Book Review: The Matisse Stories, by A.S. Byatt
I’m falling a bit behind in book reviews. Every time I’m reading something, I start composing my response, and then I finish the book and move onto the next, and out goes the review.
Working backwards, the most recent book I’ve finished is A.S. Byatt’s The Matisse Stories, a collection of three short stories that all touch on Matisse’s paintings, however peripherally.
Byatt has become one of my favorite authors, ever since reading The Children’s Book and Possession. While her style is distinctly her own, it somehow reminds me of George Eliot, another of my favorite authors. Byatt’s care in examining human motivations within social contexts is profound. Her characters have rich internal lives, often kept highly private, and live in a world resplendent with crafted artistry.
Byatt’s backgrounds are full of beads, cups, cloths, paintings, texts that burst with colors: salmon pink, turquoise, ruby red. Dishes are hand-painted with tiny curls and dots, clothing is woven with care, everything is abundant and vibrant, as though physical objects exude the life that Byatt’s characters are too reserved to express. The world is beautiful, whether or not people notice. Or if they do notice, it’s through an aesthetic lens alone rather than emotional one.
A.S. Byatt
Booker Prize-winning author The three stories in Matisseare “Medusa’s Ankles,” “Art Work,” and “The Chinese Lobster.”
“Art Work” is the centerpiece of the collection. Debbie and Robin are married with two children. Robin is an artist, long struggling to express his fascinations with the particulars of color. To help run the household, Debbie hires Mrs Brown. In bringing about order, Mrs Brown occasionally interferes with Robin’s studio by tidying up his “fetish table,” a place in which he collects examples of color that he wants to examine: cobalt-blue candlesticks, a golden-green apple made by Wedgwood, a reproduction of a sunny-yellow sauceboat designed by Monet.
Mrs Brown is a bit of a scavenger, often collecting cast-off clothes, yarn, neckties, odds and ends that she uses for private purposes. After Robin’s work is considered for presentation in a gallery and is turned down, it is Mrs Brown who proves to be the artist with her squishy, Muppet-like constructions: “huge tapestries, partly knitted, partly made like rag rugs, with shifting streams and islands of colour, which when looked at closely reveal little peering mad embroidered faces, green with blue eyes, black with red eyes, pink with silver eyes.” All her art is made from the cast-off materials she has collected.
The story addresses the question not so much of what constitutes art but rather what inspires it. Where do artists find their muse? And what is the impetus that makes people discover the ability to make change?
The other two stories in the collection are fascinating as well. Finely crafted, like Robin’s fetish table, full of rich, unexpected colors that stir the internal, private life.
Working backwards, the most recent book I’ve finished is A.S. Byatt’s The Matisse Stories, a collection of three short stories that all touch on Matisse’s paintings, however peripherally.
Byatt has become one of my favorite authors, ever since reading The Children’s Book and Possession. While her style is distinctly her own, it somehow reminds me of George Eliot, another of my favorite authors. Byatt’s care in examining human motivations within social contexts is profound. Her characters have rich internal lives, often kept highly private, and live in a world resplendent with crafted artistry.
Byatt’s backgrounds are full of beads, cups, cloths, paintings, texts that burst with colors: salmon pink, turquoise, ruby red. Dishes are hand-painted with tiny curls and dots, clothing is woven with care, everything is abundant and vibrant, as though physical objects exude the life that Byatt’s characters are too reserved to express. The world is beautiful, whether or not people notice. Or if they do notice, it’s through an aesthetic lens alone rather than emotional one.
A.S. ByattBooker Prize-winning author The three stories in Matisseare “Medusa’s Ankles,” “Art Work,” and “The Chinese Lobster.”
“Art Work” is the centerpiece of the collection. Debbie and Robin are married with two children. Robin is an artist, long struggling to express his fascinations with the particulars of color. To help run the household, Debbie hires Mrs Brown. In bringing about order, Mrs Brown occasionally interferes with Robin’s studio by tidying up his “fetish table,” a place in which he collects examples of color that he wants to examine: cobalt-blue candlesticks, a golden-green apple made by Wedgwood, a reproduction of a sunny-yellow sauceboat designed by Monet.
Mrs Brown is a bit of a scavenger, often collecting cast-off clothes, yarn, neckties, odds and ends that she uses for private purposes. After Robin’s work is considered for presentation in a gallery and is turned down, it is Mrs Brown who proves to be the artist with her squishy, Muppet-like constructions: “huge tapestries, partly knitted, partly made like rag rugs, with shifting streams and islands of colour, which when looked at closely reveal little peering mad embroidered faces, green with blue eyes, black with red eyes, pink with silver eyes.” All her art is made from the cast-off materials she has collected.
The story addresses the question not so much of what constitutes art but rather what inspires it. Where do artists find their muse? And what is the impetus that makes people discover the ability to make change?
The other two stories in the collection are fascinating as well. Finely crafted, like Robin’s fetish table, full of rich, unexpected colors that stir the internal, private life.
No comments have been added yet.
