The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger

(In which there are things that will always matter more.) 

***

I have a habit of writing the day I started reading a book (in complete date, day and time) and the day I finished it (in the same exact specifics). After finishing The Devil Wears Prada, I wrote at the last page that I unfortunately never got the chance to write the start date for this book, and that it might have been sitting in my Currently Reading list for four or five months. Awful, I know. But let's just all try to swear by "It's better late than never" and move on.

Another grownup rule people try to live by is that there should be a balance between life outside and inside the workplace. Sounds pretty doable. The only problem that could actually arise is when work somehow is a person's gateway to life. Which is exactly Andrea Sachs' dilemma.

Fresh out of college, Andrea dreams of getting published as a writer in no less than The New Yorker. But the requisite for the position includes years of experience and networks.

Her first job is to be a junior assistant to Miranda Priestly, the editor-in-chief of Runway magazine. During her interview, she was conditioned that she was just very lucky to work for Miranda, one of the most powerful icons in the fashion industry; and that working for only a year for her will guarantee her passport to any magazine she wants to work for afterwards. After calculating how definitely easier it is to work for one year in Runway compared to several years in other magazines, she decided it is worth a try. Nevermind that she couldn't care less about fashion than what the next person had for breakfast. But, hey! It might just really be a job "a million girls will die for"!

Working for Runway really turns out to be an awesome shocker for her. What with all the fashionably dressed, super tall and impossibly skinny models clad in the latest and even not-yet-available-in-stores designer clothes and everything. She also wonders how these people could survive in greens and Diet Coke. And most importantly, how simply everyone could just spend every single day working for the demon assigned to rule over the hell that was Runway.

Miranda Priestly proves herself not only as a powerful lady but the most eccentric, rude, unhappy and downright evil boss of the millenium. Andrea spends at least 6 days a week doing unimaginable tasks, from tracing a nonexistent Asian fusion restaurant or antique shop to running errands for Miranda's utterly spoiled twins, all the while keeping her eye on the prize and counting every single month. 

But just when her 365 days of hell was just a couple of months away, Andrea is faced not only with the fact that Miranda will bark on her phone early morning to ask her yet another eccentric order but with the realization that her bestfriend is on the verge of being an alcoholic, that her parents haven't seen her in months and that her relationship with her three-year boyfriend is turning the wrong way. 

And in the middle of an impossibly inhuman juggling act, Andrea makes a decision to catch all she can handle before everything else shatters to the ground in one, rather surprising swoop.

Enlightening and upfront refreshing, Lauren Weisberger's narration bursts with sarcasm and wit. Her portrayal of characters are relevant and timely. Andrea is the epitome of a modern working girl's dilemma. Miranda a (possible) victim of a corporate vicious cycle.

The novel was a fun and contemporary Faustian bargain. But fortunately, Weisberger offers a way out, albeit an expensive one. 

Currently reading:

Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland

Photo Sources

The Devil Wears Prada

Luncheon of the Boating Party

The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier

(In which I was once again baffled by an artist.)

***

Usually, when people use a one-word description of artists, they would come up with something like weird, strange or eccentric. Interestingly, when one justifies his eccentricity and weirdness he would retaliate by saying he’s an artist, like what Ogie Alcasid did in his Manila Girl movie.

Nicolas des Innocents, however, has his own brand of ‘artistic’ qualities.

In Tracy Chevalier’s The Lady and the Unicorn, Nicolas is introduced as a cocky, conceited, handsome and lascivious miniaturist who was commissioned to do a tapestry design for Jean Le Viste. In the course of the story he is able to impregnate two women (whose children he never took responsibility of) through his winning story about the purifying power of the unicorn’s horn. You can, of course, go ahead and use your imagination.

But as an artist, he is gifted. Though people do not want to tell him that. Why, he does that himself! Before one can give out a sigh of admiration for his work, he would blurt out his ideas about how perfect he thinks his work is; and then the admirers would think better than letting their tongue boost his already colossal ego. So what they will tell him are the faults, which of course he won’t take, what with the perfection of his work and skill. Until he met the tapestry weavers.

If there’s one thing quite gripping about the novel, it’s actually not how talented Nicolas is as an artist, or how significant women in the novel are portrayed symbolically in the five tapestries narrating the seduction of the unicorn. It’s the marvelous transformation of one art to another emphasized by how readers can peep through every character’s mind to see how paint connects to thread. What remains after closing the book is definitely not whether Nicolas succeeds in seducing Jean Le Viste’s beautiful daughter Claude or if the unicorn tapestries made Nicolas and/or the de la Chapelle weavers famous, but the beautiful end product of the timeless virtue of hard work in achieving one’s seul desir. One desire.

