The Calligrapher

Docx, Edward. The Calligrapher. New York:Houghton Mifflin. 2003. Print.

First Sentences:

Like so many people living through this great time in human history, I am not at all sure what is right and what is wrong.

So if I appear a little slow to grasp the moral dimensions of what follows, I'm afraid I will have to ask you to bear with me. Apologies. It's a difficult age

Description:

Jasper Jackson is a self-proclaimed womanizer, gourmand, critic of modern society, and talented calligrapher in Edward Docx's stylish debut novel, The Calligrapher. He is working on a commission to artistically reproduce the love poetry of John Donne for a wealthy client. Each chapter begins with a different stanza from Donne about love and the inconstancy of men (and women), thoughts that reflect exactly what Jackson is going through in his own personal life.

Jackson jeopardizes his one-year relationship with a woman for a quick dabbling with another, then throws both them over (as well as several others) when he discovers the beautiful, enigmatic Madeleine lingering in the communal garden under his studio window. His elaborate plans to meet, seduce, and win her affection are the work of a genius obsessed with romantic love and the pleasures of food, wine, and life. He realizes Madeleine is finally the real thing and he does not want to blow this relationship. 

But is everything really that perfect for Jackson now? It seems so, but there are a few surprises waiting for him that are only revealed on the very last pages. 

Try as they might, men cannot in their heart of hearts quite shake off the idea that sex is a massive favor, a singular gift from women, which it is forever their obligation somehow to repay ... the chicks seem to be tacitly promoting the whole duty regime again -- and with renewed enthusiasm.

I love a thoughtfully-written story with deliciously flawed characters storming through life in their own self-confident ways, oblivious to any problems they may cause others or themselves. Docx is a fine writer, skilfully commenting via Jackson's musings and conversations on such diverse topics  art, fine dining, wine, museums, London, Rome, women, love, friendship, cars, and of course the intricacies of calligraphy where "x" is a favorite letter for very precise reasons.

Any book that keeps me guessing about the outcome until the final paragraph, one that offers heady conversations and new twists on each page, such a book gets highest marks. The Calligrapher delivers a marvelous story, fascinating characters, and philosophies that will tantalize and challenge any reader to examine Jasper and Madeleine's lives as well as their own. Highest recommendation.

Spontaneity is a luxury available only to people who don't care about what happens next.

Happy reading. 


Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's Guide to Shakespeare: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying the Works of Shakespeare

The clearest, most thorough explanations of the intricacies, beauty, and hidden references to the works of Shakespeare. An invaluable guide to understanding any play prior to attending a performance. (previously reviewed here)

Mays, Andrea. The Millionaire and the Bard: Henry Folger's Obsessive Hunt for Shakespeare's First Folio

The epic collection and obsession of Henry Folger and his pursuit to obtain every copy of Shakespeare's First Folio, eventually acquiring over 80 of the rare collections of his plays and opening the Folger Library in Washington, D.C.. (previously reviewed here)

The Rescue Artist

Dolnick, Edward. The Rescue Artist: : A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece. New York: HarperCollins. 2005. Print.

First Sentences:

In the predawn gloom of a Norwegian winter morning, two men in a stolen car pulled to a halt in front of the National Gallery, Norway's preeminent art museum.

They left the engine running and raced across the snow. Behind the bushes along the museum's front wall they found the ladder they had stashed away earlier that night. Silently, they leaned the ladder against the wall.

Description:

There's something endless fascinating to me about crime capers: the people, the planning, the actual theft, what goes wrong, the pursuit by authorities, and the tension between escape and capture. Edward Dolnick vividly satisfies my tastes for true crimes of art theft in his riveting The Rescue Artist:: A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece.  

The book open with the brazen theft of Edward Munch's masterpiece, The Scream, from the National Museum in Oslo, Norway, in 1994. Two men simply prop a borrowed ladder against the outside wall of the museum, break a second-floor window, lift the painting off its hook, climb back down the ladder, and drive off. Total time: 50 seconds. Alarms and video monitors were working but ignored by the guard on duty. No fingerprints or footprints were found, but the ladder remained propped up to the broken window. And the thieves left a note: "Thanks for the poor security." Value of the painting? $72 million. (In 2012, The Scream was sold for $120 million, the second highest art sale at the time.)

When Norway refuses to pay the thieves' demand for a $1 million ransom, Scotland Yard's Art Theft Department and Charley Hill, special art theft officer, goes to work, acting undercover as an agent for the Getty Museum in California who wants to pay the ransom for Norway so that they can borrow the painting and exhibit it later in their museum.

The trials and tribulations that result from Hill's undercover preparation and bold actions drive the book forward at a breath-taking pace. Hill must find out who the thieves are, contact them, persuade them to accept him as a credible buyer, and then get his hands on the painting to restore it to the National Museum. And he must deal with the well-meaning but interfering Norwegian police who are holding a convention in the hotel where Hill meets with the thieves.

Hill works with a variety of characters on this case from the police and the criminal world, weaving glib lies to make the sting work. His quick wit saves him on many occasions when plans are threatened as the unexpected occurs. But he has had a successful career. In twenty years, he recovered over $100 million worth of stolen art. 

