Customer Reviews

The Lost Painting

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3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I really love history, and especially art history. A book about the finding of the long lost Caravaggio painting "The Taking of Christ" got me really excited. Then I started reading it. Evidently authors like Mr. Harr feel that most people won't pick up a book that is not fiction so he writes in a way that gives new meaning to the term "narrative history". At first he seems to want to write a novel. We go riding through the mountains seeing the scenery, experiencing the ocean breeze, pulling over to the side to let faster vehicles pass us by. Our brakes aren't too good, but now the road gets wider....etc. I am getting very impatient with this book about this time. This is novelistic fill that I am reading.

But then half way through the book a new day dawns. We no longer have to sit through a dinner where an art historian has ordered "an antipasto of mixed seafood marinated in olive oil and lemon juice followed by medallion of veal with lemon and capers and a plate of spinach repassato, cooked with garlic and oil" (actual quote). We now enter a rather fascinating world of art restoration spiced with biographical details of Caravaggio's life. Is the found painting really Caravaggio's? How do we determine if it is? The book now hits its stride and all the early fluff is forgiven. On balance it is a commendable book of art detection and restoration that is devoid of academic stodginess. Lots of fun once you get past the ocean breezes.

I found this book interesting and absorbing. In less than three hundred pages you can learn a lot about the art world, art restoration, authentication of paintings, art history, and the Baroque artist Caravaggio. If like me, you want to see his other paintings, there is a web site called [...] that has all the paintings, their history, where they are, the artist's life, and more. I really recommend that as a follow-up to reading the book. I've gotten interested in these topics before, but usually through fiction by authors like Ian Pears and Aaron Elkins. You have the satisfaction here of knowing you are reading fact, all of these people are real. Yet the book is as fascinating as a novel and even has the unexpected twist at the end. This was an excellent read.

Finding a lost work by a master artist is always riveting: a Michaelangelo drawing found stuffed in the archives of the Cooper-Hewitt in New York, a Cimabue is noticed casually hanging on the wall of a house. So also the discovery of a much looked for but long lost painting by the 16th-century Italian, Caravaggio. This is the focus of `The Lost Painting.' Yet despite the subject, the author almost manages to make it boring. Almost.

Harr recounts the stories of the scholars, most of them Italian, involved in the discovery of Carravagio's 'The Taking of Christ,' which, as is often the case with lost masterpieces, was hidden in plain sight. It's a tale that, for a few years in the 1990s, has its principal characters criss-crossing Europe, slowly piecing together clues, hiding some of those clues from each other, being generous and being selfish, and ultimately coming together when they realize the magnitude of their discovery. And at its center is the brief and violent life of Caravaggio. In short, it is a very human story.

Unfortunately the author's prose often lacks passion, an ability to convey the extreme emotions that his characters no doubt felt. It is almost as if, the outcome known in advance, his actors are simply going through the motions. Despite this, however, Harr's attention to detail and methodic unveiling of each new development enables the reader to fill in the emotional gaps. In short, it's a good story, solidly written, but you'll need to add a splash of your own imagination. Given that this book takes you across a continent and across centuries, and into the world of the dangerous, beautiful, and brilliant Caravaggio, that shouldn't be too hard.

This is a great book. I could not put it down. Harr weaves a tale of real suspense despite the fact that most know the outsome: a great painting of Christ's betrayal by Caravaggio was discovered by accident in Ireland. The book is also offers interesting insights into the world of art historians and museums.

Great book if you like art and mysteries. I don't usually read non-fiction, but this one reads like a mystery. If you liked The Flanders Panel (fiction) you'll love this! You learn an incredible amount about history, painting, and art transactions. I have a whole new appreciation for what it takes to restore a painting and establish a provenance.

I read this book after seeing the Caravaggio painting that is its subject at the Dublin Museum of Fine Art. I'm glad things happened in that order as the exhaustive detail in this narrative-style work can be a little off-putting in the first third or so of the book. There is so much time spent on a related lead-in research project on Caravaggio, that the reader is often left wondering where the story is leading.