Currently reading

The Lost Diary of Don Juan by Douglas Carlton Abrams

Photo sources:

The Lady and the Unicorn

Don Juan

The Vanishing Point by Louise Hawes

(In which it was almost perfect.)

***

I don’t really love bread. But when it comes to pan de coco, it’s another story – especially if the bread is still warm and the coco filling is sweet and thick and juicy I could die. Not all my pan de coco experiences are the same, though. There were times when I regretted buying that piece of hard, chewy bread with barely a filling in the core.

Eating pan de coco (or anything you like, actually) is just like reading. We can attribute the reading experience to the best, the so-so and the worst meal we’ve had. With The Vanishing Point, by the way, I had to take the middle road.

This novel by Louise Hawes unfurls with a tarot reading foretelling death and darkness in the Fontana family, then blossoms into the coming-of-age adventures of the young Lavinia Fontana, daughter of the mannerist painter Prospero Fontana. She grows up in a family where everything is scrutinized by the meticulous and stern Prospero. She spends most of her time learning Latin and sewing. And she does them all well. What she really wants, however, is to paint. But in a society where artisans are males and females are for domestic and oftentimes ornamental duties, a female painter in her father’s bottega could be a scandal. So she seeks help from the innocent Gian Paolo Zappi, a wealthy student of her father, to steal pens, papers and ink for her to practice drawing. It is when the treachery surfaces that blessings and trials emerge, one after another.

Now what makes reading The Vanishing Point like a pan de coco- eating moment is this: Imagine a soft plump, shiny bread still warm from the oven. The aroma fills your nostrils and makes your mouth water. You took a bite, and were convinced that this is one of the best coconut-filled bread you’ve tasted. You bit some more, savoring the filling that was the essence of it and then realized that the bread has more bread than filling. Yes, it’s getting to the best part and then finding out that the best part has actually gone in one fleeting moment. You read and read and, filled with the hopes and the thrill that there are more stories to be told and revelations to be made, you’ve reached the last page.

But perhaps what this book really wants to offer is that self-same chasing-for-the-best-part-feeling. That the best part is really where it ends – bravery and understanding amidst frustration and lunacy.

***

It’s a little bit embarrassing to have purchased this book just now. But after a long reading hiatus, any spine-and-page construction other than the academic ones could be highly cathartic. Especially this.

Currently reading:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Photo source

The Vanishing Point

Lavinia Fontana Self-Portrait

The Hunger Games

The Secret Supper by Javier Sierra

(In which I embark on a journey to solve a timeless mystery.)

***

One of my former colleagues from the academy once told me her experience when she took an international standardized examination. In her speaking test, she was asked by the examiner if she agrees that a picture paints a thousand words. She answered, “No, because if a picture paints a thousand words, then we need to speak a thousand words to prove that.” And the examiner beamed at her.

The question and her answer must have been something that Leonardo da Vinci wanted to reconcile when he painted The Last Supper. He created a painting that is innocent on the surface but controversial deep within, so that those who see it would contemplate on all its possible cryptic messages and then talk about it for centuries.

Among the many baffling irregularities depicted in Leonardo’s masterpiece includes the missing halos, the, missing meat on the table, Simon Peter holding a dagger and a rather feminine Apostle John, some of which were attributed with Da Vinci’s veganism, an ancient confusion of theological teachings, Mary Magdalene and ultimately, Leonardo’s heresy – the angles that Javier Sierra wishes to give light in his originally-Spanish novel, made readable to English readers through the translation by Albert Manguel.

This historical thriller is narrated by Agostino Leyre, the Chief Roman Inquisitor and Master General of the Secretariat of Keys as an account of his search of the true identity of The Soothsayer, the secret Hermes who warns Rome of the Milanese Duke Ludovico Il Moro’s heretic plan to revive the ancient Athenian philosophies right under the nose of the Papacy, and the huge part played by Leonardo da Vinci in this heterodoxy. Furthermore, The Soothsayer speaks of the disturbing symbols in Leonardo’s mural in Santa Maria delle Grazie. Assisted by the Domican monks of Santa Maria and fascinated by Leonardo’s genius, Fra Agostino becomes part-witness, part-investigator as a cycle of deaths flows and more revelations surface. The narrator moves from being the man convinced that he is the Sherlock Holmes of this mystery, then later on finds himself as a part of the mystery, then as a victim. Finally, he realizes that the true enigma is not that of The Soothsayer’s but Leonardo’s. And the solution to the latter leads to a more painstaking search.

I am still leery of religious-tainted fiction. But this reading experience opens up something anonymous in me. I could, for the time being, let my reading self not be hindered by matters of conflicting doctrines, or the darkness of every religion’s past, or by the fact that all religions’ claim for truth and supremacy doesn’t seem to end. We read to let our minds be opened, and/or our logic to be sharper, and/or our faith to be rejuvenated.

