I Am You When a professional artist puts brush to canvas, she will certainly want to convey the meaning of the image built up in her mind's eye, but she may have an eye turned to the future– to her legacy, and what the final painting will add to it. Master painters, after all, have a way of living forever. At least they do as long as their work is seen by later generations. What happens, then, when one painter's work is indistinguishable from another's? What happens when the master teaches her apprentice so well that, when her body begins to fail her, the apprentice takes on the work and puts the master's name on it, with no one being the wiser? Whose legacy does the work become- the master's or the apprentice's? This is one of the central puzzles of Victoria Redel's latest novel, I Am You, a fictional account of the life of Maria van Oosterwijck, a Dutch painter active in the latter half of the 1600s whose vanitas and flower paintings were renowned across Europe. The details we still have about van Oosterwijck's life are sparse, so when Redel became fascinated with van Oosterwijck's paintings and went to learn about the artist's life she didn't find much. It is within the gaps of the historical record that an author can build a story, though, and so Redel went to work, telling van Oosterwick's story through the eyes of her servant, Gerta Pieters, whose life in the story is intimately entwined with van Oosterwijck's. When she was a child, Gerta's family didn't have enough money to feed all the mouths in the house and so her parents cut her hair, put her in boys' clothes, and sent her out to work under the name Pieter. For years, Gerta lived and worked as a boy in a minister's home and grew evermore fascinated with the minister's eldest daughter, Maria, who was always drawing and painting. After hearing Maria complain about the quality of pigment at the market, Gerta decided to start making inks and paints for her. And so, when Maria went away to study with a master painter, she revealed that she knew about Gerta's secret and that she would be taking her along. She needed a maid– and she needed her remarkable pigments. As Maria develops her career and her fame begins to grow, Gerta quietly develops her own skills in drawing and painting, finally revealing them to Maria by correcting a flaw in one of Maria's paintings in front of her. This small act begins a new phase in their relationship. No longer are they merely a master and servant. Soon they are lovers, co-painters, rivals, and masters. Over the years cracks begin to form in the facade of their relationship and each begins to wonder who made the other. Did Maria teach her assistant to become a master? Or did Gerta make Maria immortal through her paintings? I Am You is a gorgeously crafted book. If there are flaws in Redel's understanding of time and place, it is easy to overlook thanks to the richly developed characters and sensual atmosphere they dwell within. The art and craft of painting is at the center of the novel, and it is one of I Am You's many high points. Redel shows as much love and care for the pigments and brushes the artists used as she does their final paintings. Even the unsavoury ingredients like animal urine get their due, just as the unsavoury parts of the story do. Gerta's life does not always involve paint, flowers, and fancy dinners to entertain clients. It is often base and disgusting, but that is life. As beautiful as it is disgusting. Though Maria van Oosterwijck painted flowers because it was a subject deemed appropriate for a woman of her time, it doesn't mean they lacked sensuality or tension. Her flowers look so real it feels like you could reach through the frame and touch them. But their beauty still seems fleeting. They retain their vibrancy, but one senses that they are nearing their ends. Change and decay are moments away. So it is with Gerta and Maria, who come together to create beautiful things but are always on the edge of falling apart thanks to their differing social classes, their jealousy, and the questions at the heart of I Am You: whose legacy is carried into the future? And which of them made the other? Thank you to NetGalley and SJP Lit for the advance copy for review. Traveling in Books is free today. But if you enjoyed this post, you can tell Traveling in Books that their writing is valuable by pledging a future subscription. You won't be charged unless they enable payments.
|
Friday, 12 September 2025
Book Review: I Am You
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
-
On March 26, 2024, Associate Policy Director Brianna January submitted written t...
No comments:
Post a Comment