Author Donick has done high-quality research to weave in many juicy tales of other art thefts. Interpol statistics document that art theft accounts for "between $4 billion and $6 billion a year." The ease in which art thieves operate is astonishing. Each job is simple, fast, and brazen, often just removing a piece off the wall and tucking it under a coat in front of many witnesses.

For thieves, stealing art is a tempting business. They steal "because they want to and can." There is a lot of very valuable (read "salable") unprotected art just waiting to be taken. Any amount of money gained by thieves is profit (since they paid nothing for the piece), so selling a $17 million artwork for $800,000 is fine by them. Beyond the simple payoff, there are other reasons motivating art thieves:

Thieves steal art to show their peers how nervy they are, and to gain trophies they can flaunt, and to see their crimes splashed across the headlines, and to stick it to those in power. Thieves steal, too, because they use paintings as black-market currency for deals with their fellow crooks.

One home in England was robbed several times just because it was isolated, too large to have quality security, and had so much art. One Rembrandt in England was stolen four different times. The Louvre supposedly had the Mona Lisa stolen in 1922 and never recovered it, and are displaying a copy now. The largest theft, occurring in Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, involved $300 million worth of art by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Manet, and Degas. No trace has ever been found of these painting, nor has any ransom note been received. 

Police are not particularly concerned with art theft as opposed to crimes that involve actions that harm people. It is expensive and time-consuming to go undercover to recover stolen pieces. The Scotland Yard Art Theft Department knew, despite its major victories in recovering valuable pieces, it must constantly prove its mettle merely to secure current funding.

"The police won't say so," remarks Charley Hill, "but what they think is, 'What's so important about pictures, anyway?' The attitude is, 'You've seen one, you've seen 'em all.'"

Here is a great, true caper story, complete with interesting characters, valuable art pieces, bumbled opportunities, genuine danger, and suspense woven into a detailed account. While The Scream theft is the prominent crime, The Rescue Artist provides plenty of other tales of crimes, criminals, and detective work to satisfy any mystery/art lover. Highly recommended for its fascinating details and well-written narration.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Irving, Clifford. Fake! The Story of Elmyr De Hory, the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time

Absolutely riveting true account of the life of a master forger in the 20th century who sold hundreds of fake paintings and sketches of Vermeer, Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani and more to many major museums and collectors, including Nazi leader Hermann Goering.

Shapiro, B.A. The Art Forger

Fictional tale of an art student hired to produce a fake Degas from the original, but as she studies the masterpiece and begins to create her copy, she begins to doubt its authenticity (previously reviewed here).

The Art Forger

Shapiro, B.A. The Art Forger. New York: Algonquin. 2013. Print

First Sentences:

I step back and scrutinize the paintings.

There are eleven, although I have hundreds, maybe thousands. My plan is to show him only pieces from my window series. Or not.

Description:

The theft of thirteen paintings in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston is still an unsolved crime. Art from Rembrandt, Vermeer, Degas, Manet, and others worth an estimated $500 million was taken one night by two men dressed as Boston police who were able to handcuff and duct tape the two museum guards and leave them in the basement while they carefully selected and removed various paintings, sketches, and art sculpture to take to their car. The men and art were never seen again.

The Museum still offers a $5 million reward for information leading to the safe return of these paintings.

B.A Shapiro's The Art Forger novel picks up this story twenty years later. When one of the missing paintings shows up in the small studio of Claire Roth, a struggling artist with a skill in duplicating the works of masters, the old theft comes alive albeit with a new turn. Claire is asked by a highly-reputable dealer to secretly forge a new version of this original Degas. In exchange he will give her a one-woman show of her own paintings in his high end gallery. It is a deal she cannot pass up.

Alone in her studio with the Degas painting, she spends hours studying the mastery of the artist, the brushstrokes, lighting, perspective, and paint itself before she can even attempt to duplicate it. But as she examines the painting more and more closely over the next days, doubts creep into her mind. Can this wondrous painting be an extremely skilled forgery? If so, what is the reason for its creation, what is its purpose, who will benefit from passing it off as an original, and who will feel the repercussions? 

There are multiple twists, turns, lies, betrayals, duplicity, and greed in the next chapters to keep pages turning and guesses flying. Claire, a young artist who had already suffered a blow to her reputation that derailed her rising future, faces not only the technical challenges of creating a perfect forgery but also the risks to her artistic future should this under-the-table commission be discovered.

While I am not artistic, the details that author Shapiro supplies in The Art Forger to describe the beauty of these masterpieces, the mixing of paints, details of brushstrokes, and intricacies of composition all help make the artistic process and final product fascinating to me. Having visited the Gardner museum in Boston and seen the empty frames still hanging on the walls with descriptions of the stolen works, I was able to understand the background of this novel, the goals of the ambitious characters, and the hopeful and possibly criminal results that await at the conclusion of the story.

A fascinating read, wonderfully conceived and told. Highly recommended, both for lovers of art as well as those who enjoy the details and intrigues behind one of the unsolved mysteries of history.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

____________________

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Irving, Clifford. Fake! The Story of Elmyr De Hory, the Greatest Art Forger of Our Time
  

Absolutely riveting true account of the life of a master forger in the 20th century who sold hundreds of fake paintings and sketches of Vermeer, Picasso, Matisse, Modigliani and more to many major museums and collectors, including Nazi leader Hermann Goering.