I feel so free I penned Dan Brown down on my TBR list. But for the meantime . . .



Currently reading

Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan






Photo Source:

The Secret Supper
Saving Fish from Drowning

Leonardo’s Swans by Karen Essex

(In which history is a knot woven by art and blood.)

***

Karen Essex’ Leonardo’s Swans seems to be a modern answer to Joanne Brown’s question asked more than a decade later regarding whether this literary genre is Historical Fiction or Fictionalized History, discussing the problem of truth, balance, accuracy and the necessity for a well-grounded research. Essex’ novel was like saying “Why choose between history and fiction when you can have both?”

The novel traverses the life of illustrious women in Italian history – Isabella d-Este, the high-brow Marchesa of Mantua and her sister Beatrice d’Este, Duchess of Milan; the mistress of Beatrice’s husband, Cecilia Gallerani; and Lucrezia Crivelli, the duke’s later mistress. Most apparent was the central women of the novel, the Este sisters whose prominence and patronage of arts and literature, especially in their outward appreciation of the genius that was Leonardo da Vinci, were historically recorded, but not the possibility of a complicated sibling rivalry that could have encompassed not only their artistic purposes but the attention of the men around them.

Written with prefatory references to dates and excerpts from da Vinci’s notebooks in each chapter provides a channel from then to now and vice versa. It was like peeking at the magnificent labyrinth that was the master’s brain, and then being pulled out to see the old world as it makes his ideas come to pass. All those and intriguing political scandals combine to create a tale worth reading.



Currently reading

The Secret Supper by Javier Sierra





Photo Sources
Leonardo’s Swans
The Secret Supper

In the Company of the Courtesan by Sarah Dunant

(In which hope outlives death.)

***

To begin with, there was only sleep, a great, deep well of it, our bodies greedy for the oblivion that comes with safety. . . I think sometimes now about that sleep, for I have never felt anything like it before or after; it had such sweetness that I might be tempted to trade Paradise for the promise of such profound forgetfulness. But we were not ready to die, and on the morning of the third day, I wake to spears of light through broken shutters and a stabbing hunger in my gut. I thought of our kitchen in Rome; its roasted fish, its skin crisp and bubbling from the oven, the thick taste of capon stuffed with rosemary and garlic, and the way the warm honey oozed from [the cook’s] almond cakes, so that you almost had to eat the tips of your fingers to be satisfied. . .

– page 44

Such were the thoughts that filled the mind of a courtesan’s dwarf, Bucino, on their first days in Venice, after they escaped death’s claw at the second sacking of Rome. He travels to Venice together with his bald lady Fiammetta Bianchini who, like him, is bloodied and penniless and whose stomach is empty of food but not of precious gems they had to swallow in order to salvage. And in that great and prosperous city, they work so hard to bring back the fortunes that they lost in the other city, with Fiammetta as the charming courtesan and Bucino the clever pimp. But the way to the lost fortune is not to be taken without the help of an old caretaker, an old friend-turned-enemy-turned-friend-again from Rome and a blind and crippled healer. All of whom are actually threats as much as they are succors.

With In the Company of the Courtesan, Sarah Dunant once again shows her magic with descriptive details akin to The Birth of Venus that it is almost impossible for a reader not to be enslaved by the charm of the characters and places in this unforgettable historical novel. If one finds himself/herself salivating over the picture of a sumptuous meal created retrospectively, then the conflicts due to complicated human relationships can appear as truthful as real life.

Being a story about a woman whose morals and virtues were already sold as part of a training scheme to become successful in the business of male desires, it is noteworthy that the novel speaks of trust, friendship, camaraderie and most astonishingly, love, all throughout. It reminds us how easily friendships can crumble at the sight of jealousy and mischief, how lives were wiped away by lies and deceit. But in the end, the most valuable lesson lies in not what it is seen, but felt.


Currently reading

How To Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster



Photo Sources:
In the Company of the Courtesan
How to Read Lit

The Wayward Muse by Elizabeth Hickey

(In which another scandalous artist takes the limelight.)

***

“Poor Jane!” he said when she had finished, but he said it merrily, not pityingly. “All that is needed is three wicked stepsisters and a pumpkin coach.” – p. . 46

It is almost a Cinderella story. That typical poor, abused girl whose fate started to take a better course after attending a party where she meets her Prince Charming. But Jane Burden’s tale somehow breaks away from this fairy tale convention in the sense that she isn’t only a poor, abused girl. She is the ugliest girl in a slum in Oxford, England and she lives in a house near the public privy. She has a brother and a sister who are not as wicked as the cinder girl’s siblings but are equally annoying. She isn’t taken by a pumpkin coach to a party; she walks her way to the theater where she meets her Prince Charming who happens to be a rather charismatic artist with an Italian surname. He doesn’t make her wear the other pair of a glass slipper, but a beautiful moss green velvet gown for his painting of Guinevere. And that luxurious gown was designed and delivered by her other Prince Charming. Yes, this Cinderella is quite lucky at that part. But, this is where the fairy tale stops – the ending isn’t as happy as fairy tales should be.

