In this beautifully crafted novel, Eduardo Manet, a Cubanborn French novelist and playwright, tells the story of a woman’s passion for a famous artist. The artist is his grandfather, the painter Édouard Manet, and the woman his grandmother, Eva Gonzalès, Manet’s only pupil and an extraordinary painter in her own right, whose profound understanding of the human soul shines through all her work. The relationship between Manet and Eva is seen through the eyes and the words of Jeanne, Eva’s younger sister. In her journals, she chronicles the vicissitudes of love in a time of war and exile, of social and cultural upheaval. From the Franco-Prussian War through the Paris Commune, the fall of the Second Empire and the birth of Impressionism, this story celebrates love as a blind, blinding, yet quintessentially life-giving force, embodied by the extraordinary Eva. She is surrounded by memorable and larger-than-life characters: her beloved sister Jeanne, her charismatic Aunt Dolorès, (the voice of French-born Eva’s Spanish family), Suzanne Leenhoff, the somewhat enigmatic wife of her lover Manet, and Berthe Morisot, her rival in art and in love, all presented against the backdrop of the dizzying art world of nineteenth-century Paris.
Vermeer and the Art of Love is about the emotions evoked in those elegant interiors in which a young woman may be writing a letter to her absent beloved or playing a virginal in the presence of an admirer. But it is also about the love we sense in the painter's attentiveness to every detail within those rooms, which lends even the most mundane of objects the quality of something extraordinary. In this engaging and beautifully illustrated book, Georgievska-Shine uncovers the ways in which Vermeer challenges the dichotomies between 'good' and 'bad' love, the sensual and the spiritual, placing him within the context of his contemporaries to give the reader a fascinating insight into his unique understanding and interpretation of the subject.
In a world where sight reigns supreme and colors paint the canvas of life, there exists a tale of art and love that defies conventional boundaries. 'Painting Love' invites you to step into a realm where the senses intertwine and emotions take on vibrant hues, as this enchanting novel delves into the extraordinary journey of Freya, a gifted painter whose world is forever altered when she loses her sight. Yet, her story becomes one of resilience, creativity, and boundless love. As Freya grapples with the challenges of her new reality, she discovers solace in her art, seeking to share the magic of her craft with others. In the heart of the city, she opens an art studio that transcends the limits of vision. Here, she uses touch, emotion, and intuition to guide those who enter, a haven for souls in search of healing and expression. Amidst the studio's captivating ambiance, we meet Paul, a sculptor burdened by his own past, haunted by memories that threaten to erode his sense of purpose. Drawn by the unconventional teachings of Freya, he embarks on a transformative journey of self-discovery. Under Freya's patient guidance, a unique and intuitive mentorship develops, and as the two artists navigate their personal struggles, a profound connection blossoms, a connection that transcends the boundaries of sight and unveils a world where emotions manifest as a symphony of colors and shapes. In a society where emotions often remain unspoken and memories are locked away, Freya and Paul wield their artistic talents to paint love onto the canvas of their lives. Their journey becomes a beacon of hope, a testament to the transformative power of art, and a celebration of the indomitable human spirit. 'Painting Love' is an exploration of the unseen, a celebration of the unspoken, and a revelation of the extraordinary within the seemingly ordinary. As you turn the pages, you'll be transported into a universe where touch becomes a language, where art bridges the gaps between souls, and where love transcends the confines of perception. Join us on this captivating voyage through the realm of art and emotions, a journey that will leave your heart touched, your spirit uplifted, and your appreciation for the limitless power of love and creativity forever transformed.
THE HAMMOCK: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot portrays ten remarkable years in the life of James Tissot (1836-1902), who rebuilt - and then lost - his reputation in London. THE HAMMOCK is a psychological portrait, exploring the forces that unwound the career of this complex man. Based on contemporary sources, the novel brings Tissot's world alive in a story of war, art, Society glamour, love, scandal, and tragedy.
As the oldest of institutions, marriage seems outdated in modern times, when each individual is encouraged to break with tradition in order to fulfill him– or herself. And so artists like Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo seem to be paving the way toward a brave, new kind of marriage, where spouses would be allowed—even encouraged—to fulfill different aspects of themselves in outside relationships. Shared creativity, they believed, would transcend their jealousies and compensate their sufferings: through art, they would rise above conventional marital fidelity, and prove a higher fidelity to art and to themselves. The Love Lives of the Artists tells the stories of Rainer Maria Rilke and Lou Andreas–Salomé, Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe, Jean–Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Diego and Frida, and Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin—five couples who approached their relationships with the same rebellious creativity as they practiced in their art. From their early artistic development and their first experiences in love, to their artistic marriages and their affairs—and then to their fights and reconciliations, addictions, nervous breakdowns and continued creativity—The Love Lives of the Artists describes the promise and the price of freedom and creativity in love.
The Mystery of an Old Master Painting, Madonna of Divine Love Painting by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino is written with the purpose of clarifying the story believed for centuries of a painting on wood created in 1518 by a pupil of Raffaello (Raphael), although everybody knew that the master had painted the original on canvas in 1514. Unfortunately, the original disappeared for 471 years (from the time of the 1544 Vasari description to 2015), and until there is a side-by-side exhibit of the two paintings, there will be only this story to reveal the truth.
A singular fatality has ruled the destiny of nearly all the most famous of Leonardo da Vinci's works. Two of the three most important were never completed, obstacles having arisen during his life-time, which obliged him to leave them unfinished; namely the Sforza Monument and the Wall-painting of the Battle of Anghiari, while the third—the picture of the Last Supper at Milan—has suffered irremediable injury from decay and the repeated restorations to which it was recklessly subjected during the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. Nevertheless, no other picture of the Renaissance has become so wellknown and popular through copies of every description. Vasari says, and rightly, in his Life of Leonardo, "that he laboured much more by his word than in fact or by deed", and the biographer evidently had in his mind the numerous works in Manuscript which have been preserved to this day. To us, now, it seems almost inexplicable that these valuable and interesting original texts should have remained so long unpublished, and indeed forgotten. It is certain that during the XVIth and XVIIth centuries their exceptional value was highly appreciated. This is proved not merely by the prices which they commanded, but also by the exceptional interest which has been attached to the change of ownership of merely a few pages of Manuscript. That, notwithstanding this eagerness to possess the Manuscripts, their contents remained a mystery, can only be accounted for by the many and great difficulties attending the task of deciphering them. The handwriting is so peculiar that it requires considerable practice to read even a few detached phrases, much more to solve with any certainty the numerous difficulties of alternative readings, and to master the sense as a connected whole. Vasari observes with reference to Leonardos writing: "he wrote backwards, in rude characters, and with the left hand, so that any one who is not practised in reading them, cannot understand them". The aid of a mirror in reading reversed handwriting appears to me available only for a first experimental reading. Speaking from my own experience, the persistent use of it is too fatiguing and inconvenient to be practically advisable, considering the enormous mass of Manuscripts to be deciphered. And as, after all, Leonardo's handwriting runs backwards just as all Oriental character runs backwards—that is to say from right to left—the difficulty of reading direct from the writing is not insuperable. This obvious peculiarity in the writing is not, however, by any means the only obstacle in the way of mastering the text. Leonardo made use of an orthography peculiar to himself; he had a fashion of amalgamating several short words into one long one, or, again, he would quite arbitrarily divide a long word into two separate halves; added to this there is no punctuation whatever to regulate the division and construction of the sentences, nor are there any accents—and the reader may imagine that such difficulties were almost sufficient to make the task seem a desperate one to a beginner. It is therefore not surprising that the good intentions of some of Leonardo s most reverent admirers should have failed.
