Art in Fiction

[Dark Muse]

Well for those who cannot tell I am a great lover of art in all of its various forms. I particularly enjoy reading novels that feature or focus upon some work of art, or an artist, or have art work heavily strewn within and play some role within the story, even if not being the whole plot of the book.

I have read several books which heavily included art, in many various forms, from painting, sculpture, even architecture and found them to be quite enjoyable.

To name a few I have already read.

The Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
The Name of the Rose (not exclusively about art, but had a lot of it strewn within) by Umberto Eco
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
The Sixteen Pleasures by Robert Hellenga
Brunelleschi's Dome by Ross King (this one is acutally non-fiction, but it was really good)

And I am currently reading The Ecstasy and the Agony by Irving Stone

While the main focus of this post is upon books that feature real life artists or artworks, I am not opposed to stories which feature fictional artists, as I have read a few of those as well and find them generally enjoyable.

So if you haven't guessed I am looking for any further suggestions on books that feature or strongly display art in some way. With my interest in history and historical fiction, I do tend to most particularly enjoy topics relating to the classical arts, but by all means if you know of a really good book featuring more modern works of art, I am open to suggestions.

[mona amon]

Dark Muse, have you read An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro? I think you'll like it.

[Dark Muse]

I have heard of it, but I haven't read it yet, but it is one that I have kept an eye out for.

[Dr. Hill]

Dorian Gray?

[Dark Muse]

Oh that is a good one, haven't read it yet, but I have it on my bookshelf on my to read list.

[Drkshadow03]

Hawthorne's The Marble Faun. Its one part Gothic/Romance novel, one part fable, one part travel narrative, one part art criticism. It is an interesting narrative experiment, while still containing typical Hawthornian qualities.

[Dark Muse]

I generally like Hawthornes writing and that sounds interesting, I will add it to my list of books to look out for.

[billl]

It has been years since I read it, but Kurt Vonnegut's Bluebeard is about an abstract expressionist artist. I read over the Wikipedia plot summary, and it mentions that the protagonist owns a lot of art by other people, including Jackson Pollock, but I don't know if the book refers to actual, known paintings by anyone. However, and this might entice you, a key point in the plot is some "secret" that he is keeping in his barn, and that collectors are going crazy speculating about.

Keep in mind, this is a Vonnegut book, so you have to like Vonnegut maybe. But I remembered I really liked this book, back when I was reading ONLY Vonnegut for a month or so.

[Dark Muse]

I haven't yet acutally read any Vonnegut, but that does sound interesting.

[FalseReality]

Diary - Chuck Phalanuik
The Fortress of Solitude - Jonathan Letham

[stlukesguild]

Check into Theophile Gautier especially. Gautier had aspirations toward being a painter... and painting and the love of the sensuality of the visual art objects continually play a major role in his poems and stories. Look especially into Omphale: a Rococo Story, Arria Marcella, and the The Fleece of Gold.

Another great book was Par Lagerkvist's The Dwarf in which a physically and emotionally (socially?) stunted figure follows the events and gives advice that might make Machiavelli blush in the service of a Duke (much like a DeMedici). He especially hates the talented artist in the Duke's service, a DaVinci-like figure that represents beauty and genius and all that he envys/hates.

Check into the Danish author Inger Christensen's The Painted Room which centers upon the cycle of paintings by Andrea Mantegna created for Lodovico Gonzaga or Mantua.

Hermann Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund explores the artist's life... and Gunter Grass' Tin Drum has some incredibly comic observations about art, artists, art students, etc... made by Oscar when he takes up the role of an artist model.

Certainly check into the unabashedly erotic In Praise of the Stepmother by Mario Vargas LLosa in which the central characters engage in a series of erotic fantasies inspired by paintings... which are reproduced in color in the text.

Look also into Zola's The Masterpiece, which is loosely based upon the lives of the Impressionists... and especially that of Paul Cezanne, Zola's childhood friend whom he came to feel never lived up to his potential.

Another great book would be Huysmans' Au Rebours in which a truly decadent aristocrat... far beyond Wilde's Dorian Gray... creates a world of exquisite artifice that is "against nature".

These are just a few that immediately jump to mind, although surely there are many more.

[mayneverhave]

Explicit discussions of Shakespeare in fiction:

Goethe's Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship.
The Scylla and Charybdis episode of Ulysses.

[mal4mac]

Little Dorrit contains a bad husband who is a bad artist by trade, the best sketch of an artistic poseur I've ever encountered.

Nicholas Nickleby contains a wonderful little woman who sketches portraits for a living, and a nice chap who carves ivory.

Do waxworks count? The Old Curiosity Shop has a lady who runs a touring waxwork museum, supposedly she's based directly on Madame Tussaud...

And then there's all those sketches by Boz to look at, so just read all of Dickens in an illustrated edition :-)

I'll second Hermann Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund!

Proust contains artistic characters, and much discussion of art.

[wessexgirl]

Have you tried Sleep,Pale Sister DM? It's an early Joanne Harris novel about a fictional artist, but it could easily be one of the PRB group. It's a strange, gothicy type Victorian work, with murder, madness, lots of creepy supernatural type goings on, possibly fuelled by laudanum etc from what I can remember. It's been a while since I read it, but I really enjoyed it, and may give it a re-read at some point.

http://www.joanne-harris.co.uk/pages/bookpages/sleeppalesister.html

[Madame X]

The artistic labouring/musings of the insecure paintress, Lily Briscoe, from To the Lighthouse come to mind. Although, yeah, who hasn’t read that one. :idea:

[mal4mac]

The artistic labouring/musings of the insecure paintress, Lily Briscoe, from To the Lighthouse come to mind. Although, yeah, who hasn’t read that one. :idea:

Not me! It's on my list though...

[mal4mac]

It has been years since I read it, but Kurt Vonnegut's Bluebeard is about an abstract expressionist artist. I read over the Wikipedia plot summary, and it mentions that the protagonist owns a lot of art by other people, including Jackson Pollock, but I don't know if the book refers to actual, known paintings by anyone. However, and this might entice you, a key point in the plot is some "secret" that he is keeping in his barn, and that collectors are going crazy speculating about.

Keep in mind, this is a Vonnegut book, so you have to like Vonnegut maybe. But I remembered I really liked this book, back when I was reading ONLY Vonnegut for a month or so.

I used to like Vonnegut when I was a yoof steeped in SF. But I re-read "Cat's cradle" recently and though it wasn't all that. It was too zany, too unbelievable, and just not that funny. Two dimensional characters, thin plot, ... Certainly not Dickens! Or even Hesse!

[Dark Muse]

Wow thanks for all the really interesting suggestions so far, a lot of stuff I haven't heard of previously that sound very much worthwhile and intriguing.

[Janine]

Hawthorne's The Marble Faun. Its one part Gothic/Romance novel, one part fable, one part travel narrative, one part art criticism. It is an interesting narrative experiment, while still containing typical Hawthornian qualities.

Drkshadow, I am currently reading this Hawthorne novel. I am slowly getting into it now. Did you like the novel? I found, at first, it just didn't grab my interest; but now it's becoming more intriguing. I like the way you described it above.

Dark Muse, this is an interesting thread. I will have to think of some.
How about the The Crystal Bowl by Henry James? The main character's father is planning a museum, which seems to suggest the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. Besides the object of art - the beautiful bowl bought for a gift for her father; artwork, architecture and sculpture is mentioned in the novel.

[Dark Muse]

That sounds interesting, I enjoy James