Don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t expecting a fairy tale. I was just struck by the interesting comparison. Of course, Hickey’s second novel is about art. And remarkably, she was able to connect the lives of the members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood founded by Daniel Gabriel Rossetti. Hickey laid out the foundation of an initially romantic future between Jane and Gabriel, until the latter is spirited away from her life by an emergency. Then she was rescued by William Morris, also an artist, from both her parents’ decision that she marries a neighbor’s son and from the pain Rossetti has caused her when he left. Everything goes on reasonably well. Jane ceases to live a life full of hardships and starvation. She is introduced to the grand and scandalous society of artists and poets and writers and receives praises for her beauty which both humiliated and humbled her. She has a grand mansion, a workaholic husband and two beautiful daughters when Rossetti comes back. And then the passion between them also returns with a vengeance.

Reading Elizabeth Hickey’s The Wayward Muse is a concoction of varying emotions and opinions. However, this time, the experience is not entirely about sentimentalism due to a poignant narration. It rather sounded as if I overheard friends chatting over coffee one afternoon. The narration was awkwardly hasty. And it took me 84 pages before I came across a time indicator, a rarity in historical fiction. But of course, the writer is not supposed to start the tale with a mentioning in what circa the story took place. But due to the quick story-telling, I barely had time to relish the setting that the story could have happened in a more contemporary time. The idea was promising, though. Having a protagonist who defies popular esthetic standards as a model for paintings verifies the truth that beauty cannot be measured by general criteria. And though the novel didn’t really focus on the artists at work but the scandal that ruined them, they were presented well as real humans with real flaws and vulnerability. It was pretty much the same pattern Hickey used in The Painted Kiss, which I, by the way, will surely remember more fondly.

Oh wait, that made me think: What’s with Hickey and hedonistic and irresponsible, albeit talented male artists who were reduced to invalids until their death? And luckily for them, one has a faithful woman who remained unmarried and the other a loyal mistress but an unfaithful wife who never left!



Currently reading

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie



Photo Source:
Wayward Muse
Half of a Yellow Sun

Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

(In which I got a peek of what he might have thought of.)

***

Tracy Chevalier’s art fiction bursts with surprises as she uncovers the possible root of a masterpiece branded as the Dutch Mona Lisa. No one is sure who the girl was, as no one is certain about how the real Vermeer worked or lived. In her treasure of a novel, Chevalier presents a story behind the painting that seems to be so real that it must have been true.

Girl with a Pearl Earring is also the basis of the 2003 film under the same title starring Scarlett Johansson, Colin Firth, Tom Wilkinson and Cillian Murphy. The novel takes off as the seventeen-year-old Griet was introduced to the painter Johannes Vermeer and his wife, Catharina, when the two visited her house. She understands then that she is to be their maid as a consequence their family needs to face when her father, a skilled tile painter lost his vision in an accident. On top of the eccentricities she has to deal with each family member including the other maid, Tanneke, Griet faces bigger challenges as her role shifts from being an all-around servant girl to an artist’s assistant.

Unlike other art fictions, the other captivating thing about this novel aside from the beautifully imagined plot is the narration. In other works that feature the life and work of an artist, the narrator is usually either the artist himself or an omniscient one with above-sufficient knowledge about art and its creation. In Chevalier’s novel, however, the narrator is Griet – an innocent maid ignorant of the world let alone art. But since the novel is expected to develop, Griet’s description moves from describing a palette knife as “a knife with a diamond-shaped blade“ to calling it what it is; from addressing van Leeuwenhoek’s camera obscura as a box with a diabolic magic to confidently calling it a camera obscura.

Chevalier reiterates the importance of knowing one’s place and maintaining one’s self all throughout the novel, which is as necessary and life-saving as knowing etiquette. For while it’s hard to be a maid in a household sinking in debts and serve a family full of inappropriate pride and to assist a reticent, emotionally unstable and selfish artist, it’s easy to get lost in the entire mayhem.

Currently reading

Slayer of Gods by Lynda S. Robinson

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Girl with the Pearl Earring
Slayer of Gods

On a Chessboard II: The Flanders Panel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

(In which I was both an amateur chess player and an equally amateur detective.)

