The Painter - Will Davenport
by Zia ~ July 18th, 2005. Filed under: Books.
The fictionalized account of a missing year in Rembrandt’s life places him in the English port city of Hull as the result of stowing away on a ship to get away from his creditors. The English captain discovers he can draw, and offers him a bargain: He will forgive the fare and return him to Holland if Rembrandt paints his portrait. While there, he is captivated by the Captain’s wife Amelia. So is the poet Marvell, who proposes a wager between the two artists to see whose medium is finer.
Fast forward to the present. Amy Dale, a wandering painter, ends up in Hull where she takes conservation work in her ancestors’ house, which surprise ends up being the same house. She and an engimatic laborer find Amelia’s journal and work out that Rembrandt spent a year of his life there. As they unravel the mystery, the story unfolds.
It’s too bad that Davenport didn’t just stick to Rembrandt. Those parts of the story were powerfully written, and successfully captured the voice of a man who is at first incredibly vain about his talents but comes to the realization that he is merely human. (In fact, the novel purports to explain why there was such a shift in Rembrandt’s self-portraits.)
The modern day, however, was not as finely wrought. Amy was an unconvincing female with unreal motivations. The modern day denouement was anticlimactic and clumsy.
Still, for those who enjoy combining art and literature, this was a pretty good read.