The Very Picture of You: A Novel (Random House Reader's Circle) - Softcover

Wolff, Isabel

 
9780553386639: The Very Picture of You: A Novel (Random House Reader's Circle)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0553386638 ISBN 13: 9780553386639
Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

Where the eye sees the brushstroke, the heart sees the truth.
 
At thirty-five, Gabriella “Ella” Graham is a successful portrait artist in London. She captures the essential truth in each of her subjects’ faces—a tilt of the chin, a glint in the eye—and immortalizes it on canvas. But closer to home, Ella finds the truth more elusive. Her father abandoned the family when she was five, and her mother has remained silent on the subject ever since. Ella’s sister, Chloe, is engaged to Nate, an American working in London, but Ella suspects that he may not be so committed. Then, at Chloe’s behest, Ella agrees to paint Nate’s portrait.
 
From session to session, Ella begins to see Nate in a different light, which gives rise to conflicted feelings. In fact, through the various people she paints—including an elderly client reflecting on her life and a woman dreading the prospect of turning forty—Ella realizes that there is so much more to a person’s life than what is seen on the surface. And as her portraits of Nate and the others progress, they begin to reveal less about their subjects than about the artist herself.
 
Look for special features inside. Join the Circle for author chats and more.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Isabel Wolff was born in Warwickshire, England, and attended Cambridge University. She is the author of eight bestselling novels, which have been published in twenty-nine languages. She lives in London with her family.

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One

"Sorry about this," the radio reporter, Clare, said to me early this evening as she fiddled with her small tape recorder. She tucked a hank of Titian red hair behind one ear. "I just need to check that

the machine's recorded everything . . . ?there seems to be a gremlin . . . "

"Don't worry . . . " I stole an anxious glance at the clock. I'd need to leave soon.

"I really appreciate your time," Clare added as she lifted out the tiny cassette with perfectly manicured fingers. I try not to glance at my stained ones. "But with radio you need to record quite alot."

"Of course." How old was she? I'd been unsure, as she was very made up. Thirty-five I now decided-my age. "I'm glad to be included," I added as she slotted the tape back in and snapped the machine shut.

"Well, I'd already heard of you, and then I read that piece about you in The Times last month . . . " I felt my stomach clench. "And I thought you'd be perfect for my programme-if I can just get this damn thing to work . . . " Through the makeup I could see Clare's cheeks flush as she stabbed at the buttons. And when did you first realise that you were going to be a painter? "Phew . . . " She clapped her hand to her chest. "It's still there." I knew I wanted to be a painter from eight or nine . . . She smiled. "I was worried that I'd erased it." I simply drew and painted all the time . . . Now, as she pressed fast forward, my voice became a Minnie Mouse squeak then slowed again to normal. Painting's always been, in a way, my . . . solace. "Great," she said as I scratched a blob of dried Prussian blue off my paint-stiffened apron. "We can go on." She glanced at her watch. "Can you spare another twenty minutes?"

My heart sank. She'd already been here for an hour and a half-most of which had been spent in idle chatter or in fussing with her tape recorder. But being in a Radio 4 documentary might lead to another commission, so I quelled my frustration. "That's fine."

She picked up her microphone then glanced around the studio. "This must be a nice place to work."

"It is . . . That's why I bought the house, because of this big attic. Plus the light's perfect-it faces northeast."

"And you have a glorious view!" Clare laughed. Through the two large dormer windows loomed the massive rust-coloured rotunda of Fulham's Imperial Gas Works. "Actually I like industrial architecture," she added hastily, as if worried that she might have offended me.

"So do I-I think gas tanks have a kind of grandeur; and on the other side I've got the old Lots Road Power Station. So, no, it's not exactly green and pleasant but I like the area and there are lots of artists and designers around here, so I feel at home."

"It's a bit of a no-man's-land, though," Clare observed. "You have to come all the way down the King's Road to get here."

"True . . . but Fulham Broadway's not far. In any case, I usually cycle everywhere."