***

I am a slow reader. And that explains the small number of books in my book pile. Had it not been for my predilection for multitasking, I could have been leading an enjoyable, albeit sedentary, life dedicated to reading. But not only does the multitude of my tasks get in the way of my grabbing another book from my TBR, it is also the fact that I don’t read all kinds of books.
Before I have regained the momentum to read (or should I say gained the interest in reading novels) I just grab anything from tall book piles in Booksale as long as the title is catchy, the cover design is good and it’s not a fantasy novel. As I move on from one book to another, I have decided that I do not (for the moment, because I’ve learned that we’re not supposed to close all our doors, even to books) want to read paranormal romances, chick lit, family fiction, action, sci-fi, mystery and fantasy. But since there is an exception for every rule, I have read halfway through the Harry Potter series.

That actually left me with limited genres to explore. I have developed a penchant for historical and art fiction, though. The plot is predictable at times, but nonetheless inspiring. After reading Arabella Edge’s The God of Spring, which I loved by the way, I realized that it is hard to create a demarcation line between what I like and don’t like to read genre-wise since mystery, for instance, is more or less ubiquitous in history. So when I stumbled upon a book dealing with chess, art and a mystery of a series of murders, I knew better than to resist.

The Flanders Panel is a novel by the Spanish writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte written in 1990 and was adapted into a British film in 1994 entitled Uncovered. The novel takes off at the discovery of a hidden inscription in The Game of Chess, a fifteenth-century work by the master Flemish painter Pieter Van Huys. The painting depicts two gentlemen engrossed in a complex game of chess – the Duke of Ostenburg and a French knight. Seated near them is the Duchess, clad in black velvet gown, reading. The inscription, which was written in Latin on the canvas and was painted over, states Quis necavit equitem – Who killed the knight?

Julia, the art restorer who uncovers the inscription through an x-ray test done during the preliminary stages of restoration, is determined to solve the five hundred-year-old question, initially for the sake of making the price of the painting skyrocket on its auction day. With the help of her friends, she tracks the history of the painting, including the characters in it and hopes to find the answer to the enigma by relying on the pieces on the chess board. She believes that they could find out who killed the knight by studying the pieces on the board. They even go as far as employing the skill of the best chess player in Madrid. At first it is just about the painting and the auction. But as Julia’s friends get murdered one by one, she, together with he rest of her companions, needs to continue playing the game for their own survival.

The position of the chess pieces as shown in the painting by Van Huys.

To describe the novel as mind-boggling is an understatement. Anyone who has read The Flanders Panel would agree that Pérez-Reverte’s philosophical, artistic, literary and even musical references in this novel were successfully executed that it is easy to take the novel as a historical fiction, thus making it difficult for the fact that the painting doesn’t exist to sink in. His characters, who stretch from the sophisticated, hedonistic and decadent elites from the art world to the intellectual, objective people from the world of chess, provide a striking juxtaposition and towards the end, render a patiently built Venn diagram. As he moves on to textually depict a game within a game within a game, the surprising turns of events pull the readers from the engrossment to the fundamentals and intricacies of chess to the banalities and complexities of life, and back. And just as one thinks that the conclusion is rather becoming pointless, Pérez-Reverte saves one last revelation to turn things around, again.

It was, considering the limited reading experiences from which my description would emanate, is a whole new kind of thing. The book is artistic in its sheer definition, binding chess, visual arts, theatrical arts, literature, music and philosophy with mystery. Through this book, I was able to relive the fun of playing chess and enjoy the thrill of playing Sherlock Holmes. I’ll surely get another one like this some other time.

(For the full text of The Flanders Panel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, click here)

Currently reading:

Spring Moon by Bette Bao Lord

Photo Sources:Spring Moon

The God of Spring by Arabella Edge

(In which it takes more than talent to be an artist.)

***

Reading art fiction has always been a good experience in feeding the artist in me, and the frustrated one at that. To discover how masterpieces were made, how big sacrifices were done in their creation makes me swell with respect to the trembling hands that wielded brushes of colors to last centuries and make people relive pasts and memories. Their lives, these artists, make me believe even more to the proposition that artists are indeed born. I haven’t read much yet and I don’t know a lot of names whose signatures appear on famous paintings. But through pages of biographical, albeit a little fictional, account of their lives, I am able to know and understand how artists pursue their greatest artistic dreams. I thought I knew and understood enough. Until I read The God of Spring.

The God of Spring is one of the most subtle art fictions in my book pile, i.e., it’s not easy to quickly discern its inclusion to the subgenre. Having found it on a tall pile of cheap books in a bargain bookstore, the only thing that I could heavily rely on is the title printed on the book’s spine. The God of Spring. It doesn’t ring a bell. Nothing to immediately indicate that it’s about a painter and his famous masterpiece. But perhaps it’s the glimpse of what appears to be a small fraction of a painting that compelled me to pick up the book and read the blurb, much to my glee.

