Man behind the Vision

This one goes out to Bruce who let me wax pathetic over a Renoir and a Degas at the Nelson-Atkins Gallery tonight.
Susan Vreeland has made a splash with her historical fiction novels revolving around masterpieces of the art world. She and Tracy Chevalier have almost created a cottage industry. The latest entry in the "story behind the painting" subgenre of literary historical fiction is Luncheon of the Boating Party. In prose as thoughtful as every one of Renoir's brush strokes, Vreeland imagines the lives behind each figure in the artist's most famous work. From conception to completion, readers learn who all the models are, how they came together, their significance to Renoir and how they form a tight bond that cannot last outside the painting's frame. Full of exquisite detail and descriptions, readers will be flipping back to carefully study the small replica of the painting that accompanies the book. Up until the last third, readers will wonder who is the beguiling woman holding the dog in the lower left corner of the painting? All of the painting's figures are real people the author brings to life on the canvas, even the mysterious quatorzieme is identified. Very suitable for a book group or readers who enjoyed Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Capturing Light or Capturing Sin?

One of the most lyrical debuts of 2005 was Miranda Beverly-Whittemore's The Effects of Light. The realistic and sympathetic characters and the compelling, suspenseful story line will draw readers in while they ponder the author's thoughtful exploration of the classic social question, "What is Art and who gets to decide?"
Thirteen years after she fled the West Coast, Kate Scott is returning to hesitantly pry open painful memories of her sister and her father. A mysterious package from an unknown benefactor shows Kate that someone else knows her turbulent secret history as a child-model for a controversial photographer. Her lover, Samuel, follows Kate and pledges to help her unearth the clues her father has left behind, but when Kate discovers Scott's notebook with surreptitious jottings about herself and her family's notorious past, she rejects him. Readers will be drawn into the mystery surrounding Kate's sister, her father, and Ruth, the photographer, even wondering who Kate truly is. This first novel drew parallels with The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold for the narrative voices of its teen characters, Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier for its art-world frame and Possession by A.S. Byatt for its plot of academics searching ancient documents for contemporary truths.