Chiaroscuro

by Peter Clothier

Modern master painter Jacob Molnar turned his back on the art world in the mid-1970s, licking self-inflicted wounds after a divorce and repulsed by the art scene's mixture of hype and greed. But when a young painter whom he would ordinarily have no time for comes to Molnar a decade later with what might be evidence of a lucrative art scam, Molnar is intrigued. That painter is murdered shortly afterward, so Molnar re-enters the high stakes world he'd left behind, wanting justice and hoping that that the inside knowledge he once had might serve him well without making him even more cynical or reclusive.

259 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Peter Clothier is an internationally-known writer who specializes in writing about art and artists. He believes in avoiding the jargon that obscures much current writing about art, and in writing simply, clearly, in language that the lay person can readily understand. He seeks to achieve a harmony of mind, heart, and body in his work, and looks for this quality in the artists he writes about. A reformed academic, now fifteen years in recovery, he has returned in recent years to teaching, in mostly non-traditional ways: in workshops, continuing groups, and individual coaching and mentoring for artists and writers.

Reviews

[Patrick O'Hannigan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based on its 1985 publication year and Peter Clothier's output since, this novel is early work for its author, written before he found his stride in nonfiction. I enjoyed my introduction to "Jacob Molnar," a respected painter drawn back into the art scene after a decade-long hiatus. When a recent acquaintance of his turns up dead, and a model with whom he's been carrying on is severely beaten, Molnar becomes an amateur sleuth. I accepted all of that, but eventually found Molnar himself off-putting. "Embittered middle-aged horn dog" is not a good look, even for an allegedly charismatic icon of his profession.

The story has a nice twist, some "shoe leather" detective work done before the Internet was widely used, and more than one villain, but one of the bad guys has a cartoonish name that's impossible to take seriously.

A Fortune 32:16 computer enjoys a supporting role in the narrative. That machine, I found out, was a hit at the COMDEX trade show in 1981, where its 128K of RAM seemed impressive for the time.

What I liked most about Chiaroscuro were the painterly touches that Clothier included throughout, like brush strokes -- such as thoughts on the quality of sunlight in Southern California, and one artist talking with another about why most abstract art is crap (in brief, because it's surface-level and about the artist, rather than about the truth).

I smiled at the novelist's depiction of art meeting actual life when, in one scene, Molnar noticed Andy Warhol at a gallery opening party but did not speak to him because he thought Warhol had "done a good job of murdering art."