Looking at paintings was a central part of the research for my second book, The Widow’s Confession, a murder mystery set in a Kent seaside resort in 1851 – and not just because one of the characters is a painter. Ramsgate Sands (Life at the Seaside) by William Powell Frith was an influence during the genesis of the book, with its depiction of Victorian holidaymakers at play. But a range of paintings helped throughout the writing process: the seas and skies of Turner’s work for atmosphere; the detailed crowd scenes by Frith for costume and Victorian spectacle; and the beautiful but empty-eyed pre-Raphaelite stunners for ideals of feminine beauty.
Writing and art have been intertwined since time immemorial, but even as separate disciplines, they are natural kindling for each other: whether a work of art is the creative jump-start for a novel, a research source or a structural element in the plot.
Here’s my selection of novels that have drawn on works of art – some real, some imaginary – for fuel.
1. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1891)
Wilde’s fin de siècle novel about a beautiful young man whose portrait grows old in a locked room while he stays young is a glorious indulgence of a read. When a besotted Basil Hallward paints the beautiful Dorian Gray, he fears that he has put too much of his own soul into the portrait. But it is Dorian, influenced by the fascinating sensualist, Lord Henry, who has gifted the painting something of himself. As the portrait ages, but Dorian does not, he becomes “a face without a heart”, seeking sensation and pleasure at any cost. Wilde’s depiction of the brittle, hedonistic world of eternal youth drips with decadence. The wittiest horror story ever written.
2. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (1927)
Woolf’s stream-of-consciousness meditation on life, love and the nature of memory is also a story about the uncertainty and struggle of creativity. In a summer when various guests come to stay with the Ramsays and their children, one guest, Lily Briscoe, begins a painting featuring Mrs Ramsay, who is the focus of her guests’ adoration. Ten years later, after Mrs Ramsay’s death, Lily returns and completes the painting, as the remainder of the family travels to the lighthouse. In the process she finds a way back into her memories of that summer, and her realisation that her beloved Mrs Ramsay had a way of drawing moments of revelation out of everyday life; she could make “life stand still” as an artist does.
3. Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier (1999)
The book that inspired a play, a film and thousands of mini-breaks to The Hague. Looking at the Vermeer painting of the same name, Chevalier was inspired by the latent intensity of the sitter’s gaze as it meets the viewer/artist. From this she creates the story of Griet, a servant girl who, through her interest in art, becomes close to her employer, Johannes Vermeer. The influence of Netherlandish art is clear in Chevalier’s luminous version of Delft and her subtle portrait of love and loss, as coolly lit as one of Vermeer’s paintings.
4. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt (2013)
Theo Decker’s mother shows him her favourite painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and is killed moments later by an explosion. Theo survives, and is urged to take the painting – The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius – by a dying man. As the years pass, Theo secretly keeps it with him, a symbol of purity and a link with his mother, in a troubled life. Tartt’s story of the power of a single painting, and of art as a whole, is delivered in dense, crackling prose.
5. My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Erdağ Göknar (1998; translated 2001)
A vivid, multi-voiced story of 16th-century Istanbul centring around the murder of a miniaturist who is working on a secret book for the sultan. But this is no straightforward murder mystery; Pamuk explores death, love and the nature of Islamic art with immediacy and an awareness of its cultural resonance. A book which, like the best art, can be read on many levels.
6. The Moon and Sixpence by W Somerset Maugham (1919)
Charles Strickland, a stockbroker, deserts his wife and children to become a painter in Paris and Tahiti. Maugham’s writer-narrator observes Strickland’s story with puzzled bewilderment as he destroys the lives of those around him without qualms. Influenced by the life and work of Gauguin, this is a portrayal of the artist as monster, fuelled by a quasi-religious obsession to paint no matter what the consequences. Best read with a shot of absinthe.
7. Headlong by Michael Frayn (1999)
Following a single glance at an unidentified painting at his country neighbour’s house, Martin Clay believes he has discovered a lost painting by Bruegel the Elder. His machinations and expectations grow more grandiose, sending his life and marriage into disarray. Formidable art-historical research wrapped up in comedy.
8. Girl Reading by Katie Ward (2011)
This debut novel is comprised of seven sections, each based on a separate woman and her portrait. Ward spans six centuries and proves a deft creator of atmosphere, establishing each of her seven scenarios in moments with precision and sensitivity. Exploring art, reading and what it means to be a woman in the past, present and future, this is a haunting read.
9. The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (1951)
“I can’t remember any murderer … who looked like him.” So says Alan Grant, a police inspector recovering from an operation in hospital, who is given a pile of portraits by a friend to keep him occupied. Grant considers himself an expert on faces, and is intrigued by one particular portrait, soliciting opinions from his doctor, nurses and visitors. When he discovers that the face belongs to Richard III, he decides to research the mystery of the princes in the Tower. This most unconventional of detective stories is enthralling and, for the record, I agree with him about that portrait.
10. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (1813)
One of our most treasured love stories, Pride and Prejudice is not a novel saturated with art, but a portrait provides one of its most important moments. When Elizabeth Bennet visits Pemberley (arguably a work of art in its own right, which may have been based on Chatsworth House) she begins to change her mind about Mr Darcy, the suitor she has previously spurned. A pivotal moment comes when she sees his portrait in the gallery. “She stood several minutes before the picture in earnest contemplation.” Possibly the moment she falls in love, which just goes to show that art changes lives in all kinds of ways.
