Life Studies by Susan Vreeland

Susan Vreeland writes about artists in beautiful fiction that leaves me fulfilled in some way. My favorite book in this genre is her Passion of Artemesia. I also like the Girl in Hyacinth Blue, both of these read before I started this blog. So I picked up her Life Studies as an audio book, but found myself frustrated, that I couldn't get to an image of the painter's work while I was listening, so I returned the audio book, checked the book from the library, and since it is not one continuous story, but many stories about many artists, I read it over time. I would find the artist's work on the Web or in some art book, so I could visualize the paintings described.
The first half of the book called "Then" consists of eight stories about famous artists from 1876 to 1939: Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet (1879 and 1907 stories), Berthe Morisot, Eduard Manet, Paul Cezanne, van Gogh, Modigliani. As Vreeland writes in her afterward, these are fictional, but based on research about the artists.
The "Interlude" is a delightful story "The Adventures of Bernardo and Salvatore, or, The Cure: A Tale", written in the style of a tale about two Italians, one who is ill and the other his friend, who wants to cure his friend and takes him on a pilgrimage to Rome to see and be inspired by the art. This is set some time ago, when there were no museums, so the men have to go to churches or bribe servants to let them into rich people's homes to see the art. (Part of the tale and magic.)
The last part "Now" is a series of stories about art in people's lives instead of about famous artists. A man who doesn't understand his art loving girlfriend, a woman working in clay, a woman daring to be a nude model for a sculpture class (my favorite of this series), a mother and son participating in a pagent, where famous paintings and sculptures are reproduced life-size with real people posing against painted backdrops.
The stories are not focused on the art, but on the people and their lives. Art is just a major part of those lives. I love it!
(Read 4-25-06)