Fugitive Blue
by Claire Thomas
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"I am not writing this to be sentimental. I am just trying to find an answer to the story. I did not imagine myself here. I certainly did not imagine myself here alone. So, for you and for myself, I want to explain how it happened. How this bit of it happened, anyway a I want you to see. To see how important the painting was becoming to me. How I was changing in ways I was not then able to explain. A beautiful, beguiling and multi-layered story of love and loss and journeys, Fugitive Blue show more tells the story of a painting an unusual Venetian oil painting in striking ultramarine and its restoration by a young Australian art conservator. As the young woman brings the fragile painting back to life she begins to speculate on its intriguing provenance; its beginnings, its meanings, who coveted it, who loved it, who lost it. As she imagines the story of the painting and the way it has passed from hand to hand over hundreds of years to come finally to her, we begin to see her own story emerge of her life in contemporary Melbourne, her developing passion for her work and the slow demise of her relationship with an actor named as Mark 'I spent so much of my time restoring things, trying to reclaim their original beauty. All day, I looked at deteriorating objects ... I searched for bubbled paint layers; I looked for a soft patina of salty residue. I could touch these paintings, make a decision and watch them transform. Done. But then there was us.'"--Provided by publisher. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
I liked this book. It's an imagined history of a 15th Century oil painting on a wood panel brought to a Melbourne art conservator. Claire Thomas weaves art history, art appreciation and 19th Century travel literature into a novel of love and loss. I picked the novel up because I just love descriptions of colour and art pigments. So the novel is reminiscent of Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring and in it's structure of Geraldine Brook's People of the Book. It is lighter, more detached, but cleverly structured. Look forward to more writing from this author. Classic Orange Prize longlister material.
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Australian Women's Writing 2003 - 2014
49 works; 3 members
Author Information
2 Works 117 Members
Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Fugitive Blue
- Original publication date
- 2008
- Important places
- Australia; Bonegilla, Victoria, Australia; Melbourne, Victoria, Australia; Veneto, Italy; Venice, Veneto, Italy; Victoria, Australia
- Epigraph
- "Fugitive pigment: a pigment that is particularly susceptible to changing over time." Dawson Carr and Mark Leonard Eds. Looking at Paintings - A Guide to Technical Terms.
"But as we readily follow an agreeable object that flies from us, so we love to contemplate blue, not because it advances to us, but because it draws us after it." Goethe, Theory of Colours.
"It may be that your diligent - reconstitution - like the restoration of old Frescoes with new colours - is our way to the Truth - a discreet patching." A S Byatt, Posession. - Dedication
- Dedicated with love to Cheryl Thomas
- First words
- I am not writing this to be sentimental. I am just trying to find the answer to a story.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)And I came here to Venice to find the answer to a story.
- Blurbers
- Murray Waldren
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Statistics
- Members
- 13
- Popularity
- 1,770,603
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (3.50)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
- ASINs
- 1