The novel opened with the arrival of the French painter Théodore Géricault from Rome. Welcoming him were his benefactor-uncle Monsieur Caruel and his lovely young wife, Alexandrine –whom Géricault had an illicit relationship with. His uncle was oblivious to this betrayal and even commissioned him another portrait of his lovely, philandering wife to show his support and appreciation for the artist’s previous work. And in return, Géricault made love to his aunt with a feverish desire that tormented him abroad.

In the house of his friend (and rival) Horace Vernet, Géricault learned of a political scandal that shook France when he was away – the tragedy of the frigate Medusa. Driven by an intense desire for a magnificent tableau and an opportunity to reel away from Alexandrine and his lustful thoughts of her, Géricault set forth in tracking down the survivors of the shipwreck for the narrative. Then he found out the horrible stories of murder, betrayal and cannibalism that led to the creation of The Raft of the Medusa, the painting that made him known as the Father of French Romanticism.

The painting, with its huge scale of 24 feet long by 18 feet high, dramatically depicts a mass of bodies lunged forward with a great desire to live, their weakened arms waving signals to the blurred vision of their last hope at the first sighting of the Argus, one of the convoy ships to the frigate Medusa. The first sighting. For it will disappear again, leaving the survivors two hours away from rescue. (See the Louvre site for a larger image.)

Deeply moved by this tragedy, Géricault was even more eager to paint. He hired the ship’s carpenter to make a replica of the raft; he studied cadavers in morgues to observe the texture and color of death and even went so far as taking home corpses to observe the deterioration of human flesh. His obsession for his tableau made him able to resist Alexandrine and lose her forever. No distractions and detractions stopped him from completing his life’s work. During a hard emotional blow, he displays an impressive determination by choosing the glory of art over giving in to human pain.

There, it is done, he said aloud, staring at his shaved head in the mirror, proof that he would renounce all society, friends and pleasure of any sort until he had completed his tableau.

He too would incarcerate himself behind thick stone walls. Never venture outside except for the purpose of his work.

– page 210 – 211

At the completion of his work, he didn’t just paint a scene of a shipwreck. He made viewers share the suffering of the wretched men in the raft. His painting offered no redemption. What it showed was a constant battle and struggle for survival. When most artists in his generation painted reclining nudes and Napoleon’s victories in wars, Géricault painted people who fought, not as national heroes for they fought for themselves, strengthened by hope and weakened by the sudden loss of it. How else can an artist show truth? How else can an artwork be more human?

Currently reading

Classic Christmas: True Stories of Holiday Cheer and Goodwill by Helen Szymanski

Photo Sources:The Raft of the Medusa
Classic Christmas

How Would I Paint Thee?

(In which I picture painting.)

***

That afternoon, Géricault set his canvass on the easel. Such deceit and dissembling he would paint there, an encrypted narrative of illicit love. At Alexandrine’s feet, tethered on a gold lead, would sit a monkey dressed in a waistcoat embroidered with forget-me-nots and wearing a Moroccan hat, his tail plumed against her gown. Géricault was the monkey, gazing up with adoring eyes, yearning for freedom yet unable to leave his mistress’ side. What else in this picture would he pay tribute to their monstrous tryst? Long-stemmed roses arranged in a Venetian glass vase on a table; shortbread biscuits cut into the shape of a heart within reach of Alexandrine’s extended hand; yes, and in the background, for his mistress, he’d paint a corner of the divan beneath the open window . . . And would he dare give just a hint, just a shadow, of a white stocking draped over the back of a chair or flung in a moment of haste across a pillow?
– The God of Spring, p. 46

A couple of months (or so) ago, I posted a comment on a thread about what the cover a blogger might choose for his book if it is to be his life story. I said I would want mine (since everybody else posted what they want theirs to be like) to be a pair of paint-stained hands holding a silver flute with several gold keys. And not only once have I dreamed of doing a drawing of that. But I put that off in lieu of a portrait I can’t seem to finish for lack of time. The portrait was an attempt to reproduce a photograph. And just as my procrastination stretches on, I read a paragraph by Arabella Edge and started to wonder how I would compose an original portrait.

I wouldn’t want the portrait to be stiff. I wouldn’t want him standing like some nobleman proud of his expensive coats and heavy badges. Sitting perhaps. But not the way a schoolboy is expected to be doing the moment the teacher enters the room. No, I don’t want stiffness. I want personality in posture and expression. And there should be passion and mystery, too. Yes, passion and mystery. Like Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, or Gustav Klimt’s Emile Flöge, or Géricault’s Alexandrine. Mine would be a passionate and mysterious male.