"That's brave of you. Anyway . . . " Sheriff led through her sheaf of notes on the low glass table. "Where were we?" I moved the pot of hyacinths aside to give her more room. "We'd started with your background," she said. "The Saturdays you spent asa teenager in the National Gallery copying old masters, the foundation course you did at the Slade; we'd talked about the painters you most admire-Rembrandt, Velázquez and Lucian Freud . . . ?I adore Lucian Freud." She gave a little shudder of appreciation. "So lovely and . . . fleshy."

"Very fleshy," I agreed.

"Then we'd come to your big break with the BP Portrait Award four years ago-"

"I didn't win it," I interjected. "I was a runner-up. But they used my painting on the poster for the competition which led to several new commissions which meant that I could give up teaching and start painting full-time. So yes, that was a big step forward."

"And now the Duchess of Cornwall has put you right on the map!"

"I . . . guess she has. I was thrilled when the National Portrait Gallery asked me to paint her."

"And that's brought you some nice exposure." I flinched, but Clare prattled on, oblivious. "So have you had many famous sitters?"

I shook my head. "Most of them are 'ordinary' people who simply like the idea of having themselves or someone they love painted; the rest are either in public life in one way or another or have had a distinguished career which the portrait is intended to commemorate."

"So we're talking about the great and the good, then."

I shrugged. "You could call them that-professors and politicians, captains of industry, singers, conductors . . . ?a few actors."

Clare nodded at a small unframed painting hanging by the door. "I love that one of David Walliams-the way his face looms out of the darkness."

"That's not the finished portrait," I explained. "He has that of course. This is just the model I did to make sure that the close-up composition was going to work."

"It reminds me of Caravaggio," she mused. I wished she'd get on with it. "He looks a bit like Young Bacchus . . ."

"I'm sorry, Clare," I interjected. "But can we . . . ??" I nodded at the tape recorder.

"Oh-I keep chatting, don't I-let's crack on. "She lifted her headphones onto her coppery bob then held the microphone towards me. "So . . . " She started the tape. "Why do you paint portraits, Ella, rather than, say, landscapes?"

"Well . . . landscape painting's very solitary, "I answered carefully. "It's just you and the view. But with portraits you're with another human being and that's what's always fascinated me." Clare nodded and smiled for me to expand. "I feel excited when I look at a person for the very first time. When they sit in front of me I drink in everything I can about them. I study the colour and shape of their eyes, the line of their nose, the shade and texture of the skin, the outline of the mouth. I'm also registering how they are, physically."

"You mean their body language?"

"Yes. I'm looking at the way they tilt their head, and the way they smile; whether they look me in the eye, or keep glancing away; I'm looking at the way they fold their arms or cross their legs, or if they don't sit on the chair properly but perch forward on it or slouch down into it-because all that will tell me what I need to know about that person to be able to paint them truthfully."

"But-" A motorbike was roaring down the street. Clare waited for the noise to recede. "What does 'truthfully' mean-that the portrait looks like the person?"

"It ought to look like them." I rubbed a smear of chrome green off the palm of my hand. "But a good portrait should also reveal aspects of the sitter's character. It should capture both an outer and an inner likeness."

"You mean body and soul?"

"Yes . . . It should show the person, body and soul."

Clare glanced at her notes again. "Do you work from photographs?"

"No. I need to have the living person in front of me. I want to be able to look at them from every angle and to see the relationship between each part of their face. Above all I need to see the way the light bounces off their features, because that's what will give me the form and the proportions. Painting is all about seeing the light. So I paint only from life, and I ask for six two-hour sittings."

Clare's green eyes widened. "That's a big commitment-for you both."

"It is. But then, a portrait is a significant undertaking, in which the painter and sitter work together-there's a complicity to it-as though there's a pact between these two people."

She held the microphone a little closer. "And do your sitters open up to you?" I didn't reply. "I mean, there you are, on your own with them, for...

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Verlag
Random House Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2012
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0553386638
ISBN 13 
9780553386639
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
352
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
gpsr@libri.de
gpsr@libri.de

Friedensallee 273
Hamburg
22763
Deutschland

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