The Painter

Rating:
Summary: Rembrandt's missing year is found!!
Review: Did Rembrandt Van Rijn, while running from creditors, hide aboard a ship bound for Hull, England? Did Captain Dahl,in exchange for his passage, comission Rembrandt to paint a portrait of his wife, Amelia? Did Rembrandt and the poet Andrew Marvell engage in a contest to win the fair Amelia? Did Amy Dale discover her ancestor Amelia's long hidden journal that tells the tale of the portrait and Rembrandt's year in Hull? Did Amy set out to find the portrait with the help of an enigmatic, scarred loner who is not what he seems? If you like a weaving of past and present, history and fiction, love and suspense, this is the book for you. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Rembrandt's missing year is found!!
Review: Did Rembrandt Van Rijn, while running from creditors, hide aboard a ship bound for Hull, England? Did Captain Dahl,in exchange for his passage, comission Rembrandt to paint a portrait of his wife, Amelia? Did Rembrandt and the poet Andrew Marvell engage in a contest to win the fair Amelia? Did Amy Dale discover her ancestor Amelia's long hidden journal that tells the tale of the portrait and Rembrandt's year in Hull? Did Amy set out to find the portrait with the help of an enigmatic, scarred loner who is not what he seems? If you like a weaving of past and present, history and fiction, love and suspense, this is the book for you. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: insightful historical novel
Review: In 1662, bankrupt fifty-six year old painter Rembrandt van Rijn flees his creditors though it means leaving his home. He accidentally stows away on a ship bound for Hull, England, but is caught by the angry captain. Through passenger Andrew Marvell, who speaks Dutch, Captain Dahl commissions the artist to paint portraits to pay for his passage as van Rijn proclaims he is bankrupt

Rembrandt hates painting the captain, but looks forward to working on the man's wife, the beautiful Amelia. However, Marvell challenges Rembrandt to a duel of tributes in which he will use the might of the pen with a poem dedicated to the lovely Amelia while Rembrandt will use the might of the brush with a portrait of the gorgeous woman. Amelia will declare the winner.

When THE PAINTER concentrates on an insightful historical novel, the story line is brilliantly conceived and does justice to the artist even when the clever Amelia manipulates the two artists to do her bidding. When the story line switches plot to 2001 focusing on an artist descendant of Dahl, it seems more like a paint by numbers that never quite holds up in comparison. In spite of the average twenty first-century subplot taking up half the book, the seventeenth century story makes Will Davenport's novel a winner.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Artful novel about a great painter and a deep mystery
Review: In the tradition of Possession by A.S. Byatt, and Vreeland's Girl in Hyacinth Blue - this novel travels from the present to the past and back again as a young artist and an old one both search for their souls.

Compelling, lovely novel. Davenport gets deep into the heart of a painter, understanding what moves an artist and how an artist sees.

Excellent book.

Rating:
Summary: This book has got everything...
Review: sex, humour, drama, tragedy, history. Will Davenport is a talented writer, and one able to make clever transitions back & forth from 1662 to 2001. He definitely sustained my interest (I couldn't put the book down). 'The Painter' is very sensual, the images really come to life-- appropriate when artists are featured so heavily. My favourite sections were the ones told from Rembrandt's point-of-view, written as he was with such humour, earthiness & passion.

I'll admit at first I was thinking (and you might be thinking something similar) "ok, this is one of those history/romance things, so it's bound to be rubbish; but I love Andrew Marvell, so I'm doing this for him." Was I ever wrong! The story puts forth some fun speculation about the circumstances surrounding the composition of one of the best poems ever written in English, Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress', as well as Rembrandt's later self-portraiture. Yes, it's unabashedly Romantic, but since it's all about artists & poets, you'll feel really smart for reading it.