Perhaps I would want him sitting hunched, facing me. His elbows resting on his knees, his hands clasped under his chin or held out. I would want his shirt off. Draperies would only look good on his pants. Or the bed on which he’s sitting. A couch with fluid fabric covers looks good, too. I would want him to look straight at me with an intent gaze, as if he’s studying me, or the way I would transfer his image on paper. Or perhaps he already knows and he’d show confidence and expectancy. But his eyes wouldn’t be hard. Instead, they would be two brown irises of soft and tender attention. Of faith. Yes, I want him to show faith. I wouldn’t want him to smile. But his lips shouldn’t be closed either. I want his expression to be serious, expectant, wondering, and his lips should suggest that he’s thinking of something to say. For the background I would like a marbled wall of burnt umber and sienna and their shades. And there should be a guitar standing upright against the bed (or the couch). The floor, I would want them cold and dark.

Oh, and in that portrait, I would want him to become a painter, for he paints. So his hands would be paint-stained too.

The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland

(In which love governed.)

***

The life of an artist in 17th century Rome wasn’t easy. And so was the life a Roman woman. How hard is it then, given these circumstances, to be both a woman and a painter in one of the most highly-regarded art cities during the Baroque period? Artemisia Gentileschi knows.

At seventeen, she was exposed to the cruelties of life. She was raped by her teacher, betrayed by her father and abandoned by her husband and lived to return to the shockingly unforgiving harshness of her city. All of which she was able to endure in the name of art. And no public humiliation, no betrayal by blood and man, no rejections, not even gender discrimination, limited her love for it.

Her paintings depicted women. And when she painted a woman, she painted her life by trying to relive history in her mind and thus trying to feel what her model could have felt. That’s how she did Judith. She though of the emotional unpleasantness that could have taken hold of her upon deciding to slaughter Holofernes in order to save her people – the internal humiliation as she seduces him, all the while thinking of ways to delay the lovemaking and finally, the way she mustered the strength of both heart and body as she beheads the unconscious invader.

When she painted a woman, she sees her as a hero and not a mere carrier of a body to be stared at in lewd voyeurism. She maintains the emotion of the moment. The heart of the story. And so she painted the nude Susanna as a riveting picture of a threatened beauty, with modesty, innocence and shame all working harmoniously.

When she painted a woman abused by a man and further tortured by society, she used her brush as a conduit of her own pains. She sees her as a rational human being capable of doubt. She suspends popular belief for realistic human emotions. With this she painted Lucretia, a legendary woman who was raped and committed suicide, as a person who didn’t choose death deliberately, but a woman torn between choosing life over death and vice versa. Just when the public expected a spectacle full of blood, she gave them something to think about.

In The Passion of Artemisia, Susan Vreeland once again shows how a woman conquers her own fears as well as her personal and socially-established disadvantages so powerfully that she was able to present pain as one of the colors to contribute to the greatness of masterpieces. Her attempt to understand the artist’s heart and mind deeply, combined with the vast knowledge of hue names and artistic styles gave the novel a sturdy bridge from the characters to the reader. However, it would have been better if the settings description was as vivid as the varying tones and wonderful layering of pigments on canvass. But as one reads how a mind and heart of a very sensitive artist as Artemisia collaborate (or in some cases, conflict) to create a painting of a woman as heroic as the artist (unconsciously) is, the pleasant feeling of seeing how a beautiful soul mixes color and emotion and triumph and make a legacy to last centuries holds tightly and lingers. Then it stays, creating an image stronger and more graphic than towers and buildings with complex architectural designs.

Vreeland presented Artemisia as a woman of depth, feeling and love. The way she loved her art was moving – the incessant sketching and brainstorming, the relentless attempts to master the craft, the people and feelings she has to let go of and the lifelong journey towards artistic greatness.

One of the lessons I learned in art school was to love art and it will love me in return. It will take a long time and may not come as easily as I want to, but it will. And in the case of Artemisia Gentileschi, it sure did.

Currently reading:

Black and Blue by Anna Quindlen

Photo source
Judith Slaying Holofernes, Susanna and the Elders, Lucretia, Black and Blue

The Painted Kiss by Elizabeth Hickey

(In which the unsaid are all that matters.)

***

Hickey’s debut novel reimagines the relationship of Emilie Flöge with the Viennese artist Gustav Klimt. Since my acquaintance with Klimt’s life and works is embodied by (only) the knowledge of this painting The Kiss (which fortunately was the focus of this novel) I researched a little about Klimt and decided that the novel will be a little heavy to the heart.

