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Anyone interested in art history, and especially Carravagio's work, would enjoy this book. If the reader has visited Rome, it's all themore intriguing. Harr has done remarkable research on the period and the known details of Carravagio's life.
I didn't feel the passion that seeps through the pages of, say, Antonia Fraser's biographies, or Thomas V. Harr to try to make the people in his book (who are all real) 'interesting' in the way that a writer of fiction tries to make his characters interesting. He has written the latter, but trying (unsuccessfully in my opinion) to infuse it with some of the typical trappings of fiction thrillers, i.e. Cadbury didn't try to make the people in her book sound like characters from the Da Vinci Code.
Harr was trying to fill up space. The example that comes most readily to mind is Deborah Cadbury's harrowing account of how the quest for Louis XVII, the boy king of France who went missing after the Revolution, was solved with the help of a DNA investigation. More substantial information about his life, or a better distribution of it throughout the book, would have been better. the two young female scholars' unkind behavior towards the aged Marchioness at whose residence they make their discoveries), but even with these human failings exposed they just don't seem to be very interesting. This approach forces Mr. Unlike Mr.
This is unfortunate, because nonfiction, when presented in the right way (and not 'dressed up' as something else), can be as compelling as fiction. Harr seems undecided on whether he wanted to write a novel or a work of nonfiction. Harr is in love with any of his subjects --- Caravaggio, Italian paintings, the world of art scholarship. The first thing (which other reviewers have pointed out before me) is that Mr. The interspersion of a couple of chapters dedicated to Caravaggio's life felt a bit artificial, as if Mr.
Harr, Ms. Many reviewers have expressed disappointment in 'The Lost Painting' as compared with Mr. Neither did I care about the personal frustrations of art restorer Benedetti, or English scholar Mahon's aversion to being hugged by women. There's nothing terribly or conspicuously *wrong* with this book, but there are several things that prevent it from being the wonderful read it could have been, being, as it is, based on a great story that should have ensured an absolute page-turner. The other problem I had with this book was its lack of passion. It doesn't sound as if Mr. This is a rather dull read, as if the work had been commissioned --- a view borne out by Mr.
Harr's admission that he had originally written an article, but needed a book project in order to avail himself of an invitation to the American Academy in Rome. Harr's previous work, 'A Civil Action'. ending chapters with adrenaline-charged sentences or 'revelations', including a love affair, etc. I can't comment on that, not having read it. I couldn't have cared less about the love life of Francesca Cappelletti, the sexy Italian scholar on a motorbike --- whose affair with Luciano, by the way, must be the most boring 'romance' to have graced the pages of a book in decades. Most of these people actually come across as being rather petty (e.g. Cohen's wonderful account of 'love and death in Renaissance Italy' (which covers roughly the same period in which Caravaggio lived).
All I can say is that 'The Lost Painting' is an informative read about a very interesting historical find, but don't expect an unputdownable book --- you'll be disappointed.
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). 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. 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. 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. Once I started reading, I could hardly put it down until I finished it. 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. 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.
And Harr does bring his interviewees and other characters convincingly to life. 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. 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. 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. 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. Perhaps the book's strongest virtue is its detective-story plotting and pacing, which is as flawlessly rendered as one could hope. So don't start reading "The Lost Painting" unless you have a sunny chair in which to hibernate and day or two to kill.
Also, A Civil Action had a single madcap hero who relented never. Now, I loved A Civil Action. The Lost Painting, by contrast, has at least three distinct protagonists (if you count the guy in the epilogue), who, for much of the tale, work serially and not together. But one of the main reasons that that book was so great is because it had terrific villains. The Lost Painting, on the other hand, doesn't have a single antagonist, unless you count time, which I don't. Not to mention, they don't have much in the way of personalities.These are the main reasons why the so-called quest for Caravaggio's Taking of Christ makes for such a bad story.The only truly gripping part of the book is the epilogue. But this, alas, written prematurely as it is, provides no real conclusion, and so is also deeply unsatisfying.2005 must not have been a very good year for nonfiction efforts, as the New York Times named this weak tea one of the five best.
Jonathan Harr brings you into the world of people toiling to authenticate a Caravaggio. Their integrity and dedication to their profession is revealing. It is nonfiction so the ending lacks drama but we feel the satisfaction of the people involved.
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