The spectacular painting, "The Taking of Christ," speaks for itself in the viewing, but also explains why the art world is so obsessive about Caravaggio's work and ultimately justifies the circuitous route author Harr takes in telling the story of the painting's rediscovery after hundreds of years.. The artist was such a genius and produced such remarkable paintings that anyone who enjoys beautiful things can become an ardent admirer without much effort. The great tragedy of Caravaggio's life was its frequent derailing by violent relationships with friends, rivals, and authorities (the result of bipolar illness?), with its interruption of production as well as the subsequent destruction of many of his works.

Harr has produced a competent and well-told story of the pursuit and discovery of one of Caravaggio's great masterpieces that should be intriguing to art afficionados, but which is also accessible and interesting to the layman.

I love Art History. I did not love this book. While the story is historically accurate, I felt I was being dragged through a load of gravel to get to the end. I wanted to quit reading after the first 25 pages--I put the book down at least 6 times over three months, and picked up more riveting books--real page turners. I was waiting for Haar to disclose some juicy secrets about the painting's discovery: didn't happen. But, I had to finish the book--it's my nature and I was afraid I might miss something. (I do admit at the end the restoration process was interesting.) I think I would have preferred to just read the original Art History Journals regarding this stunning story--The Missing Masterpiece:discovery, restoration, and salvation from bad restoration.

I loved this book, although I must admit up front that I have a master's degree in art history, and lived in Italy in grad school (and therefore very much drawn to books such as this one). My friends in my book group that are not art historians did not find it as irresistable as I did, but they all liked it very much.

Harr has written a highly readable and entertaining account of the 1990s rediscovery of Caravaggio's Taking of Christ in a monastry in Dublin (now in the National Gallery, Ireland). If you enjoy Ross King's popular art history books then you will enjoy Harr at bedtime.

Jonathan Harr's "The Lost Painting," a step-by-step account of the history and discovery of Caravaggio's long-missing "The Taking of Christ," is a real page-turner. As some reviewers have noted, it is at times a little too novelistic for its own good, as when Harr meticulously details a certain art historian's eating preferences or belabors inconsequential facts about a student researcher's dilapidated car. But the book is so interesting and readable that those flaws are easily forgiven.

Most annoying to me was the author's refusal to document any of his research (excepting a partial list of works consulted, at the book's conclusion). I suppose this caters to the current tendency to write non-fiction with the same character development and narrative flow of fiction, and to conceal along the way any indication that the author is imaginatively reporting findings from interviews and scholarship--presumably in case a simple reference or reminder of that fact might traumatize the non-scholar or break the narrative spell. However readable the result, I can't help but wax nostalgic for the (apparently outdated) courtesy of a footnote in the text, so readers could more easily trace sources and items of interest. I'll admit, this tendency is more of an annoyance with books like Ross King's "Brunelleschi's Dome," which was filled with tantalizing bits of information begging to be further explored. But I don't think an occasional endnote in this book would have been too much to expect, even from an author who clearly aimed from the beginning at a "best-seller" audience. And a few pages of photographs would have enriched this book considerably.

That said, "The Lost Painting" is a fascinating tale that deftly interweaves the efforts and ambitions of scores of fanatic 'Caravaggisti' attempting to track down Caravaggio's painting and distinguish it from its copies. In fact, one of the book's many strengths is that it engagingly reveals to the non-academic the laborious and demanding, but often petty and cut-throat world of modern scholarship in the visual arts. I found myself constantly amused by the differences between this kind of research, which leads scholars across continents from one musty archive and museum to another, and the kind in why I engage, where most traveling takes place almost entirely within the pages of various readily-available books, and differs from scholar to scholar mostly in the itinerary of one's reading. And Harr does bring his interviewees and other characters convincingly to life. Perhaps the book's strongest virtue is its detective-story plotting and pacing, which is as flawlessly rendered as one could hope. Once I started reading, I could hardly put it down until I finished it. So don't start reading "The Lost Painting" unless you have a sunny chair in which to hibernate and day or two to kill.