It took me a long time to finish the book, the initial reason for which was work and the secondary, the depression. For a woman to read something about a woman and a martyr for a man who doesn’t seem to know what he wants is such a huge source of disappointment and melancholia.

To Emilie, Gustav was a teacher, a friend, a brother, a lover and a man she loves deeply – of that I am sure. But whether Emilie was more than a student, a friend, a sister and a lover to Gustav remains a historical enigma. Art lovers will know how their affair ends with Gustav’s death and how another blow of confusion mixed with regret shook Emilie after knowing that hers was the name Gustav uttered in his last breath.

Unlike any of Gustav’s women, Emilie didn’t demand (at least not in the book). She took what he gave her. She forgave without an explanation from him. She loved him when he’s present and missed him when he’s gone. She nursed him in his sickness and waited for his return. She knew his mistresses but didn’t fret in public. Basically she knew what to do when she’s with Gustav. She knows better than to plead or beg for love or marriage. So she never even asked nor confessed.

If there’s something I liked about Gustav, it’s his reticence. But unfortunately, it is also one of the reasons why I hate him (aside from him being a chronic womanizer). He didn’t write memoirs or even keep a diary. He believed that people will know him when they look at his paintings yet in an episode, he altered a painting to obscure what was not supposed to be known. How then, can an artwork be reliable? His reticence usually solved his problems and got him out of disputes with a woman. But this is also one big reason why he’s misunderstood.

And yet when he spoke, it seemed like it was all too late for assumptions and explanations. And Emilie must have regretted that she never asked.

Currently reading:

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

Photo source:

The Uncommon Reader

Drawing 101: The Painted Kiss by Elizabeth Hickey

(In which I try to give you online drawing lessons courtesy of a novel.)

***

So I haven’t written for weeks. And I thought I dedicated myself in posting a new entry per week. As if these were not enough, I haven’t finished reading Hickey yet. And to compensate for the display of abandoning myself to procrastination, I am writing an online lecture on what to expect and do on the first day of a painting/drawing lesson. And please pardon me for the sporadic interruptions brought about by my stream of consciousness.

“Here’s what we need”, he said brightly, holding up a piece of charcoal he dug from the bottom of the box.

“I brought pencils,” I said, showing him the brand-new tin case.

“It’s too early for pencils,” he said. “Charcoal first, then pencils.”

Looking back to all those years I’ve learned how to draw, I never remembered using charcoal. It seems like it has become a specially separated lesson on drawing and not a part of a series of medium. My other classmates who, back then, studied portraiture, used charcoals after we all learned how to shade with our Hs, HBs and Bs. Because the main sequence is that it should be pencils first before colors.

“Are you ready?” said Klimt.

“But where’s the easel?” I asked in surprise.

“Today, we’ll sit at the table,” said Klimt. He swept the red cloth aside. Mrs. Klimt took it up, folded it and put it on her lap. Then he taped a sheet of paper to the table and pulled a brick out of the toolbox. I tried to guess what the brick might be for. To keep the paper from blowing away? To sharpen the chalk? He placed the brick in front of me stood with his arms folded. I waited.

“Well,” he said. He looked at me expectantly. . .

“Well what?

“Draw”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “What am I supposed to draw?”

He nodded toward the brick.

The first thing I have drawn upon entering an art school was . . . my left hand – which I think is more interesting than a brick. Not that I am questioning the author’s or Klimt’s idea of a first subject. I just thought that trying to draw your own hand is an exercise that connects you to yourself. It’s more challenging even, to force an artist to look deeper and make sure he’s going to see his own hand on the paper after thirty minutes.

“Draw the brick?” I said incredulously.

“That’s right,” he said. “Draw the brick.”

“But that’s just . . . a brick.” I knew I sounded like an idiot.

“And what is a brick? He said. He sounded like he was teaching a very young child. Was it a joke? But he was waiting.

“I don’t know, clay that’s baked in an oven . . .”

“Stoneware is baked in an oven, too, but you wouldn’t confuse a pitcher with this brick, now, would you?

This wasn’t how a drawing lesson was supposed to go. I should have been sketching a bowl of fruit, or some bottles, like we used to do in school with out art teaches. I didn’t know how to respond. “No, sir,” I said.

He laughed. “I know you think I’m insane,” he said, ”but this was my very first lesson in art school when I was eleven, and it will be yours. Try to give me a better definition. It won’t hurt.”

I took a deep breath. “A brick is a rectangular piece of clay that is fired in an oven and used as a building material.”

“Excellent. Now forget all that we’ve said and draw what you see.”

Somehow this approach amazed me. Giving a definition of the subject and forgetting it abruptly means to remove all subjectivity or objectivity influenced by its denotation means having to look at an object without bias. If that was my first lesson, how would I define my hands?

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Painting lesson