while Antoinette finds work in the theatre in the stage adaptation of Emile Zola’s L’Assommoir”.

Girl with a Pearl Earring. Tracy Chevalier
Johannes Vermeer’s iconic painting lies at the heart of this novel. Set in Vermeer’s household in the 1660s, problems arise when Griet, a young servant girl, becomes increasingly close to her Master. Vermeer firstly chooses Griet to be his assistant and then to sit as his model.

Vanessa and Her Sister. Priya Parma
Based on the lives of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, part of the legendary Bloomsbury group in the early part of the 1900s in London, this story of the sisters’ developing relationship is told from the point of view of Vanessa, unfolding through journals, letters and telegrams.

The Goldfinch. Donna Tartt
Theodore and his beloved mother are visiting New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to view an exhibition of Dutch masterpieces, when a terrorist’s bomb explodes. In the confusion afterwards, Theodore takes a painting from the collection, Carel Fabritius’ The Goldfinch, his mother’s favourite, and is ultimately drawn into the art underworld.